Digital BW, The Print

i'm considering using the ultratone-7 inks from MIS on my epson 2200, and i'd be very 
interested to hear any experience you might have. in particular:

1. has anyone seen an ultratone-7 print and compared it to a piezography print?

2. how about Quad RIP? i've seen roy harrington's scans on the web, but i'm still curious to 
know how the overall print appears in ultratone-7 versus Quad RIP.

3. have people had head clog problems with ultratone inks?

4. do the ultratone cartidges suffer from the same reporting problem as the piezography 
ones (not reporting accurate ink levels)?

5. is it really true that you can just put in the ultratone cartridges without flushing out the 
ultrachrome inks?

/daniel

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "daniel" <
dnjbackup@y...> wrote:
> 
> 1. has anyone seen an ultratone-7 print and compared it 
> I've used both Piezography and UT inks and think the UT compares 
favorably to Piez. I'm currently using UT in both my 1280 and 2200
> 2. how about Quad RIP?
Don't know about Quad RIP, but I'm using the Bowhaus driver for UT in my 
2200. It's mac only and they have an improved OS10 version that I like a lot. 
Having said that, there are not a lot of ready made profiles for this yet, and I 
have not mastered the art of creating my own.
> 3. have people had head clog problems with ultratone inks?
I have not had the kind of clog problems with UT that I had with Piezography 
where I actually wound up putting my old 1200 out with bulk trash. In fairness 
to Piez, they may have solved these problems or mine might have been an 
anomaly. I'd suggest you monitor posts in both forums to see how many 
people are having head clog problems. 
> 
> 4. do the ultratone cartidges suffer from the same reporting problem 
My feeling is that they're pretty accurate, however I'm not particularly happy 
about the productivity. I don't think I'm getting a lot of prints for my money.
> 
> 5. is it really true that you can just put in the ultratone cartridges without 
flushing out the 
> ultrachrome inks?
I switch back and forth and typically do 2 cleanings. Probably could get by 
without, but why take the chance.
> 
> Mike

> 1. has anyone seen an ultratone-7 print and compared it to a piezography print?
 > 2. how about Quad RIP? i've seen roy harrington's scans on the web,
 > but i'm still curious to know how the overall print appears in
 > ultratone-7 versus Quad RIP.

I use the UT7 inks myself, with both the Epson driver and with QTR. I 
have also seen numerous Piezo prints in exchanges.

You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between a well done print 
made with any of these three workflows, but the UT7 inkset has the 
obvious advantage of allowing you to vary the tone of the print from 
cool to strong sepia. UT7 also has great performance on glossy papers. 
That, combined with the much lower prices of the MIS inks makes the UT7 
inkset the obvious choice for me.

The advantage of QTR isn't so much that the quality of the final print 
is any better or worse - it's actually very similar to the Epson driver 
- it's the excellent profiling tools and the very detailed controls over 
each ink position it gives you that makes it worthwhile. If you're into 
making custom profiles, mixing your own inks or just want more control 
of the printmaking process in general then QTR is definitely the right 
tool for the job.

That said, the UT7 inkset and the Epson driver is also much better in 
this regard than it used to be. Paul has done a great job on making the 
inkset easy to use and control - you get excellent prints just using the 
driver controls and no curves, and still have a large selection of 
curves available for various papers if you need that too.

> 3. have people had head clog problems with ultratone inks?

No clog problems for me, but I have experienced some banding problems 
that I've mostly managed to solve. Prints on EEM, Photo Rag, Ilford 
Smooth Pearl and Somerset Velvet all looks excellent with no banding 
now. With BO prints I can still see some slight dither banding, and I've 
also had problems on Condor. Not sure if this was because of the inkset 
or if it was just my printer being difficult.

> 4. do the ultratone cartidges suffer from the same reporting problem as the piezography 
> ones (not reporting accurate ink levels)?

I can't answer that, I'm using refilled Epson cartridges instead of the 
MIS cartridges.

> 5. is it really true that you can just put in the ultratone cartridges without flushing out the 
> ultrachrome inks?

Yes, like Mike said it typically takes 2 cleanings to make the switch.

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

mike and daniel,

many thanks for your comments about ultratone, etc.

can you clarify a few things?

1. you both said 2 head cleanings are necessary when switching inks. do you mean 
running the epson utility head cleaner, or are you talking about using some flush carts?

2. daniel (below) refers to BO prints. what are they? surely you don't mean black only? if 
you're doing black only prints, why would you be using UT inks? just to get carbon rather 
than dye based?

3. daniel says he fills his own epson cartridges with MIS ink. any pointers on how to do 
that?

4. i'm still curious about dmax. with my QTR on epson enhanced matte, i still get a print 
that has nothing like the depth of black that i used to get on my old selenium-toned, 
fibre-based wet darkroom prints. am i expecting too much? is it hopeless to even try and 
approach that? i've heard people say that the paper is more a factor in dmax than the inks, 
and the epson dye inks actually give better dmax than the carbon-based inks. any 
comments?

/daniel


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Staver <daniel@p...> 
wrote:
> > 1. has anyone seen an ultratone-7 print and compared it to a piezography print?
>  > 2. how about Quad RIP? i've seen roy harrington's scans on the web,
>  > but i'm still curious to know how the overall print appears in
>  > ultratone-7 versus Quad RIP.
> 
> I use the UT7 inks myself, with both the Epson driver and with QTR. I 
> have also seen numerous Piezo prints in exchanges.
> 
> You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between a well done print 
> made with any of these three workflows, but the UT7 inkset has the 
> obvious advantage of allowing you to vary the tone of the print from 
> cool to strong sepia. UT7 also has great performance on glossy papers. 
> That, combined with the much lower prices of the MIS inks makes the UT7 
> inkset the obvious choice for me.
> 
> The advantage of QTR isn't so much that the quality of the final print 
> is any better or worse - it's actually very similar to the Epson driver 
> - it's the excellent profiling tools and the very detailed controls over 
> each ink position it gives you that makes it worthwhile. If you're into 
> making custom profiles, mixing your own inks or just want more control 
> of the printmaking process in general then QTR is definitely the right 
> tool for the job.
> 
> That said, the UT7 inkset and the Epson driver is also much better in 
> this regard than it used to be. Paul has done a great job on making the 
> inkset easy to use and control - you get excellent prints just using the 
> driver controls and no curves, and still have a large selection of 
> curves available for various papers if you need that too.
> 
> > 3. have people had head clog problems with ultratone inks?
> 
> No clog problems for me, but I have experienced some banding problems 
> that I've mostly managed to solve. Prints on EEM, Photo Rag, Ilford 
> Smooth Pearl and Somerset Velvet all looks excellent with no banding 
> now. With BO prints I can still see some slight dither banding, and I've 
> also had problems on Condor. Not sure if this was because of the inkset 
> or if it was just my printer being difficult.
> 
> > 4. do the ultratone cartidges suffer from the same reporting problem as the 
piezography 
> > ones (not reporting accurate ink levels)?
> 
> I can't answer that, I'm using refilled Epson cartridges instead of the 
> MIS cartridges.
> 
> > 5. is it really true that you can just put in the ultratone cartridges without flushing out 
the 

> > ultrachrome inks?
> 
> Yes, like Mike said it typically takes 2 cleanings to make the switch.
> 
> --
> Daniel Staver
> http://daniel.staver.no

> 1. you both said 2 head cleanings are necessary when switching inks. do you mean 
> running the epson utility head cleaner, or are you talking about using some flush carts?

We're talking about the epson utility head cleaner. Just run two normal 
cycles and you're good. No flush carts are neccessary.

> 2. daniel (below) refers to BO prints. what are they? surely you don't mean black only? if 
> you're doing black only prints, why would you be using UT inks? just to get carbon rather 
> than dye based?

I don't really print BO, but I like to test the technique every once in 
a while just to keep up to date when people post new BO techniques and 
the like. I recently exchanged some UT7 prints with Clayton, and one of 
the things he sent me in return was several sheets of Condor paper. I 
got to try BO with Eboni ink on this paper and I must say I find the 
tone of those prints very attractive. I find myself trying to dupilicate 
that tone with my UT7 prints, so that's one area where BO was useful for me.

I also sometimes use it for troubleshooting my print head alignments.

> 3. daniel says he fills his own epson cartridges with MIS ink. any pointers on how to do 
> that?

Yes, I wrote a tutorial on that a while ago:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/message/45308

It takes some work to prepare everything, but once the cartridges are 
ready it's very easy to refill them.

You save tons of money refilling from bottles. I buy a set of 4oz 
bottles about once every 4-8 months depending on how much I print.

> 4. i'm still curious about dmax. with my QTR on epson enhanced matte, i still get a print 
> that has nothing like the depth of black that i used to get on my old selenium-toned, 
> fibre-based wet darkroom prints. am i expecting too much? is it hopeless to even try and 
> approach that? i've heard people say that the paper is more a factor in dmax than the inks, 
> and the epson dye inks actually give better dmax than the carbon-based inks any 
> comments?

If you really want high dmax you have two options:

1. Print on glossy papers. This is really easy with UT7, you don't even 
have to switch black inks, and the results are great. To get rid of 
bronzing problems you will need to spray the prints with either Lyson 
Print Guard or PremierArt Print Shield.

2. Print on matte papers and coat them afterwards. There's tons of info 
on this in the archives. The recommended approach was a #30 Mayer Rod 
with Hydrocote. I've briefly tried this approach, but problems with 
getting an even coat and avoiding dust kept me from pursuing this any 
further.

In fact, now that I finally have the option to get prints with good dmax 
using glossy papers I find that I've grown to prefer the look of a good 
cotton rag paper even though the dmax is a bit lower. But then again, I 
don't have any previous darkroom experience to draw from, I just jumped 
straight straight into digital printing as I started learning BW 
photography a few years ago. Maybe my opinion would be different if I'd 
had more experience with traditional processes and materials.

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