Digital BW, The Print

Hello Gordon,

>Assuming OEM (stock) inks & machines in all cases; would some of you
>good folks give a judgment of the improvement of the K3 inkset over
>the earlier (4000) UltraChrome formula, for both B/W and color
>applications?

There are several advantages for K3 ink that have been widely reported
here with general agreement since it appeared in 2005: less bronzing
and gloss differential using PK on glossy papers, three K inks for
very smooth tonal gradations, greater fade resistance, super
performance on the new fiber glossy papers (and for color printing it
seems I've heard there is better gamut as well, maybe someone who
knows about that will comment...).

In addition to the ink, the K3 printers have the Advanced Black and
White mode (ABW) in the driver that's sort of a simple built in RIP
that makes BW prints using primarily the three K inks with small
amounts of color as toners.  The results are excellent with
outstanding ease of use.  With the 4000 it would require a 3rd party
RIP to accomplish similar results.  If you already use a RIP then that
may not be an issue.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
I-Trak 2.1   http://www.cjcom.net/itrak.htm