Digital BW, The Print

Paul Roark wrote:

> 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.

With the MIS inks it is a problem. Strange enough I could keep 
a sepia mix of the old Epson Archival pigment LM + Y very 
stable in the 9000 quad with my CIS system and that one has 
thick tubes and bottles. About the only ink that remained stable.

> 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.)

It has been discussed before and I shared your view on this. 
There's another thing happening as well, the dithering/weaving 
on the latest wide formats is based on single sized droplets 
of 3.5 - 6 picoliter over the entire tone range. The gradual 
steps seem to get better by changing the droplet rate at that 
size than by using droplet size steps. Shadow detail could 
benefit too of that method. While 6 -7 B&W inksets more or 
less default to a similar use of the smallest droplet size in 
QTR (but the black at 100% will still have the max droplet 
size) in quad and lower number ink sets the droplet size 
variation will be used in the 9800 and older generations. It 
could be different in the new generations and by that some of 
the 6-7 smoothness aspects will transfer to the K3-K4 ink 
sets. The new Canon and HP models have that single droplet 
size per head, it looks like the Epson 3800 relies more on 
droplet frequency too:

http://www.inkjetart.com/3800/
samples at halfway

I have no idea how the HP Z3100 achieves a neutral Kkkk set, 
either a blend, a top coated carbon pigment particle or better 
than both but it tested well in the end on fading. The cart 
size of 130 ml may prove to be a blessing in disguise if 
separation is an issue but I doubt that.

Met vriendelijke groeten,  Ernst


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