Digital BW, The Print

Has anyone used Ebony in place of the black pigment in the Epson 10K type machines with 
a full color set? I am wondering if a better d-max can be created this way, or if that would 
be a dangerous mix since the Epson pigments are polymer coated and therefore 
chemically different from Ebony.

John

john dean wrote:
> 
> Has anyone used Ebony in place of the black pigment in the Epson 10K type machines with 
> a full color set? I am wondering if a better d-max can be created this way, or if that would 
> be a dangerous mix since the Epson pigments are polymer coated and therefore 
> chemically different from Ebony.

Why only changing the black and not the CcMmY inks ?  I'm 
running the MIS7600 inkset with the Eboni black in a 10000CF. 
No problems so far. The Dmax certainly is much better. With 
the Epson driver 1.65 Dmax on German Etching. The gamut of the 
CF Archival inks is another reason to switch.

Epson information gave away that the polymer is an acrylic, 
acrylics are usually quite inert so the encapsulation could be 
barrier enough between the two pigment versions. I don't think 
you will run much risk in the heads of the 10000 either. The 
only other ink that gets in contact with the Black is the 
Magenta, both share the same capping station and wiper. 
Differences between the carriers of the inks may be more 
important in how they behave in the heads and on the paper, 
Paul might know the answer for that.

Ernst

The main reason that I'm not using MIS or Generatons pigments in the 10K is that I also 
have a 9600 now and I actually like the slightly pastel quality of the CF inkset for many 
things and have great profiles and have no issues with this inkset on rag media. Also I 
have a friend who almost completely ruined his new large format Epson 9600 with the 
generations pigments and he is lucky that Epson agreed to clean out his whole system as 
he was still under warranty. He could have lost everything. I have never once in 3 years 
had a single  clog of any kind with my CF. This is one of the things that I love about this 
machine besides it great speed and stability. I have no more patience for working on 
replacing heads. I just spent a month doing a clean out of my 7000 after the Lyson inks 
gummed it up completely.

 If I did use a replacement color inkset it would be the Lyson Cave Paint pigments. But, like 
with the MIS pigments, there is no outside test data available as to their real stability. Fact 
is Lyson has been wrong before and should have just paid Wilhelm to do decent tests. MIS 
tests are also I believe "internal".  I have learned over time not believe the conjecture of 
many third party ink companies. Some have out right misrepresented the truth, while 
others just didn't know the real truth. If Paul was in charge of that color inkset I would 
probably seriously consider it. If I did giant editions of things where I was really cranking 
out the square footage it would be a much more serious consideration for me.  

Anyway I do want to replace the black channel if possible, but if it is a a cost to my trouble 
free smooth operaton and mental sanity, I'll just use ultrachrome when I need an intense 
d-max.

John

> Epson information gave away that the polymer is an acrylic, 
> acrylics are usually quite inert so the encapsulation could be 
> barrier enough between the two pigment versions. I don't think 
> you will run much risk in the heads of the 10000 either. The 
> only other ink that gets in contact with the Black is the 
> Magenta, both share the same capping station and wiper. 
> Differences between the carriers of the inks may be more 
> important in how they behave in the heads and on the paper, 
> Paul might know the answer for that.
> 
> Ernst