Spectratone Print Samples
2001-08-09 by mwesley250@earthlink.net
Allen, I got the sample prints you sent. Thanks a lot, just when I was getting used to the warm tone of my Piezo prints you have to go and send me these prints with a wonderful cool selenium tone. Sigh. Seriously the color of the ink set is very nice indeed and the prints sitting on my table say "silver." I seriously doubt that the average viewer would realize they were inkjet and not the genuine article. In side-to-side comparisons with selenium toned Ilford and Oriental fiber paper under a combination of quartz halogen and tungsten floods, the Spectratone looked a little cool. Under tungsten very neutral. Both nice and to my taste. Have you considered a variable tone approach similar to what Paul Roark worked out with the MIS inks? Anyone out there trying to get pigment ink to stay on papers like Kodak Ultima Satin should stop driving themselves crazy and take a look at this stuff. Allen, have you tried that paper by the way? I do have to disagree with you on the 1200 vs. 3000 output. To me the 1200 print on the Ilford 9 mil glossy is the best. Black looks a little blacker. Slightly smoother tonal transitions. Looks sharper at normal viewing distances. Under magnification I can see the dot pattern on 3000 prints and an occasional tiny tonal band. At normal viewing distances for these 8.5X11's this gives the image a bit of a grainy quality on the very glossy film, which is very unforgiving, a little less on the semi matte and completely invisible on the Oce Watercolor. With large prints or on textured paper this would not be an issue. The 1200 print under magnification shows a dot pattern which is much more subtle. (This is much better than the "window screen" pattern that I see in my Piezo prints with the 1200.) The edges of the letters are much sharper and cleaner than the 3000 prints. Even on the glossy paper I can't see the pattern under normal viewing. The print from the 1200 indicates that it was printed using the "Standard RGB 1200 driver 5.6E" was this done without PressReady? I like the inks but I am not fond of the papers. The Ilford papers are too much like RC silver for my tastes but at the same time the 1200 print is closest thing to real RC silver in quality I have seen. In some ways I like is better. I can see some slight "bronzing" or "solarization" when light reflects off the glossy prints, nothing extreme like a pigment print on glossy paper, but noticeable. Probably less than a silver RC for that matter but I don't have a RC print handy to compare. The semi matte is more appealing and shows much less "solarization" than the glossy. The Oce Watercolor looks the best except that the texture is too large for a print this size and overwhelms the image. The print color and tonality are excellent with better separation in the shadows. I would really like to see the ink on some bright white papers ranging in smoothness comparable to Museo or Epson Archival Matte. Once again there is a large amount of personal taste involved here. This would be a perfect ink set and paper combination for Rick Schiller who was looking for a reliable neutral B&W output for his head shot work or anyone wanting the look of a glossy silver gelatin print. This would also be really great on the big printers 7000 or 9000 for display prints. The output is much nicer than the monochrome Fuji Crystal I saw a few years ago. (I haven't seen anything recent so the Fuji may have improved). A photo lab or service bureau could offer top notch B&W without the huge cost of a LightJet. Would be a great way to provide contact negs for alternative processes as well. I can also see why Dan Burkholder is looking at this for making contact negatives. Not only do you have the high quality and density but it actually stays on the film unlike the pigment inks. For the lone photographer starting from the ground up there look to be two paths. - The Epson 3000, Adobe PressReady and a set of ink cartridges for about $1,500. If you already have the 3000, $500 -A refurbished Epson 1200 ($234), CIS, ink and PressReady for about $815. If you already have the 1200, about $580. First of all is that correct or can you go without the PressReady on either printer? Have you run the inks with an Epson 1270 or 1280? If I were going to buy another printer, I would just as soon get a model that is still in production. I'm curious to give them a try, but I would like a better art paper for small size "fine art" prints and some way cheaper to stick my toe in the water. I am thinking of trying the new MIS on a 1280. If that works out, I'll consider switching my 1200 over to the Spectratones. Thank you again for the prints. I know you sent them out to some other folks on the list and I hope they will chip in their opinions too. Keep us posted on your work with Dan and developements in general. Martin Wesley