Digital BW, The Print

Hello,

I just wanted to report my home brewing experiences based on Paul
Roark's "Carbon-6" B&W Inkset.

I mixed my C-6 base using distilled water and Glycerol USP both bought
at a local pharmacy.

Initial tests without PhotoFlo in the mix showed a lot of banding for
the  2%, 4%, 8% and 16% dilutions.

Having no Photo-Flo, I tried a 50-50 mix of Ecover Rinse Aid and
Nature Clean Rinse Agent bought at local grocery store. I mixed the
two in the hope the combination of different surfactants would create
a working synergy. Banding is now gone. Zero. Nothing. Even under a
magnifying glass.

Knowing I could not print using Epson's driver because we do not know
what the driver does with the Blue and Red ink channels, I played a
lot with QTR.

Having no spectro, I looked at existing curves. I settled on the
9880-UC warm curve that uses one pure MK, one LK and one LLK dilution.

I adapted that curve so that my R1800 would use one 100% density pure
Eboni channel, three 16% dilution LK channels and two 4% dilution LLK
channels. I kept two free channels so I can always use the simple 3MK
approach if I want a BO print.

I used more than one channel for the LK and LLK in the hope of 
minimizing possible future banding. I also made the LK and LLK curves
have slightly different slopes by changing the channels ink limit by +
or - 4% to create more smoothness in the mids and highs.

I am happy to report that, even without relinearizing, the prints show
smother gradients on the sphere test gradient print than I used to get
with K7 using the right curve and paper. Amazing. And so much smoother
than the 3MK! 

It prints a lot warmer than 3MK in the light midtones and on
Premierart BW 205 creates a very nice splittone effect.

How stable this homemade brew will be I do not know. Will it kill my
R1800? I don't care as the 1400 is as good or better and dirt cheap.

So I can now print either a 3MK BO that has this special look for the
highlights and sometimes very appealing "grain", or print warmer
utrasmooth splittones.

I also like the fact that this "system" only requires pure Eboni ink
bought from Inksupply.com and that all the rest I can find at the
pharmacy or grocery store. :-)

I know I am not very good at describing this process but I wanted to
share anyways.

Denis Bouchard