Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dgattarino"
<dgattarino@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks from the few of you who answerd my question.
> However, none of the replies mentioned the reason for the number they
> quote as the minimum number black inks for fine art B&W.

That's because it's one of those questions no one with much knowledge
would want to get into in depth.
It's too broad. Minimum to accomplish what? "Fine art B&W" by whose
standards?
It's like, "what's the best car?". A great deal more needs to be known
about your needs and wants, and even then there's a subjective element.


> The above considerations would suggest that the minimum number of gray
> shade for best results is, infact, 4 with a LLLK supplementing Epson's
> LLK in the highlights.

It may be, but as Paul suggested, it depends on the nature of the
source material, and the quality of the particular printer.
On the other hand, some might say you need all you can get. In all the
years of different inks and workflows I've seen, it certainly looks to
me like it just gets better and better with more, given proper
implementation, though surely there are diminishing returns. Other
people might not even percieve the difference. I use primarily sets of
4 partitions, but without changing the ink sets at all, got a recent
boost in quality just through some new software features, so it's not
just the number of inks. Also, with some source material you wont
realize the improvements. Then, at what cost? Do you want to control
hue or are you happy with a monochromatic ink set? When the K7s came
out, many said it's way more than necessary, well then, how come the
prints look so great?
There are a number of solutions out there touting different ink setups
and numbers of grays. Instead of working from a hypothetical "best"
standpoint, I think it would be better to see examples of results from
these systems for yourself.
Tyler