Digital BW, The Print

Hi,

For days now, I've been searching the Internet trying to find a 
solution for the magenta cast problem with B&W prints done on my Epson 
2100 (2200) printer. In daylight they look fine, in artificial light 
they get this horrid magenta cast. From what I've read, this cast is 
caused by metamerism of the yellow ink. Solutions seem to be dedicating 
my printer to black ink only, get a RIP or just printing black only.

Stumbling upon this group, I read several articles and tried some of 
the tips given. I really hoped that the results would be satisfactory 
so I could put more energy in taking great photo' s instead of wasting 
lots of paper and ink getting the prints right. I tried three types of 
paper (Ilford Smooth Gloss Paper, Epson Heavyweight Matte Paper and 
Hahnemuhle Fine Art Photo Rag) using photo black ink. To my surprise, 
the print made on Ilford paper had a sort of green cast and Hahnemuhle 
paper showed a definite magenta cast. How can this be???

What am I doing wrong? Should I use the Matte ink on the non gloss 
paper?

Another small question on ink cartridges: are epson 2200 and epson 2100 
cartridges interchangeable? Or does the difference in voltage between 
the USA and Europe have an influence on the working of the chip that 
sits on the cartridge?

Hope someone can help me.
Regards,
YaWie

Hello YaWie,

>lots of paper and ink getting the prints right. I tried three types 
>of paper (Ilford Smooth Gloss Paper, Epson Heavyweight Matte Paper 
>and Hahnemuhle Fine Art Photo Rag) using photo black ink. To my 
>surprise, > the print made on Ilford paper had a sort of green cast 
>and Hahnemuhle paper showed a definite magenta cast. How can this 
>be???

It shouldn't happen with Black Only.  Are you certain "Black Ink Only"
was checked?  With a loupe can you see any ink dots of other colors?

>Should I use the Matte ink on the non gloss paper?

Matte black will have _much_ better Dmax and will be less cool in
color.  The MIS Eboni black is even better.


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

Hi Clayton,

Thanks for your reply!
I'm almost certain I checked  Black Ink Only, but I have no loupe to be for sure. 
I have now changed the Photo Black ink with the Matte one and have been printing some 
graycharts on Epson's Matte Paper. It's a little getting used to, but there's definately no 
colourcast here! However, in some parts of the chart the printing pattern goes weird. Can 
that be due to the change of inks?

You write that Matte Black ink will be less cool in colour prints. Is this also true for B&W 
prints? I do want cool prints, meaning: no hints of blue, green or magenta! Can you also 
shed some light on an ink/paper combination that would be best for BO prints using semi 
or glossy papers?  And can Ebony ink also be used for colour prints?

Regards,
YaWie

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones" <cj@c...> wrote:

> Hello YaWie,
> 
> >lots of paper and ink getting the prints right. I tried three types 
> >of paper (Ilford Smooth Gloss Paper, Epson Heavyweight Matte Paper 
> >and Hahnemuhle Fine Art Photo Rag) using photo black ink. To my 
> >surprise, > the print made on Ilford paper had a sort of green cast 
> >and Hahnemuhle paper showed a definite magenta cast. How can this 
> >be???
> 
> It shouldn't happen with Black Only.  Are you certain "Black Ink Only"
> was checked?  With a loupe can you see any ink dots of other colors?
> 
> >Should I use the Matte ink on the non gloss paper?
> 
> Matte black will have _much_ better Dmax and will be less cool in
> color.  The MIS Eboni black is even better.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at    
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

With the 2100 and Photo black the driver uses all colors, even if you
select Black only. I think this is a bug in the driver. You can download
the 2200 drivers from the US web-site and see if they work better. I've
tried the 2200 drivers on my 2100 and they work, but I didn't
specifically try BO with photo black. 

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no

Hello Yawie,

>I'm almost certain I checked Black Ink Only, but I have no loupe 
>to be for sure. 

If you're getting a color cast there has to be some color ink
involved.  It's pretty hard to get green or magenta from black ink
only.  If you can buy or borrow a loupe you'll be able to check it for
sure.


>I have now changed the Photo Black ink with the Matte one and have
>been printing some graycharts on Epson's Matte Paper. It's a little
>getting used to, but there's definately no colourcast here! 

Sounds good.



>However, in some parts of the chart the printing pattern goes 
>weird.  Can that be due to the change of inks?

What does "goes weird" mean?

 
>You write that Matte Black ink will be less cool in colour prints. 

I didn't mean color prints, I meant the color tone of the ink.  Photo
Black is very warm black in color (actually dark brown).   Matte Black
is less warm, and Eboni is even less warm than that.  In addition,
depending on the paper, the color can vary.  I use Eboni, and on
certain Hawk Mountain papers it is much cooler than on PhotoRag or EEM
(cooler meaning approaching true black instead of brown).


>I do want cool prints, meaning: no hints of blue, green or magenta! 

The terms "cool" and "warm" usually don't refer to color casts (also
called metamerism) or lack of them.  Those are caused by techniques
that mix color inks in with the black.  Cool/Warm refers to the
black/brown-ness, either the tone of the black ink or the overall tone
of the BW print.  

The black inks really aren't black, they are dark brown.  Most prints
with black ink only look warm (brown) to some degree.  Some techniques
mix little bits of cyan and magenta in with the black to cool it down
(make it look more like black).  These other color ink dots can be
seen with a loupe.  The Black Only technique uses just the black ink,
and relies on  the choice of ink and paper to control the coolness or
warmpth of the result.

>Can you also shed some light on an ink/paper combination that 
>would be best for BO prints using semi or glossy papers?  

I have experience only with matte papers.  Maybe someone else can help
with that.

>And can Ebony ink also be used for colour prints?

On my 220 I have tried a few color prints using Eboni and they look
fine to me.  But I'm not a color printer expert, so don't rely on
that.  Ask someone who really know color printing.


Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm

I can confirm that this is indeed the case with driver v1.6b from the UK
Epson Tech Support website.   This goes a long way towards explaining the
discussion I had with Carl and others a while back about the hue of Epson¹s
PK ­ well spotted Daniel!  I believe the Australian Tech Support web page
has v1.6cE.  Does anyone know whether this version has the same issue?

From: "Daniel Staver" <daniel@...>
Reply-To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 23:15:27 +0200
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: RE: [Digital BW] Re: BO printing and still magenta cast???

With the 2100 and Photo black the driver uses all colors, even if you
select Black only. I think this is a bug in the driver. You can download
the 2200 drivers from the US web-site and see if they work better. I've
tried the 2200 drivers on my 2100 and they work, but I didn't
specifically try BO with photo black.

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no








[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Ok, curiosity got the better of me and I just installed the 2200 driver
again and loaded up a cartridge of MIS PK in my 2100. It works
perfectly. The Photo Black ink is very warm, similar to printing with a
warm curve with the Ultratones, but the prints are quite beautiful. It
was nice to see a glossy print coming out of my printer again, after
printing on matte papers for such a long time.

The 2200 driver won't autodetect the 2100, but just press cancel in the
resulting error dialog and the installation will complete. Afterwards
you have to enter printer properties and manually select the port you
want to use for the printer.

I also tried the Australian driver, but it has the same problem as the
UK one. The version I found was 5.3cE though, not 1.6cE. I think you're
referring to the Mac driver, while I'm using Windows XP, so they have
different version numbers.

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no

> I can confirm that this is indeed the case with driver v1.6b 
> from the UK Epson Tech Support website.   This goes a long way towards

> explaining the discussion I had with Carl and others a while back
about the 

> hue of Epson¹s PK ­ well spotted Daniel!  I believe the 
> Australian Tech Support web page has v1.6cE.  Does anyone 
> know whether this version has the same issue?

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, YaWie <yawie@x> 
wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> Another small question on ink cartridges: are epson 2200 and epson 
2100 
> cartridges interchangeable? Or does the difference in voltage 
between 
> the USA and Europe have an influence on the working of the chip 
that 
> sits on the cartridge?
> 
> Hope someone can help me.
> Regards,
> YaWie

YaWie,

I buy US 2200 cartridges from Atlex for delivery in the US and have 
the recipent ship them to me in Europe.  They work fine in my 2100.  
I have had no cause to do it the other way round and can't see why 
anyone should unless going or returning to the US with a 2100.

Colin

That explains a lot! Thank you. 
I just downloaded the latest driver for OS X from the epson site, but only my epson 2100 
driver is recognised. 

Oh bother! All these printing problems take up way too much time... 

Yawie


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel Staver" <daniel@p...> 
wrote:

> With the 2100 and Photo black the driver uses all colors, even if you
> select Black only. I think this is a bug in the driver. You can download
> the 2200 drivers from the US web-site and see if they work better. I've
> tried the 2200 drivers on my 2100 and they work, but I didn't
> specifically try BO with photo black. 
> 
> --
> Daniel Staver
> http://daniel.staver.no