Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "espen.aasheim" 
<princemild@...> wrote:
>
> Hi.
> 
> I had a post a week ago where I got some info for 3MK with the 
R1800,
> well.. now the r1800 has disappeared from the market here in Norway

Strange, I'm always under the impression that these things go mor or 
less continent by continent. here in the Netherlands it seems to be 
 for sale on regular basis...

> I'm looking at other solutions for good A3+ BW printing.. 
> The closest to the 100% carbon approach of the R1800 seems to be 
UT-3D 
> with R2400, but I have a few questions..
> 
> Initially, could the UT-3D approach be too difficult for a 
beginner?

The key question in this is how you drive the printer, via the Epson 
driver or via a RIP (such a QTR).

The R2400 is a very versatile machine and allows for both 
approaches. It makes very good B&W prints right out of the box with 
OEM K3 inks with the standard driver and is easy to use. Toning can 
be influenced easily as well. One can print directly from any 
application. And it can still color. On the negative side: as it 
uses some yellow the archival quality is less than other approaches. 
OEM inks are expensive. 

To address the archive issue it has been proposed here earlier to 
replace the yellow with a very light carbon (MIS EZW). Ink cost can 
be reduced by using bulk ink.

The 3MK/R1800 is more or less the opposite approach: just pure 
carbon, so the highest possible archival quality. You need to buy 
only one ink in bulk (Eboni) so ink is cheap. On the negative side: 
no toning possibility (except for different paper choice) and you 
need a RIP to print. 

I'm using UT3D myself (on a 2100), driving it with QTR. To my 
feeling this approach is somewhere in between the two above: very 
good archival quality (less then pure carbon, better than color 
inks), very good toning flexiblity. If you're prepared to work with 
a RIP, as I think you are as you are considering a 3MK approach, 
than UT3D is a fairly simple ink set. All toning difficulties are 
solved within the ink set, so one has mainly to address density. I 
ususally start making a warm curve, which takes some time. But then 
the cool and selenium curves are simple derivatives. When I started 
18 months ago I found the most difficult part to get the workflow 
with QTR right, but that is not much different for whatever ink set 
is used.

UT3D allows also for a totally different workflow. As it is a full 
spectrum, low gamut inkset it can be treated as a color ink set. In 
theory PrintFixPro supports this. That would actually be very 
simple. But see my recent posting on this topic. My information is 
that the toning capabilities of UT3D are much restricted by PFP.

> 
> Which inks are necessary to buy for BW only? And, can I use UT-3D
> Eboni, LK, LLK with the epson color inks for color printing, with 
> good results?

For a neutral BW print one needs Eboni, (warm) LK, (warm) LLK, cool 
LK and cool LLK. This is needed since LK and LLK are not neutral but 
quite warm inks. For a full spectrum one need the selenium toner as 
well. For use in a color work the neutral LK is needed as well. So 
there's no way you can combine this with a full gamut color inkset.
> 
> There are no ICC's and curves for the paper I'll be using (permajet
> delta matt fibre, at least at first), will I still be able to get 
> acceptable results?

For good results you need icc-profiles or QTR curves. If they don't 
exist you have to make them. I you don't want to, better restrict 
yourself to papers that are profiled.

Success,

Joost

> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Espen
>