Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, hogarth@s... wrote:

> My reading is, if you need neutral *and* warm, then your choice is the 
> variable tone UT-7 inkset. If on the other hand you want a fixed tone 
> inkset, then K7 has one and only tone.

Its actually quite different than that. Sorry if we did not do a good job communicating how 
K7 works. Each of the seven pure-carbon dilutions is separately formulated to be perfectly 
neutral. However, it was designed as a toning system. It differs from UT-7 and MediaStreet 
and Septone and CavePaint, because all seven of the K7 dilutions are used to print the 
tonal scale. The others use the warm side, or the cool side, or some blending of color 
tones into gray tones to create one of their variable tones.

What we presented with K7 is a way to take advantage of 7 or more ink channels - which 
gives much greater resolution detail, smoother crossovers, and better highlights. But 
achromatic ink, because it has no color, allows the color of the paper to create the final 
tone. For example, printing on Bradford Brilliant White produces Selenium Tone; printing 
on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag produces a neutral; and printing on Innnova Cold Press Art 
produces a warm neutral. Yet there are many shades in between and around these. K7 is 
actually a variable tone system - but done with a unique concept: via the paper, rather 
than a dual or multi-toning ink set

Being achromatic removes any possibility of metamerism, and of course there is no 
possibility of unwanted color modulation. The end result is that K7 melds into the paper 
and this allows its very, very photographic look.

I think its the word "Neutral" that throws people off. We can print Neutral. But thats only 
one tone of what we can print.  Of course, the other systems can really hit extremes 
towards blue and brown which K7 can't. We focused more for looks familiar to darkroom 
printers.


Jon Cone