Digital BW, The Print

Hello Ziskar,

>Now a related question, since I know your prefferance in BO printing,
>under which method can "only" the 3 K inks be used?

The Epson ABW driver does not provide an option to use only the 3
blacks.  In order to do this a RIP is required to individually control
the inks.  QTR provides for this very nicely.


>If you choose neutral tone on ABW and 0 wheel settings, does this
>means that only the K inks will be used? 

The 0,0 setting uses a mixture of all the inks in a balance that
creates, supposedly, a neutral BW print.  The resulting over all tone
actually varies on different papers.  It can also vary among different
images on a given paper.  That may sound strange, but the tone
actually shifts slightly along the ramp.  So two images, one with high
contrast and the other with broad midtone areas, printed on the same
paper at the same setting, can look a bit different on the warm/cool
scale.

I printed a portfolio of 14 images recently, and began with the
intention that they would all use the same setting.  But I ended up
tweaking certain ones a tiny bit because the ones with lots of silvery
midtones looked a bit warmer than the contrasty ones.

So you can't take a formulaic approach to the ABW system.  Each image
requires individual judgement.


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm