Digital BW, The Print

Richard, Clayton and Michael--

Thanks for the input.

At this point I have a few other thoughts and items on the K7 
experiment.
1.  Short of doing my own QTR profiles, using the K7 means using a 
paper that Cone has provided profiles for.  So I'm going to give a 
few of the profiled Innova and Ink Press papers a try and see how 
they look.  I don't believe the dmax will improve over what I've seen 
on HPR, but perhaps the "livliness" will.
2.  Cone may provide a custom profile service, but is not doing so 
right now.  I tried both VFA and Ultrasmooth with a few "likely" 
existing Cone profiles and the results are dismal.  The QTR profiling 
is very specific.
3.  While the Cone QTR profiles for the K7/4800 are excellent and 
pretty much make obviate the the need for ICC profiling, I did not 
find this with the K3/ABW.  I think this Epson system pretty much 
needs ICC profiling for both best results and an easy, reliable, 
consistent workflow image to image.  I know that Clayton and others 
do PS curves for this purpose, but this seems like an ongoing hassle 
to me.  The ICC profiles are a do-it-and-forget-it deal and are very 
accurate and I would highly encourage it.  The need to do this (and 
to own a densitometer) is the weakness of the K3/ABW system in my 
appraisal.
4.  I am struck at this point about the amount of apparently 
reflexive prejudice against Epson materials and processes.  With an 
ICC profile, this is a remarkably good system and at least 
competitive with the K7s.  In discussing these issues with a Cone 
representative this morning, he informed me that the K3/VFA/USFA 
figures I report are because Epson is using dyes in these inks.  I 
don't think that's true and I hope that the Cone people can be a 
little more constructive.
5.  In 50 years we'll know if the color content of the K3 system is 
an issue, but I don't think we know that right now.  The K7 system is 
a better idea, but I don't know if it is actually a better process in 
terms of longevity.

Good wishes,
Walt

 




--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Michael King" 
<drmrking@...> wrote:
>
> Very interesting thread, as I have been thinking about 
experimenting with
> Cones K7. Thanks for sharing Walt.
> 
> I am using K3 on Silver Rag and the challange I find with ABW is 
the amount
> of colour it uses.
> This can cause a "rainbow effect" under directional lighting. I 
have found
> that Imageprint uses much less colour.
> Though it has its own challanges, mainly the tendency to close up 
the
> shadows. Solved that by a combination of lowering the gamma and 
adjusting
> the black point slider.
> 
> Mike
> 
>