Digital BW, The Print

It seems to me to be the elephant in the room.
I was in a situation some months back where a wide variety of
shooters/printers all had work out on a table. There were quite a few
faux silver ink prints laid out on a number of the new papers.
One was mine, done with UCK3PK on the newest Innova F smooth, I
brought it to lay next to the same image made with peizo and Willima
Turner. I worked hard on both, thought they were good, and thought it
would be interesting to consider the attributes of both.
An extraordinary master printer with decades of fine printing of all
kinds walked through the room and glanced at the table. He picked up
my "gloss" print and held it to the light various ways.
Then he put it back down and as he walked from the room he said "why
is that considered acceptable?"

Exactly.

In the years past when I had the opportunity to be around amazing and
demanding artists in workshop situations, everything had to be right.
We were there aspiring to create art after all, and objects that never
distracted you from the experience with some odd quality. Critiques
could be brutal. This would be unacceptable.

For many, it's fine. But to take rank in the top level of fine print
process, it's not there yet.
That's why some great printers like John Dean are doing post surface
treatment, out of the box it's not there yet.

Don't take offense please, I realize that for many it doesn't matter,
for all kinds of reasons, many sound. Some reject the fine art object
paradigm, many have no need for it nor even recognize it.
I just think we have some distance to go for extraordinary results
with ink onto glossier materials, I think the manufacturers should
know some of us are still less than thrilled.

OK, I'm ducking...
Tyler

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "eappert"
<appert@...> wrote:
>
> Hello, 
> 
> I am just sitting down with the HP Z3100. This is my first non Epson 
> printer and I'm feeling a little lost. I confess that the whole issue 
> of bronzing is an unwelcome surprise that's taking me a back three 
> years or more. I was sure that this issue was behind us. The bronzing 
> effect on semi gloss and gloss papers without the Gloss Enhance 
> option seems extreme to me. I would have to go back as far as the Pro 
> Stylus 7500 to get such a radical bronzing effect. Its not just 
> restricted to highlight areas but gives a bronze cast to all ink 
> densities when viewed at an angle. HP recommends greyscale printing 
> using the "standard" preset which appears to impose a "whole page 
> gloss enhance" This gloss enhance acts like a varnish or lamination 
> which fogs the paper and turns it slightly green. This obviously 
> reduces the brilliance of the print and shifts the colour slightly. 
> Setting the gloss enhance to Econo mode seems to back it off base 
> white and restrict the coating to the image perimeters but still 
> covers all densities up to but not including 255.  
> 
> Am I missing something or is this primarily an archival matte printer?
> 
> eugene
>