Digital BW, The Print

> > I finally got my R1800 with Eboni 6 ink setup. Though the 
> > ink is from someone who had an excess of ink bought from 
> > MIS last year. ...
> > Now what has suprised me is that some of the ink is not 
> > all black? ... My 
> > MK (EBK) is infact black!
> > Cyan (Eb6C) is a dark cyan
> > Magenta (Eb6LC) is a light cyan
> > Yellow (EB6Y) is a dark brown
> > Red or Light Cyan (Eb6LM) is a greyish very light brown
> > Blue or Light Magenta (Eb6M) is a black
> > 
> > I'm just wondering if I got some dud inks?


> I bought a set of Eboni 6 last year that was the same way ...
> I sent it back. I finally did get a consistent set of Eb6 inks.
> I think they had had a bad batch.

I had someone send me a calibration print of an inkset that looked this way about a year ago and initially concluded it must have been a mistake at MIS.  I let them know about it.  Later, however, I noticed my 1800 Eboni-6 inks taking on weird colors.  I traced the problem to the carts and the deterioration of the sponges.  

The problems noted above could also have come from residual color in the printer or polluted inks, either due to some mix-up at MIS or pollution from something like sponge deterioration.

I mix my own Eboni-6 (I still have some of the base left over from my initial search for a suitable base for Eboni) and Carbon-6, and except for the sponged carts and the deterioration of the sponges in them, I've never seen a tone shift with either clear base.  No printer with truly spongeless carts and Eboni/Carbon-6 that I've mixed has ever shown any tone other than the expected medium warm (with the warmth peaking at the LK density, being the least at the 100% and second least at 2%).

So, I can't say where the colors are coming from, but it's not an inherent or intentional characteristic of dilute Eboni or Eboni-6.

Note that I have been told that some ink suppliers -- even at the wholesale level -- use the same equipment to process different inks.  There can be pollution of one with with another due to poor cleaning of the equipment between ink batch processing.  Then again all color inks are also subject to slight variations.  That's one reason custom profiling is needed for precise control.  

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com