Digital BW, The Print

> "john dean" <deanwork2003@> wrote:
> >
> > Well the idea was theoretically to create a 6 tone 
> > monochrome inkset for the Z3100,...
 
> > It is a very, very good tri tone  and uses no composite color
> > pigments,
 
(I earlier wrote:)

> I'm quite certain it is, in fact, a blended inkset containing 
> some carbon and a fair amount of color pigments.
> 
> ...  As a blend of color and carbon, it's an open question
> whether it's more lightfast than the MIS and Cone B&W inks.


We do, in fact, have some preliminary evidence of how the HP Vivera inks do compared to Jon's Piezotones -- and Jon wins.  

The Aardenburg tests include 10 MLux-hr results for both HP and some Cone inks.  This is very early in the cycle, but the preliminary results look good for third party B&W.  Jon's Selenium Piezotone on HPR at the E1 (Lab L 66) and F1 (L 52) midtone densities have a better delta E than the HP set at the closest neutral gray patches (C4 at L 67 and D4 at L 51).  The delta Lab L for the Piezo midtones was 0.4 v. 0.6 for the HP.

Note that the overall scores for the 2 inksets is skewed by the Piezo use of Portfolio K.  As such, I think the relevant comparison is in the midtones, excluding the black and dark gray patches.  Note also that I don't know how much color inks HP also puts into the neutral gray patches.  So, a pure HP gray inkset might do better.  I also have not looked all all of the midtone patches, but I thought the patches I chose were appropriate.  Additionally, I'm not certain the Hahnemuhle papers are exactly the same.  So, there may be some comparability issues, but I think the results do give us some valuable evidence.

So, folks, pony up the Aardenburg membership dues so you can get into the database and see how the third party inks are doing.  It's independent tests like this that might help keep our suppliers in business -- which is very important to the B&W market.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com