Digital BW, The Print

I am working to print on the hot press fine art paper with the lc in 
the yellow position. I want the prints to look like traditional 
black and white. I think that would be just on the cool side of 
neutral from what I am seeing. I also want all carbon since in 
combination with the buffered paper the prints will have greater 
staying power. The only way I have had success is to use the neutral 
curve for hot press which you provided and then I go to the color 
balance adjustment in photoshop and moved the slider toward yellow 
to use the (now light cyan cart) to cool it a bit.  It looks like to 
achieve the same results using the rgb curves I would be tweaking 
all day and night. I want to use as many of the cartridges as 
possible so that the resolution of the print head is used to its 
full capability. My question is this; am I on the right track here? 
Is the color balance yellow slider short changing the quality?
Any suggestions on how to get more comfortable getting the curve 
right are greatly appreciated too. I suspect that (at least for me) 
it will just take many hours and many little test prints to get good 
at the curves.

Charlie

From what I understand using LC in Y is only useful when using the
driver controls. With the curves the Y is completely cut out, leaving
only carbon inks and the two toners. 

By adding the yellow back in after applying the neutral curve all you're
doing is adding more warmth to the print again since the carbon inks are
very warm by themselves. It would be the exact same thing as moving from
the neutral curve to the medium warm curve.

If you're going for a neutral tone you might be interested in mixing a
custom cool toner for the Y position instead. I made one with 84% UT7-LC
and 16% MIS-7600C. This allows me to get a wider range of tints when
making neutral prints. Instead of just going from warm to selenium I can
now also go from selenium to cyan or warm to cyan, or anything in
between. I find I like the neutral prints better with just a slight bit
more cyan in them than the default setup.

I've made a Perl script that can take a layered photoshop file and merge
everything into a single curve. I'd have to tweak it a bit for general
use, but it certainly saves you time when making curves. Like you, I
often find it easier to just stack several adjustment layers to get a
tone I'm happy with, then afterwards I'll merge them into a single new
curve. The only disadvantage of this method is that you have to rely on
a predefined set of 16 points along the curve, but this should be less
of a problem with the UT7 inks since the curves are less extreme than
with the UT1 inkset.

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: byten2003 [mailto:psiempyo@...] 
> Sent: 26. mai 2004 17:18
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Digital BW] Q. for Paul UT7- 2200-LC in Yellow
> 
> 
> I am working to print on the hot press fine art paper with the lc in 
> the yellow position. I want the prints to look like traditional 
> black and white. I think that would be just on the cool side of 
> neutral from what I am seeing. I also want all carbon since in 
> combination with the buffered paper the prints will have greater 
> staying power. The only way I have had success is to use the neutral 
> curve for hot press which you provided and then I go to the color 
> balance adjustment in photoshop and moved the slider toward yellow 
> to use the (now light cyan cart) to cool it a bit.  It looks like to 
> achieve the same results using the rgb curves I would be tweaking 
> all day and night. I want to use as many of the cartridges as 
> possible so that the resolution of the print head is used to its 
> full capability. My question is this; am I on the right track here? 
> Is the color balance yellow slider short changing the 
> quality? Any suggestions on how to get more comfortable 
> getting the curve 
> right are greatly appreciated too. I suspect that (at least for me) 
> it will just take many hours and many little test prints to get good 
> at the curves.

Daniel,


>From what I understand using LC in Y is only useful when using the
>driver controls. With the curves the Y is completely cut out, leaving
>only carbon inks and the two toners. 

But the Y doesn't have to be cut out.  I have at least one curve where I've
used that LC in Y so that more jets are working -- an advantage in some
printers.  If I never printed sepia, I'd put LC in the Y and use it.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 

For UT2 & UT7 information, curves, and settings see:
http://home1.gte.net/res09aij/

Charlie wrote:

>I am working to print on the hot press fine art paper 

Which "Hot Press" -- Arches (uncoated) or PremierArt (coated inkjet paper)?

>with the lc in 
>the yellow position. I want the prints to look like traditional 
>black and white. I think that would be just on the cool side of 
>neutral from what I am seeing.

Arches HP prints so warm you will not be able to get good quality and have a
truly cool print.  The paper is so warm that with the LC in the Y and the
sliders at neutral (0), the print looks fairly neutral.

With PremierArt HP, you'll be very close to neutral with LC in Y and the
sliders at neutral.

For Arches, I recommend you use only the "Color Controls" mode with the
color sliders at neutral.  The driver puts in the LK only with the RGB being
equal.  The LK in the image really helps the Arches HP quality (smoothness).

>I also want all carbon since in 
>combination with the buffered paper the prints will have greater 
>staying power.

The "pure carbon" ink (C & LC in the UT7 inkset) is quite warm.  You can't
get a neutral looking print without the cool gray inks -- M & LM.  (Note
also that all inkjet "carbon" ink is probably chemically modified for
dispersion and other reasons.)

The carbon inks are more lightfast than the toned inks.  In dark storage, it
is probably a moot issue since both are probably very archival.  In my
initial fade testing, the Epson UltraSmooth (aka Premier Imaging Fine Art
Hot Press or Scrapbook)with UT ink appeared to be more lightfast than the
Arches HP. 

> The only way I have had success is to use the neutral 
>curve for hot press which you provided and then I go to the color 
>balance adjustment in photoshop and moved the slider toward yellow 
>to use the (now light cyan cart) to cool it a bit.

That LC is not cool ink, it's carbon.

>I want to use as many of the cartridges as 
>possible so that the resolution of the print head is used to its 
>full capability.

Some printers (like mine) are less than perfect and use of all the jets
hides the defects.

> My question is this; am I on the right track here? 

"Neutral" and "all carbon" isn't possible.

I have not tried the approach you're suggesting, but with Arches I'd stick
with the slider at 0.  With PremierArt HP the sliders or curves should be
fine.  See my suggested slider settings in the information sheet, URL below.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 

For UT2 & UT7 information, curves, and settings see:
http://home1.gte.net/res09aij/

> But the Y doesn't have to be cut out.  I have at least one 
> curve where I've used that LC in Y so that more jets are 
> working -- an advantage in some printers.  If I never printed 
> sepia, I'd put LC in the Y and use it.

What differences in quality can you expect with that setup? I thought
you wouldn't be able to tell the difference if you were using two
identical inks in two positions.

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

Daniel,

>> But the Y doesn't have to be cut out.  I have at least one 
>> curve where I've used that LC in Y so that more jets are 
>> working -- an advantage in some printers.  If I never printed 
>> sepia, I'd put LC in the Y and use it.

>What differences in quality can you expect with that setup? I thought
>you wouldn't be able to tell the difference if you were using two
>identical inks in two positions.

At least with a loupe, I can see occasional microbanding with a few of my
printers that can be helped if more ink jets are firing.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 

For UT2 & UT7 information, curves, and settings see:
http://home1.gte.net/res09aij/

Thanks again for the feedback Paul.
I am printing on the ultra smooth. Using your curves. I had not 
tried the sliders in the driver since I had bad experiences with 
them when printing in color. One image would be accurate with a 
certain slider setting and the next would be off. I do have my 
monitor profiled and my color inks and papers profiled now.
I see what you are saying about the LC in yellow producing warmth. I 
keep getting carbon and warm mixed up in my head. I just think 
of "carbon" as alway being black, carbon rods,lampblack carbon etc. 
I suppose leaving the yellow in and using your curves to get neutral 
will be the way to go. If the print looks good in a frame for 100 
years I guess that will just have to do!! Not so bad after all.
 What is just too cool about this inkset is that I can (finally) 
look at black and white prints from my deskjet in 
sunlight,fluorescent,and incandescent light and they look the same.

> At least with a loupe, I can see occasional microbanding with a few of my
> printers that can be helped if more ink jets are firing.
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com 

Which has been my advice for BO printing too. Better use 200 
nozzles at 25% than 100 at 50%.

Ernst