Digital BW, The Print

I got my samples of Silver Rag - Thank you Jim Doyle. As a first go 
around, I printed it on an Epson 4000 using EPL as the media setting, 
and NCA with the canned EPL profile. I was not interested in color 
accuracy of the profile per-se, or any such thing. I was mostly 
interested in bronzing with the UC inks.

Results: Well it bronzes - a lot as a matter-of-fact. It bronzes 
about the same as or MORE than Premium Gloss, or Premium Semi Gloss 
on this printer. Well yes, it is nice to hold (cotton rag and-all), 
but as Steve Kale has alluded, who cares about the touch of the paper 
when it does not look so good. This paper does not LOOK good even 
when held in my hands. I would rather compromise in color gamut and 
contrast by using a more traditional rag paper like HPR or Museo II, 
Max, etc. My reason: these papers can acctually do things that an RC 
paper cannot do, i.e, present NO reflection, no matter how you view 
it. I imagine papers such as EPL, EPSG, EPG, and many other RC papers 
are perfectly acceptable with UC inks for many people. For them, 
there is no need to change because Silver Rag adds nothing to image 
quality. I will hazard that changing to Kodak Rapid-Dry Luster is a 
much better (perhaps less expensive) solution to bronzing on RC 
papers.

The search goes on. If only dye (or dye-like) inks were available 
with truly neutral-warm K, LK and LLK inks. Some day, in a not too 
distant future, we will look upon these efforts thinking "I cant't 
belive we lived with these limitations" - I hope.

Shilesh