Digital BW, The Print

Hi Paul,

 

On the B&W forum you wrote, in part: "The Black Art inks are still in an
early stage of development yet."

 

 

Take a close look at the charts at the bottom of
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/4K+.pdf , not to mention the general
approach (which is not entirely outlined in the pdf).

 

I'm not sure there is any way to solve the separation problem not only in a
large format printers but also in continuous feed systems.

 

To be honest, I think the market is moving away from blended B&W inksets,
and for some good reasons.  Roy Harrington and I will be pursuing a k3-type
arrangement (K, LK, LLK, LM, LC & Y) that will be easy to profile for ALL
Epson hextone and better printers - and for all inksets that use these
standard inks.  The best inks will win in such an "open source" approach.
That's not very attractive to existing third party companies in the market,
but I think it is the future, unless, of course, you can come up with a
neutral inkset that is not a blend.  (Epson's latest LK appears to be moving
in that direction, but slowly and poorly.)

 

Additionally, I believe the newer profiling system may be able to profile
printers with standard inks in them, but that profiling would be for neutral
only.  (Here the LK and LLK would simply replace the M channel, with the LM
in the Y spot.  Print Fix Pro can, in fact, profile a "twisted" space.)

 

I'm not at all trying to discourage you from coming up with a new blended
inkset, but I personally think the support costs that are attributable to
the problems of such make them a bad investment.  I know of one company that
had a 100% return rate with blended B&W continuous flow systems.  That kind
of experience can wipe out invested capital and good will real fast.

 

At any rate, good luck with the inks.

 

Paul

www.PaulRoark.com <http://www.paulroark.com/>  

 

 



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