Digital BW, The Print

Frank , I'll throw in my 2cents here. I own a 3000 Piezo system and A 7000 
That I just started printing with, Loaded with MIS hextones(thier standard 6 
tone balck and white ink set)
In my opinion all piezo prints are equal 1160, 3000, 1200. 7000 as far as 
quality of the print. The only differance is the paper handling and size it 
can produce. My 3000 has been a wonderful workhorse for over two years 
producing quadtone prints only on Rag papers. Recently A batch of 15 16x20's 
made with the piezo driver on Royal Plush seemed A OK even though the new 
piezo 3000 driver  It took 1.20hrs to produce each print. I went to mat these 
prints and 1/3 of them were 15inch at the top and 14 7/8 in width at the 
bottom. This pissed me off so much I bought the 7000. A machine that can do 
it all and more. Large ink tanks, brilliant paper handling(any thickness) 
reliable etc. Time is money and I hope this well save me alot in the long 
run. My poor 3000? I just worked it to death, but I'am still using it, and 
its still truckin as long as I stay with paper 250gsm or under.
7000 vs. 3000/
So far the 3000 piezo prints beat the 7000 Epson driver prints. But not by 
much. I do see dots in the 7000 prints but its pretty damm good using the 
Epson driver with out any adjustments. It wouldn't take much to get waht ever 
you want out of the 7000. I'am just testing a few non-piezo methods to see if 
I can get by without the Piezo Driver. For me The piezo driver might have the 
advantage as I'am not that skilled in curve adjustments, and I like working 
with greyscal files vs. RGB, And I like everything clean and consistant from 
paper to paper. 
I hope there are other 7000 users here who will post there opinions. 
I'am Using the Carl Corey Workflow  Epson 7000 From the MIS Website. Anybody 
familiar with this one?
The only problem is my shadows are a little blocked up and coarse looking. I 
want what piezo can do! Great tonal transitions and dotless images.
The 6 inks of the 7000 seem to make whatever its dot size is, almost null and 
void....
Steve M.

In a message dated 08/09/2001 11:57:23 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
frank@... writes:

<< Incidently, I just bought an 1160 and have not set it up yet for Piezo, 
 but I was disappointed to hear that you think the 3000 is superior. I 
 thought I was buying "state of the art" for Piezo work.  The 3000 must 
 have the longest production run of any Epson printer.
 
 Frank
 http://www.culturalvsions.com >>

Steve,

You wrote:

...
  > I want what piezo can do!
  > Great tonal transitions and dotless images.  ...

  Mike Kravit just printed the first iteration of the neutral curve for the
variable-tone/mix MIS inks on his 7000.  It looks like it'll deliver what
you're after.  I'm sure Mike will post his reactions to the system.


  Paul



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

Glad to see you are back Paul. Did you get some Prize winning photos of
Alaska?  How were the Mosquitoes?

A Monster storm hit Grand Forks day before yesterday. It did major damage to
the city, and there was
Lots of tree damage in our back yard, but we have it cleaned up now. Petunias
are wrecked totally, but for some unbelievable reason, the impatiens weren't
damaged at all!!! About 3/4ths of the trees in town were damaged, and about
5000 uprooted. Mostly in the older, nicer neighborhoods. 114 mile an hour
winds at the airbase, 101 mph in town. Never saw anything like it. Never want
to again!  We were without power 25 hours, still no cable t.v. Got about 3
inches of rain in 25 minutes, and couldn't even see the fence from our
sunroom.  Water all over the basement, because of the sump pumps being off.
But the water is all gone now, and sump pumps are working overtime.  Those are
hurricane force winds, but they claim it wasn't a tornado... Actually it
couldn't have been or there would have been a lot more building damage.

Did you get the prints I sent as you were leaving for vacation? I got a set of
MIS archival Color inks, with their double density black for my color printer.
Profiled my monitor with the spyder and colorcal software. Now I have to
profile my printer with the MIS inks. Have you ever used the MIS color
pigmented Archival inks, and if you have, how do they compare to the
Generations? I chose the MIS set because Bob said the double density black
inks would work with their color archival inks, and it's really black!

Jerry

Jerry,

You wrote:

>.... Did you get some Prize winning photos of Alaska?

I hope so.  Some bad weather made for some very nice cloud shows.

I used T400CN film in the Fuji GA645Zi for this trip, since it was with
family and I needed to be able to do fast shooting.  As you know, I prefer
Tmax 100 and Microdol 1:3 with 3 minute agitation intervals to get maximum
sharpness.  So, I'm a bit apprehensive with respect to the quality I'll be
able to get.  Also, of course, I don't entirely trust commercial labs with
developing.  I'll see the negatives today.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

>How were the Mosquitoes?

The civilized parts of AK are not as bad as those photos of the north slope
you see.  I worked in Anchorage for a summer and really never had a mosquito
bite there.

In the sticks you do run into them (some say it should be the AK state
bird).  However, deet (the active ingredient in Cutters and many others)
works as well in AK as in the Sierras.  For backpacking my regular group now
uses what the Army tests show to be a close to perfect combination for
mosquitoes and ticks: deet (close to a 20% concentration seems optimal) on
the skin and permethrin spray on the clothes.  It really takes care of the
little beasts.

>A Monster storm hit Grand Forks day before yesterday.
>It did major damage ...

Sorry to hear about that.

>Did you get the prints I sent as you were leaving for vacation?

Yes, I'll do another iteration of the 1280 curves today, with luck.

> I got a set of MIS archival Color inks,
>with their double density black for my color printer.

Don't confuse what MIS now sells as "Double Density" ink with the test inks
called "Double Density."  The new MIS DD inks was one of the ones I didn't
like for the variable-tone.

The best of the blacks I tried was as co-solvent formula like Piezo black.
It is now sold as part of the VM and Spectratone inksets.  It has the
characteristic solvent smell of Piezo inks, and appears to be virtually
identical to Piezo black.  (In terms of both blackness and fade resistance,
it beat Piezo by just a hair -- probably not a significant margin.  I
consider them identical.)

The new MIS DD black, however, which is sold to beef up the blacks of the
standard MIS quads and, apparently, the Archival Color inkset is not a
solvent based ink.  You can tell which black you have by smelling it.  The
DD black may be great for the standard MIS quads and color inksets.
However, with the variable-tone inkset it tended to block up the dark tones.
So, you might want to check out the dark tone separation and see if it is
doing the same thing in the color inkset.

> Have you ever used the MIS color
>pigmented Archival inks, and if you have,
>how do they compare to the Generations?

I have not used them as a color inkset.  I use them to make the toner for
the variable-tone, and those inks appear to be identical to the Generations
pigments.  My understanding is that MIS and the Generations 3 use the same
color pigments.  Gen 4 went to the new yellow to get better light fastness
(the yellow MIS is the limiting factor -- but still good to 50 years).  MIS
decided against the new yellow for color reasons, but MIS will sell it if
requested.

So, color-wise, the MIS and Gen 3 should be identical.

> I chose the MIS set because Bob said the double density black
>inks would work with their color archival inks,
>and it's really black!

If the new DD black works well with the color pigments, it may take care of
the primary complaint people seem to have with MIS inks -- weak blacks.
However, I note that the new Piezo color inkset black is even less black
than standard MIS black -- some say this helps reduce metamerism.  I also
beleive that the Generations Enhanced (Beta) Black is still darker, but it
also seems to increase metamerism in the quad tests I've done.  It also
fades faster, but that may be irrelevant in the color inksets.

So, with respect to the depth of blacks, it appears there is simply a trade
off.  In general, deeper blacks also means more fading, color shifting, and
metamerism.  In my quad experiments, the Piezo black seemed to give the best
combination, but for a price.  Now the MIS VM or Spectratone black gives the
same performance for MIS prices, and now gets my vote as the black ink of
choice.  But this is for quads.  I don't know how it would do in the color
inkset.

Having thrown in all this confusing information, just go with what works for
you.  I assume MIS is selling the DD black for the color inkset because it
does the job.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com

Hi Paul,

Cathy Brown sent a print with the piezo color inks. It had a weak black, but
she sprayed semi glossy paper with a sort of matte spray, which I'm sure dulled
them a bit. Colors were about the same as generations inks.

I've gotta start somewhere, So I have the MIS Double Density and their Archival
inks. We'll see what happens. I'm probably on my last set of piezo inks. They
are just too expensive for what you get. I like the MIS better anyhow.

Bob did mention that the double density black was not the same as the black
used with the variable tone inks, but didn't say what the difference was in
color.

Right now I have the current set of generations inks in the printer, so will
profile them first, because they're there. Then I'll do the MIS with double
density.

Jerry