Digital BW, The Print

Hello Chris,

>How does the K3 mk compare to eboni? 

There was a lot of discussion about this when K3 first appeared, with
this generally agreed upon conclusion (for matte paper of course): 
Eboni is still a tad cooler, and has slightly better dmax on HPR and
some other papers.  But K3 MK has slightly better dmax on VFA and
other Epson papers.  So it varies, but the general conclusion is that
K3 MK is very good and they are close.  

My sense from reports here are that people are either using the entire
MIS K4 set (includes Eboni), usually to reduce cost, or are using the
entire K3 set.  I never got the sense that using K3 inks with Eboni
was worthwhile.  Some are using a separate RIP to drive K3 inks
without the Yellow, or use ABW with a yellow substitute.  But it's
been a long time since I read anything about using Eboni with K3
colors...anybody doing this?


>Could someone coming from MIS ultratone inks on an older Epson be 
>happy with the K3 inks on a newer x800 printer?

Moving to a K3 printer is a completely different approach than MIS UT
(color inks vs grayscale inks).  It's much more than the difference
between Eboni and K3 MK.  There will definitely be a different look
and feel to the prints, and a difference in the way you work.  You
have to be prepared to discard all your notions of how things work and
how you tweak the system, basically starting over and learning a
different mind set.  The print quality is excellent.  Your ability to
"be happy with" it depends a lot on how well you can embrace something
new and different.

There are also different ways to use K3 printers, from the simplified
ABW workflow to color management with the Epson driver to using a RIP.
 So there are choices to be made there as well.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm