Digital BW, The Print

Roy wrote, in part:

>I have an order for some of the R2 inks -- both neutral and warm. 
>That with an idea for a sepia-like toner should be a lot easier 
>to profile with QTR. 
>I like that all the inks are "nice" B&W tones and most any mix 
>will be within the range of traditional B&W printing.
>I'll be starting on a small printer but I'd like to see the 
>idea migrate to all the printers.

The UT-R2 inks (neutral/cool and warm/carbon) were made with the idea that
people would be able to easily change tones via plugging in different
combinations of the cartridges.  As with the C88 EZ inks, I have preferred a
warm Y-position ink for neutral printing on most papers.  

Once one has more than one tone of ink in the printer, then altering the
ratios from the default Epson driver ratios makes the inkset a form of
variable-tone inkset.

(In fact, that is essentially what I have in my 7500, with two modifications
-- a PK instead of dark midtone carbon and a very light neutral Y ink to
smooth the 7500's large dots in the highlights.)

The R2 inkset densities are somewhat universal for Epson printers.  So, this
approach should work on almost all modern hextone printers. 

For at least most Epson drivers I've found that using all the jets tends to
minimize the chances of microbanding.  So, that is an issue to keep an eye
on.  

This smoothness issue and the ability to profile both the Lab a and b axes
are among the reasons for the 3D inkset.  However, the 3D inkset, with 2 as
opposed to only one color axis, involves more complex profiling.  I've tried
to be clear that it is for the perfectionist.  Whether we get to the point
of having profiling software that will work with it is still an open
question.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com