Digital BW, The Print

In a message dated 12/1/06 11:07:57 AM, moodymz3@... writes:


> True, there are benefits, but what about any drawbacks?
> Do you suggest that color-ICC is now working wonderfully, and there is no
> reason to continue with "traditional" printing methods that reduce use of
> color inks, precisely manage luminance, etc.
> 
There is certainly interest in continuing with both. I've been doing a fair 
amount of comparison between full color inks via the ICC approach, and 
ICC-compliant gray inks (MIS UT-3D) as a good way to seperate out what effects and 
results are based on color vs gray inks, and what on other components. Results 
there show a suprising amount of flexibility to both; though the ability to 
print both color and various tones of B&W on the same system would be the obvious 
selling point for the color inks, while the lack of color dots (their 
microscopic superiority, so to speak) would be the top virtue of the UT-3Ds. 

Precise luminance management is excellent with both, better than a lot of 
specialty B&W output that I see, so that wouldn't seem to be a negative point. I 
would have pointed out cost of entry as a limitation for this approach, but 
UT3Ds make it possible on sub-hundred dollar printers, so the only price issue 
remaining is the ICC-control system, in this case $499 for PrintFIX PRO. That 
would certainly be a barrier to many looking to enter the field for a minimal 
investment.
> 
> How many points, for each possible 2d slice is needed to implement a good 3d
> workflow, vs. how many is practical with our current tools?
> 
Don't know exactly what you mean by "points" but I am not seeing any need to 
measure more than the standard 225 patch color target, plus the 238 patch gray 
target for creating composite color/gray profiles for use with color ink, and 
the 225 patches alone, with grayscale inks. I'll see if I can distinguish any 
advantages to adding the extended grays for gray inks, but as I don't see 
anything yet that I would want adding that target to fix, I'm not in too much of 
a hurry to test fixing it.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com




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