Digital BW, The Print

Firstly, while I'm no expert on these things perhaps I can share a little of
my understanding of the inks.  There is no "infusion" process associated
with the inks.  The "infusion" reference, incorrectly applied to these inks
on occasion, actually applies to the substrate/coating component of Futures'
business, or as they are now called, I believe, Infu6.  The word "infusion"
comes from the fact that they hold various patents with respect to infusing
their ink receptor into the paper manufacturing process - it becomes part of
the substrate manufacture rather than being "coated" afterwards.  So there
is no dye impregnated into anything at all.

With regard to the Nanochromes, an OEM ink formulation licensed by Infu6 to
InkVillage who then have the inks made and market them, my understanding is
that it is the carrier that is the colorant.  The "particles" in the ink are
actually, I understand, bonding agents, in lay terms, that interact with the
paper/material's substrate and coating.  So you can imagine how the bonding
agents in the ink can be tailored alongside the receptor which is infused
into the substrate as the substrate is made for optimum results.  It would
also be sub-optimal if the receptor was applied as a coating rather than
being infused into the actual substrate manufacturing process. In this case,
the potential for bonding a higher ink load or colorant density is likely
reduced. 

I'm not seeing any metamerism at all with the Nanochromes.  The prints look,
to my eye at least, the same under English daylight (LOL!) as under halogen.
There is also absolutely no bronzing that I have seen thus far.  These
things are quite different from UCs which as we know tend to sit on the
surface of the paper.  I've sent a test image to Daniel Staver and he will
likely comment once he's received it.  We have a print exchange coming up in
the UK soon and my prints will be Nanochromes.  Hopefully we'll get
additional feedback as people view these.

The issue I had was that at least the ink I've received is very cold.  I've
posted here measurements of both the K and LK ink (and the others).  So from
a B&W perspective, I've been grappling with warming these inks which of
course requires yellow and light magenta.  In an earlier post I detailed
where I'd gotten to for now.  There's still a small deviation from neutral
in the 70-90K region which I'd like to improve on, largely because it's a
little -a and +b which sits in the yellow-green camp.  If anything I'd
rather it were biased to the other side of the axis, if I can't get it to be
neutral. 

BTW I do believe you can read the patents on the infusion process.

Cheers

Steve

PS:  as good as these things seem to be for now, they're nothing to me at
least without reasonable longevity.  And for that we await test results.


> From: Ernst Dinkla <E.Dinkla@...>
> Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 21:48:30 +0100
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Nanochrome BO printing?
> 
> Editor, Persistence of Vision wrote:
>> Ernst,
>> 
>> As I understand it, they are extremely small resin particles encapsulating
>> dyestuff. That's why you are seeing the metameric issues.  Some of us
>> expected exactly this issue. While the use of encapsulated dyestuff, instead
>> of encapsulated pigment, ensures a wider gamiut he refractive issues created
>> by the multiple passthroughs (with the current size/structure of particles)
>> are substantial.. It's a greaat idea that isn't exactly, at the current stage
>> of development,  coming to the hoped for end results.
> 
> What Steve described isn't a metameric issue. The shift is
> measured within one print, with one light source and one eye.
> I have not seen him describing metamerism and so far the
> reports do not describe Nanochromes as metameric. I see
> however many different reports on the results of the inks.
> Wonder whether they are of the same batch.
> 
> That "extremely small resin particles encapsulating dyestuff"
> could result in refractive issues and by that cause what Steve
> measures is not unlikely. But I actually think that it is
> either a hybrid ink or a dye colored resin particle (the Bayer
> infusion process I have mentioned before) so not the resin
> around the dyestuff but the dye impregnated into resin
> particles and by that more color at the surface than within
> (if there are layers possible within nano sizes like that).
> Refractive issues may still be there though, the stuff is
> transparent anyway and perfectly uniform particles in the
> smallest sizes have little opaqueness. For opacity you better
> start with non-uniform larger size particles and metal oxides.
> But that doesn't deliver a high Dmax nor do they pass nozzles
> easily.
> 
> I can imagine the dye infusion of small resin particles far
> better than encapsulating dyestuff with a resin. For  Dutch
> readers I would like to compare the last to: een drol
> vastspijkeren op een plank. Nail **** on a board  if that
> exists in English. Why are issued patents more disclosed than
> the applied ones these days ?
> 
>                     --
>            Ernst Dinkla