Digital BW, The Print

Steve,

I am not an expert in digital black and white techniques but I have been
working on this topic for three years and have accumulated some insight into
the issues. Also I did large format (8x10) black  and white for 30 years in
the darkroom. 

I have compared K3 with Cone K7. As they say there are "strengths and
weaknesses" to most things and this topic is not an exception.  I will try
and summarize a few of them that I think are most important. 

 

K3 images overall look very nice to most people. Strength

K3 has great blacks density wise . Strength.

K3 is able to produce many shades of black and white from warm to cool tone.
Strength 

K3 is producing these many tones with color ink that may not be archival as
one would like. Weakness

K3 black and white has hints of color in the black and white images when
looked at under different lights. Weakness

K3 is very expensive. weakness.

 

K7 images look very nice to most people. Strength

K7 black are weak density wise. Weakness

K7 offers several shades of black and white ink. Strength

K7 Inks are considered to be archival. Strength

K7 Inks are fully black and white with no hint of color under any light I
have used. Strength

K7 Inks are very cost effective. Strength.

 

So there you have my findings so far in my black and white digital journey.
I am not an expert and would not even consider myself advanced in digital
black and white but I have made three or four hundred test prints and work
on black and white digital imaging every day. In conclusion at this time I
would consider K7 a better option in most cases but I need a blacker blacks
to be happy. Over the past several months I have been using MIS K6 in my
other printer and have additional strengths and weaknesses for these ink. 

 

The bottom line is I want a cool tone ink that is archival, without color
and has blacks at a density range of 2.0 or above on matte paper. Am I
asking for too much? 

 

Thanks for asking. I hope others will contribute or dispute my findings so
that I can find the perfect system for making digital black and white prints
and get back to taking pictures.

 

Gary Wagner

 

From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
steveabrink
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 4:09 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Epson 3800 ABW & C7 inks

 

Oops,I meant ABW/K3 (epson UC inks)... 

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint%40yahoogroups.com> , "steveabrink" 
<steveabrink@...> wrote:
>
> Gary,
> 
> If you've compared Cone K7 with ABW/K4 would you have any 
> feedback...? 
> 
> I tried a couple of years back the C88+/MIS workflow but saw little 
> if any improvement over ABW... 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> SteveB 
> 





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