Digital BW, The Print

Paul,

I am trying to understand more about the choice of rips and in your post you
said;

"This approach will only work with a rip, with QTR and IJC being the logical
ones for most B&W printers"

Would StudioPrint not be another logical choice or is there a problem with
Studioprint?
Which rip would you use if you were not too concerned about cost?

Txs,

Mike

On 02/10/06, Paul Roark <paul.roark@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> I'm trying a new inkset in my 7500 as a way to simplify my life and,
> hopefully, cure the tone shift problem I've experienced in large format
> printers running dedicated "blended" B&W inksets.
>
> While it's too soon to be sure, I think the arrangement below is at least
> working in terms of ease of profiling and quality results. It'll take
> weeks
> to know if the tone shift problem has been eliminated or at least
> significantly lessened.
>
> This approach will only work with a rip, with QTR and IJC being the
> logical
> ones for most B&W printers.
>
> Currently, this is what I have loaded in the 7500 (source of ink in
> parentheses), and I think it will for fine for all 7000 and 7600
> generation
> printers:
>
> - 4 k's: MK (MIS - Eboni),
>
> PK (now MIS, may be Epson later),
>
> LK (MIS),
>
> LLK (MIS);
>
> - Light Cyan -- 50% MIS Light Cyan, 50% clear base for 7500;
>
> Standard LC recommended for the 7600;
>
> - LM (Epson UC, may be Epson Archival later).
>
> There are no blends of more than one type of pigment in any ink. As such,
> the inkset should be relatively easy to profile and should have the least
> amount of color drift between printing sessions.
>
> All inks can be off-the-shelf and from multiple sources. For the 7500,
> however, I do think the lighter 50% LC ("LLC"?) is worth the effort for
> smoother highlights. It's an easy 1:1 mix of readily available and
> compatible cyan pigment and clear base. MIS's cyan pigment appears to be
> very good.
>
> With both MK and PK loaded, I can print on either matte or glossy paper.
>
> With a rip, this approach is similar to the older K2 - rip approaches.
> However, here there are 4 carbon inks in the combination I'm trying (3 are
> used for glossy printing).
>
> It is also similar to the K3 ABW mode approach when yellow is replaced
> with
> carbon. A rip, however, gives the combo much more flexibility in
> profiling,
> at the expense of somewhat more complexity.
>
> To see a sample set of initial profiling curves (with IJC) for Kirkland
> see:
>
> http://home1.gte.net/res0a2zt/4K-7500-Kirkland.jpg (Try Full Screen view
> if
> fuzzy.)
>
> It looks like the hard part is to get the carbon core crossovers right
> first. Once the combined carbon curve is straight, it looks like the color
> curves can be mostly just straight lines. I start the color curves just a
> bit back from where the LLK starts. The LLK makes very smooth highlights,
> but the cyan pigments, even diluted, are still the most noticeable with a
> loupe. So, I start them at 8 (of 256). From the start point to the deep
> shadows where the color curves head back to where the dmax is optimized,
> there are no other dots. The curves are straight lines. With the toners
> added, I reduced the ink limits of the LK and LLK to bring the points that
> were at the top of these curves to their correct density. The PK ink limit
> also needed reducing to get the best dmax.
>
> Hopefully once I've made basic matte and glossy carbon curves, this
> pattern
> will continue with other papers.
>
> While the highlights under a loupe were slightly smoother with my previous
> UT-FSN+ approach, the overall smoothness of the 4K + LM and LLC approach
> is
> better, and the curves are simpler.
>
> So, time will tell if this solves the tone shift problem, it looks like
> this
> might be a viable and flexible approach for the older large format hextone
> printers.
>
> Paul
>
> www.PaulRoark.com <http://www.paulroark.com/>
>
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>
> 
>


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