Digital BW, The Print

Joseph Holmes' patented Small Gamut ink concept was in itself not a bad 
idea in my opinion. It is another matter that Lyson used the wrong 
approach with dye inks that would fade and it also paid not enough 
attention to "metamerism" with those inks. Considering the higher 
resolutions, smaller droplets of today's inkjet printers and far better 
pigment inks available now I would expect a better Small Gamut printer 
could be possible. In Paul's mixing the color inks are not avoided 
either or better said they can not be avoided. Small Gamut inks should 
fit OEM drivers easier than any other custom quad mixture I guess. Not 
to mention adapted ICC color management.

Any thoughts on this?
I see that Lyson dropped the Small Gamut inks from their program like it 
dropped more water based inksets.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groeten,   Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

|      Dinkla Grafische Techniek      |
|         www.pigment-print.com        |
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I worked on the SG inks with Joe and with Lyson, (I was the second person in the US to receive a set) and have revisited them with Joe more recently. The real issues are as follows:

Low saturation inks are made by mixing color with neutral pigments, and keeping both equally in solution is difficult (just ask Paul; he and I worked on several sets based on this premise for MIS).

Newer printers with as many as three grays, two blacks and a gloss optimizer make it unnecessary to create other solutions. 

C. D. Tobie
Global Product Technology Mngr.
Imaging Color Solutions
Datacolor.com
CDTobie@datacolor.com

On Jan 19, 2012, at 6:31 AM, Ernst Dinkla <e.dinkla@onsneteindhoven.nl> wrote:

> Joseph Holmes' patented Small Gamut ink concept was in itself not a bad 
> idea in my opinion. It is another matter that Lyson used the wrong 
> approach with dye inks that would fade and it also paid not enough 
> attention to "metamerism" with those inks. Considering the higher 
> resolutions, smaller droplets of today's inkjet printers and far better 
> pigment inks available now I would expect a better Small Gamut printer 
> could be possible. In Paul's mixing the color inks are not avoided 
> either or better said they can not be avoided. Small Gamut inks should 
> fit OEM drivers easier than any other custom quad mixture I guess. Not 
> to mention adapted ICC color management.
> 
> Any thoughts on this?

Cdtobie <CDTobie@...> wrote:
>
> I worked on the SG inks with Joe and with Lyson, (I was the second person in the US to receive a set) and have revisited them with Joe more recently. The real issues are as follows:
> 
> Low saturation inks are made by mixing color with neutral pigments,

Is this Lyson inkset pigment or dye?  I thought they had an older dye small gamut inkset.  They may present different issues.

> and keeping both equally in solution is difficult

If they are dyes, they may not separate.  If they are pigments, they may well.  HP went to great lengths, apparently, to match the electrostatic signature of the different pigments that make up its neutralized carbon Z3100/3200 PK and grays.

With the dyes I'm working with, I'm leaning to not using the blended black plus magenta due to an unknown risk of catalytic interactions.  I see no evidence of such, but dyes have been known to react even on the paper.  Presumably Epson, well aware of this, designed these pigments so that would not be a problem.  But, it just raises an issue that casts a shadow on the approach.

> (just ask Paul; he and I worked on several sets based on this premise for MIS).


See page 4 of http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/4K+.pdf .  The graphs there show what I consider a significant tone change rate for the blended MIS inkset I was using.  My reading on this issue indicated it was a known issue of electrostatic dispersion approaches, which most of our pigments use.  Note that this will not be a problem with desktop units where the inks are regularly agitated.  For wide format users, it probably means that the blended B&W pigments inks ought to be agitate, perhaps weekly -- which is what I do with Eboni-6 also.  It's not that much of a problem -- for those aware of it.  

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

Ernst Dinkla <e.dinkla@...> wrote:
>
> ... Considering the higher resolutions, smaller droplets 
> of today's inkjet printers and far better ...

I think these same factors have made the need for small gamut much less important if one of the reasons is smoothness.  At least with the 1400's 1.5 pl drop, I'm not seeing any reason not to use the Y and LM as toners, which is what I'm doing in the dye inkset I'm now printing with.  (See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/1400-Claria-Noritsu-2K2LK.pdf )  

Lower gamut inks or toners may make profiling easier, but I'm not even sure of that unless you take the low gamut all the way to monotone.  I think the UT 3D inkset was harder for most to profile.  The fewer "dimensions" or axes one has to correct, the easier it is.  So, a monotone is the easiest, then a one-toner approach.

I find the high gamut toners potentially easier to use because, at least in the dye set I'm working with, because so little is used that the tones can be altered without the need to re-linearize the profile.

> Small Gamut inks should fit OEM drivers easier than any 
> other custom quad mixture I guess. Not 
> to mention adapted ICC color management.

Yes, I think that  is true and may be the main argument for them now.

Being able to have profiling software work with the inkset was one of the reasons for and goals of the UT 3D inkset. 

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

On 01/20/2012 03:09 AM, Paul wrote:
> Ernst Dinkla<e.dinkla@...>  wrote:
>>
>> ... Considering the higher resolutions, smaller droplets
>> of today's inkjet printers and far better ...
>
> I think these same factors have made the need for small gamut much less important if one of the reasons is smoothness.  At least with the 1400's 1.5 pl drop, I'm not seeing any reason not to use the Y and LM as toners, which is what I'm doing in the dye inkset I'm now printing with.  (See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/1400-Claria-Noritsu-2K2LK.pdf )
>
> Lower gamut inks or toners may make profiling easier, but I'm not even sure of that unless you take the low gamut all the way to monotone.  I think the UT 3D inkset was harder for most to profile.  The fewer "dimensions" or axes one has to correct, the easier it is.  So, a monotone is the easiest, then a one-toner approach.
>
> I find the high gamut toners potentially easier to use because, at least in the dye set I'm working with, because so little is used that the tones can be altered without the need to re-linearize the profile.
>
>> Small Gamut inks should fit OEM drivers easier than any
>> other custom quad mixture I guess. Not
>> to mention adapted ICC color management.
>
> Yes, I think that  is true and may be the main argument for them now.
>
> Being able to have profiling software work with the inkset was one of the reasons for and goals of the UT 3D inkset.
>
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com
>
>

Paul, good comments and some I considered too since I wrote that 
message. A ressurection of small gamut may not be worth it but I also 
see a wide variety of custom "quad" inks today, all kinds of curve and 
"profile" adaptions to paper whites and coatings that ask for a devoted 
user or developer, less flexibility when a certain "quad" inkset is 
selected and printing from preferred applications (in my case Qimage) is 
impossible, near impossible or asking for more steps in the proces. I 
like QTR but as I have written a long time ago it would be nice if it 
could function as a normal Windows driver (but still have the 
linearisation etc) so I can hook it up straight to Qimage. Then there 
are several thermal head printers that are nice candidates for "quad" 
solutions but can not be used due to a lack of alternative drivers.

David's and your comment on pigment ink stabilisation is a thing I did 
not worry about enough and should have worried about. Of course I should 
check what printer integrated vibration technology could solve :-) A 
nice coincidence, that other thread.

I expected that a small gamut ink solution today, 8 or 9 channels 
pigment ink; Matte Black, Gloss Black, LK, LLK, Cyan Grey, Magenta Grey, 
Cyan Grey Light, Magenta Grey light, Yellow Grey light, would deliver 
more smoothness, better color consistency, more color toning choices + 
split toning, easier adaption to new papers with profiling and a related 
true soft proof, use of the OEM drivers available and run from preferred 
applications with a wider selection of printers. I do not expect more 
fade resistance than already possible with B&W print modes of the 
different pigment printers.

For 5, 6, 7 channel printers with a reduced inkset skip either easy 
gloss/matte switches or using less grey inks. There is something to be 
said for less ink channels used more evenly so no ink stays long in the 
system.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groeten,   Ernst
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm

|      Dinkla Grafische Techniek      |
|         www.pigment-print.com        |
|                 ( unvollendet )                 |