Digital BW, The Print

Many interesting and informative comments, thank you all. I noticed no one mentioned 
Hawk Mountain or Red River papers. Too new? Too small to control quality? Curious.

I use QTR on my 2200 when I have more of a tonal spread, but am settling in to BO with 
Eboni for most of my high contrast work and love it so far. I'd like to try VFA after reading 
about it's high Dmax and tone but I'm leery of the texture obscuring detail, which was why 
I asked about USFA. Is VFA really that much more textured than HPR?

Paul, which Innova were you refering to with Eboni? Photo Smooth Rag? Would you 
personally rate this paper high in terms of fade resistance/discoloration/stability et. al? I 
need to start testing some new papers but want to narrow the field considerably due to 
budget contraints.

And thanks much, Josh...I'll do a search for Walt's posts on the Epson papers.

Sarah





--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark" <paul.roark@v...> 
wrote:
>
> 
> 
> > ... Innova Photo Smooth Rag ...  nice.  I've sold alot
> > of prints on that paper.  Using K3, I can't get a dmax 
> > higher than 1.6. I've used ABW and
> > QTR.  Not sure it's possible.  USFA is coming in around 1.7 . . . 
> 
> I think on most printers, aside from the k3 generation, Eboni on the Innova
> has a better dmax than Eboni on UltraSmooth.  Epson's ability to get USFA up
> to 1.7 may be limited to the latest k3 driver.  With Eboni I usually see mid
> to high 160s for Innova and low 1.60s for UltraSmooth and Premier Art.  
> 
> Dmax figures can vary significantly with different printers, different black
> inks, and different drivers.  I think the 2200 generation of printers may
> all benefit substantially from using a rip.
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com
>