Digital BW, The Print

Evelyn,

You wrote:

>...the inks from Cone are no where near sepia.

I have not tried the Cone sepia inks.  However, my understanding is that
they are the carbon tone after all dyes, etc. are gone -- like the old MIS
quad or PiezoBW after totally warming.

I mixed an inkset based on the Epson UltraChrome matte black that had that
degree of warmth.  At first I really liked it, but in addition to some
printing problems, when I took sample prints to the gallery where I hang in
a mixed media context, I found the tone was not warm enough.  The prints
still looked like just B&W prints, and the color paintings made them look
drab.

What I've found -- and a major reason I use sepia -- is that the sepia tone
seems to do much better in competition with and showing next to color
images.  The neutral B&W looks very drab in those situations, but the sepia
tone seems to give the eye/brain enough color to avoid that drab feeling.
The carbon warm tone is not enough for this purpose.  The vm-sepia does the
job very well, however.

Robert wrote:

> I've seen full sepia output from the VM-Sepia set and
> it looks washed out to me.
> As I recall Paul Roark doesn't even use the
> full sepia curves...opting
> instead for a curve which produces something much
> more like the Sepia tones.

I don't use the strongest sepia curve because I find it is actually too
strong.  I prefer what I call a "light sepia."  The standard vm-cool curves
produces this look.

> The other advantage of the sepia piezotones is that
> they are much more
> stable to fade and warm shift...being made from 100%
> pigment, unlike the VM sets.

The Cone sepia tone, no doubt, is more stable.  The VM-S grays are the FS-N
inks.  As such, the neutral gray does not warm on EEM/EAM.  The FS inks do
fade faster than the newest 100% pigment inksets, however.

A year ago I would have said the FS inkset was 100% pigment.  It, and the
FS-N, are basically dilutions of the FS/VM-K, which is essentially the same
as the PiezoBW K.  I recall being told that the PiezoBW-K was carbon that
was "coated" with a colorant.  So, I assumed that description was accurate
for the FS/VM-K also.  Moreover, the PiezoBW-K and FS/VM-K performed better
than any black I'd tested except the Epson Archival black (and now also the
UltraChrome blacks).  So, the FS/VM/PiezoBW black inks were and are very
good -- so much better than the other inks that were said to have some dyes
in them, that, consistent with the descriptions I'd heard, I concluded the
ink must indeed be pigment only.

I now think the reality is that the FS/VM/PiezoBW blacks do have some dye in
them, but due to the co-solvent base, the dyes tend to "aggregate" (clump
up) -- probably around the carbon pigments.  So, while the carbon may not be
coated like the Epson Archival resin coating, the dye is probably not just a
thin coating on the paper.  As such, the pigment/dye masses have a surface
area to volume ratio that is closer to a pure pigment than would be the case
with a black pigmented ink that has some dye in it but does not have the
co-solvent base.

The reason the FS midtones fade faster than the black is probably that the
black is diluted with a standard, non-co-solvent base that dilutes the
co-solvent and destroys the "aggregating" function of the co-solvent.  As
such, what little dye is in there burns off relatively rapidly.

However, these are still very respectable inkset, and I have not seen any
disturbing warming or fading in the FS-N or vm-s prints that I have.  In
fact, I still have old MIS quad prints on my walls -- fully warmed but
looking fine.  One must remember that after the small percentage of dyes
burns off these older pigmented inksets, they become "100% pigment."

That said, I do plan on updating the vm-s with a tougher set of pigments,
and probably ones that will print on glossy papers.  Don't expect anything
for 6 months, however.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com