Digital BW, The Print

> Randy Rancier wrote:
> > ... I'm curious if the HP PK from the HP Z3100, I 
> > believe you said you are using, is the 
> > same as the PK used in the HP B9180 which i also have; 
> > I have been very impressed with 
> > the B&W prints I get out of it and are beautiful, 
> > but I was concerned about their permanence, and 
> > thus the whole ordeal with the 1400.  

> > It would be somewhat humorous 
> > if the pigments in my HP B9180 were in fact more 
> > stable than the pigments in the Epson inks.  ...

Ernst Dinkla wrote:
> AFAIK the B9180 Vivera pigment inkset is the same ...


I believe the Wilhelm tests give an edge to HP over Epson.

The third party B&W inksets do rather well compared to the Epson ABW 
mode printing, but this is probably due to the excess of color the 
ABW mode uses.  If one uses QTR to print Epson OEM inks, I think the 
story would be differnt.  I believe http://www.aardenburg-
imaging.com/ rates the Epson color pigment as better than the MIS 
color pigments.  

While MIS and Epson carbon inks are very lightfast, when it comes to 
making a neutral inkset that uses color pigments to cool down the 
carbon, the stability of the color pigments become very important to 
the overall print stability.  This gets even more complex when one 
considers differential fade of the different color pigments used.  
Matching the fade rates of the color pigments is, quite simply, 
beyond what I can do with the resources and time I have.  So, while I 
think for the vast majority of desktop printers the MIS B&W inksets 
such as the UT14 are very good, I expect the HP-PK based inkset to be 
more stable, but it will not show up in a very long time.  

I may be wrong, and will attempt to do a comparative fade test if and 
when I'm actually using the HP approach more, but I expect that among 
the inksets I use, only the 100% Eboni carbon approach (on non-
brightened paper) will be more stable than the HP-based inkset (on 
the same paper).  

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com