Digital BW, The Print

In a message dated 8/20/07 1:23:34 PM, madmanchan2000@... writes:


> The reason I suggested the HP Z series is that the current feedback
> I've heard from users who have compared it to the competing OEM
> solutions (Canon Lucia and Epson K3) find it the best in B&W printing.
> I was under the impression that all 4 blacks are used when printing on
> heavy fine art matte media, which seems to be what Clayton tends to
> use. It is true that 3 blacks are used on glossy media. Even if you
> feel the extra black used on the art media isn't much use, users claim
> that the results are good.
> 
Yes, results are good, but the "four blacks" claim, while technically true, 
leans more towards marketing ploy than an actual output improvement, which is 
why I feel obliged to comment on it...
> 
> This is not the same solution as the R2400 or the other K3 printers.
> 
In what way? The Canon and Espon printers with two grays and black offer very 
similar results...

> With the K3 printers, when printing a neutral B&W image thru the RGB
> driver, all 8 inks are used, including C, M, LC, LM, and Y. When
> printing in ABW mode, C and M aren't used, but bits of LC, LM, and
> even Y are used. In contrast, the Z series printers only use the
> blacks. I bring this up since Clayton mentioned this as a concern of his.
> 
> I see, its the "black and gray only" concept that you are referring to. 
Here's my take on that: no ink, of any tonality, can be perfectly neutral on all 
papers; tonality isn't just a function of ink in a vacuum, paper effects 
tonality. So you either take the random tone it gives you on a given media (which HP 
has worked hard to neutalize as much as possible for their own media, or more 
to the point, chosen the media to offer similar grays to each other and 
balanced the ink to that average); or you use tools (which the Z3100 provides, as do 
the others) to correct that tonality to a neutral print at all levels of 
gray. The idea that the fixed tone grays are somehow preferable to the controlled 
gray output just doesn't make much sense to me. Control is a good thing. The 
amount of color ink involved in gaining control does not cause any visible 
amount of illuminant metamerism. Longevity of the resulting prints is good. So in 
my experience, only those fixated on the theory, not the prints, tend to favor 
the black and gray only method. Those focussing on the prints prefer the 
control, and the look of the resulting prints.

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





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