Solarization Problems using MIS VM Quatone Inks and Paul Roark's Curves
2002-08-02 by daintreeriver2002
I just got going with my new MIS VM quadtone inks and EAM paper early this week. My first attempt, on Monday, using a scanned negative (as a positive) and using Paul's Medium Warm curve for the Epson 1280 worked great. No banding, no solarization, great tonal range. I'm really excited by the possibilites. Since this first print, though, I've been having troubles. This morning, I actually converted a color digital image and played with the channel mixers in doing so. The image looks great on the monitor. Lots of information and texture in all parts of the image. When I use the medium warm curve, though, my bushes and background landscape areas are solarized and have significant loss of detail. Trying again, with the neutral curve, the bushes are now fine, but I've lost an incredible amount of detail on my building's brick wall. Plus the smidge of landscape in the background still looks odd -- almost printed as flat tone. (I've also had similar solarization problems with another scanned negative, though, where I printed it before and after adjusting the curves in selected areas. On this one as well, I was using the Medium Warm curve.) Does anyone have any ideas about what my problem may be? I'm using preload cartridges from MIS. Is it possible that too much ink is coming out of some of the toner slots and not enough out of other? I followed Paul's workflow steps very carefully, so I don't think I set something up wrong. Thanks in advance. Bob