Digital BW, The Print

Thanks for the quick answer. At least I know it's not something
specific to my setup. 

What exactly do you mean by old and new PK? Is the new PK the ink they
are selling as PKN? Or is it simply a new formulation of their regular
UT7 PK? My current bottle of PK was purchased in January, would that
make it the old or new PK?

I'm going to play around with it a bit more this weekend. I also have
the GLOP loaded in the yellow position to experiment with. 

-Jon


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark"
<paul.roark@v...> wrote:
> You'll notice that I generate black with the 2 dark grays.  It
generally is
> better than at least the old PK.  I think there are several reasons for
> this.  It allows the tone to be controlled, it has less gloss
differential,
> and perhaps 2 jets firing gets better coverage.
> 
> One reason the MIS PK did not do well was that it dulled down too
much.  My
> mixing indicates that the old MIS PK actually had more pigment in it
than
> the Epson PK.  In fact, it probably had too much pigment.  That may have
> contributed to the dulling down problem and be the reason the dark
grays did
> better -- they have more base that does a better job of coating the
carbon.
> This is one area where the Epson PK acrylic-coated particles paid off
> significantly.
> 
> Some of us have tried the Epson PK in an otherwise MIS UT inkset. 
However,
> what we've found is that the transition from the un-coated to coated
> particles is visible and gives a rough look to the shadows.
> 
> The new MIS PK appears to significantly address the dulling-down
problem.
> The new base, in effect, coats the particles much better.  I have
not had an
> opportunity to test the new PK on various papers, but samples I have
appear
> to retain their gloss quite well. 
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> > [mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> > Jonathan Traupman
> > Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 11:27 PM
> > To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [Digital BW] Weak blacks with UT7 PK and PKN
> > 
> > I've been doing B&W printing with a 2200 and the UT7 inks for about a
> > year now and have been getting great results on matte papers with
> > Eboni black. I drive the printer with Quadtone RIP and build most of
> > my paper profiles myself with a Noritsu DM-201 densitometer.
> > 
> > However, I've had very limited success with printing on glossy and
> > semi-gloss media. The biggest problem I've encountered is that the MIS
> > Photo Black ink is simply not very dense.
> > 
> > For example, I'm trying to create a QTR profile for Epson Premium
> > Semigloss paper. If I print the QTR ink limit file in calibration mode
> > with all limits set to 100%, the density of the 100% Photo Black patch
> > is only around 1.9. This is weaker than the densities of the Dark Warm
> > Gray (2.1) and Dark Cool Gray (2.2) 100% patches. I've actually gotten
> > better results from profiles that just use the gray inks than from
> > ones that use PK and the grays, though neither looked particularly
great.
> > 
> > I recently ordered a bottle of the "experimental" PKN Photo Black
> > Neutral ink since MIS claims it has a higher Dmax than regular PK.
> > However, I neither noticed nor measured any appreciable increase in
> > density, at least on the Premium Semigloss paper. It is a more neutral
> > black, however.
> > 
> > So, is this normal behavior for the MIS Photo Blacks? With the Epson
> > UC Photo Black, I routinely got densities of 2.2+ with this paper. It
> > just seems odd that MIS's Photo Blacks would be this weak, when their
> > grays clearly indicate that they can make a denser ink.
> > 
> > My search through the archives yielded little info on this topic, but
> > it does seem that densities around 1.9 are what people have reported
> > in the past for these inks. Is this true across papers, or is the
> > Premium Semigloss just a particularly bad choice for the MIS inks?
> > 
> > The only potential problem that I can imagine with my setup is that I
> > have put the PK ink in a light black cartridge and am using it in that
> > position, because QTR allows me to control which black to use in
> > software, and I have no need for the "Custom Light Black" that usually
> > goes there because I'm not using the Epson driver. Perhaps the light
> > black position in the print had incapable of laying down as much ink
> > as the black position, but I've never heard mention of this.
> > 
> > I've already tried asking MIS about this, both on their forums and to
> > their tech support, but received no response.
> > 
> > Any help would appreciated.
> > 
> > -Jon
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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