Digital BW, The Print

Hello Mark,

>I have had my Epson 9900 for a few weeks now and was finally able to  
>do some tests to compare its ABW mode vs Piezotone selenium inks.  
>Bottom line, the Piezotones have much more depth to them. They look  
>3D and the 9900 black and white prints do not. Color on the 9900 I  
>was able to tweak to match the Pieozone fairly close. All tests were  
>done on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag.

Thanks for the report.  Is there any chance you can do the same comparison on VFA?  The reason I ask is that HPR was one of my top papers when I used Eboni-based ink sets, while VFA was good but didn't stand out.  I kept some on hand only for testing.

When my 2200 died the replacement warranty I had purchased with it delivered to me a new 2400.  After acclimating to the new system I found that the combination of K3 inks and VFA produced far better results than K3/HPR, and even better than Eboni/HPR in some ways.  The depth effect as you mention (among other things), was very rich compared to previous results. 

The result is that my entire paper lineup changed.  I still have some HPR and I'm slowly trying to use it up, but it only works well with a certain few images (and even then it's just acceptable).  My general impression is that K3 and HPR are simply not a good match, for whatever reason.  Getting good results with it always seems like a struggle, where VFA just sings easily in tune.  BTW, another favorite K3 paper for me is Innova's Soft Texture Art (STA).  It's the best non-OBA paper for K3 I've found.  Hawk Mtn's Merlin Natural is also a fine K3 paper, as is Museo Max - please don't get the impression that K3 is only good on one paper.

Bottom line is don't judge the ink by testing on just one paper.  It can make a big difference.  PZ may still beat out K3 on VFA, but you won't know for sure until you test it.  K3 is also superb on the Fiber Gloss type papers.

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