Digital BW, The Print

> ... EZ warm inks the tone tends towards a sort of pale sepia ...

I describe it at half way to sepia.  It is warm.  Whether it's the shade of
warmth that one likes is subjective.  I find it very close to classic tones
of older silver prints and platinum.  As the most stable ink, I think it's
an excellent ink for old photo reproductions and archiving.  "Carbon on
cotton" is still the digital archival image champ from what I can see.  But
I would not, of course, use Epson Enhanced Matte paper for this purpose.

> ... if the print is viewed at an angle the ink in the dark shadows
> has a mottled effect, ...

EEM and a number of other papers have this problem with lots of printers.
It's not unique to the C86.  Among other things, if a matte paper is
overloaded this can happen.  One of the reasons the R220 is at the top of my
list now is that it has a new paper type in the driver (Ultra Premium
Glossy) that optimizes the dmax on a number of papers.

> ... this is not the case when the ebony ink is used alone for BO.

My only objection to Eboni only printing is the roughness, which is a matter
of style.  I hope that some day the printers are good enough to deliver
Eboni only that is smooth.  At that point I will likely be a major fan of
the approach for matte papers.  In my next fade test I intend to have an
Eboni sample for comparison.  I expect it to be the standard against which
others should be measured.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com