Digital BW, The Print

I’m relatively new to digital b/w digital printing. I have now a 1520 and, 

following your talks about PiezoTone inks and others, but do not see anything 

on Lumijet b/w inks. Are these just simply not in the league of these others? 

Their claims seem pretty good, but you guys don't talk about them.

L. Lawler

Well, we dye devotees are rather thin on the ground here. :-)

My setup is with Lyson QuadBlack Neutral (which is the same as 
Luminos' LumiJet ink, because - surprise - Lyson makes it for 
them), in an Epson Stylus Color 1160, mostly printing on EAM. I 
work alternately with curves supplied by Luminos (which actually 
work fairly well...guess I got something for that first pricy set of 
carts), and a standard RGB curve with a few minor tweaks by 
myself (and I'm no rocket scientist at this).

In theory, pigments are supposed to be studlier than dyes in 
terms of fade resistance, but given the what's-going-on-here 
atmosphere with conflicting reports about different pigs failing 
(or not) in different ways, I'd be happy with making dye prints that 
fade slowly and "gracefully" (i.e. not with the black ink swinging 
one way and the other three going someplace else). My landlady 
has a print of mine, mounted and framed behind glare-free 
glass, in the foyer of the two-family house where I live in 
Brooklyn. It doesn't get direct sunlight, but it gets a goodly 
amount of daylight nonetheless, as well as a degree of 
seasonal temperature/humidity swings (although it's well sealed 
in back - she really did shoot the works having the mounting 
done). At four months and counting, it's looking good.

In other words: other inks have intrigued me somewhat, but I'm 
really enjoying working with the Lyson neutrals, and they seem to 
play nice with my 1160 (next to no clogging). Assuming no other 
issues, I'm a believer in getting to know a given material/format 
really well and working it as best you can. If you like what you're 
getting from the 1520 with the Lyson ink, simply work on "getting 
it better" (although I'd suggest switching to Lyson's own inks and 
saving yourself a decent amount of cash). I find - as I've always 
found - that the toughest part of getting what I want in print starts 
between film exposure and film scanning/enlarging. The less 
homework I do beforehand, the more remedial headaches I 
have to deal with afterward.

- Barrett

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., lushley@a... wrote:
> I’m relatively new to digital b/w digital printing. I have
now a 
1520 and, 
> 
> following your talks about PiezoTone inks and others, but do 
not see anything 
> 
> on Lumijet b/w inks. Are these just simply not in the league of 
these others? 
> 
> Their claims seem pretty good, but you guys don't talk about 
them.
> 
> L. Lawler