Digital BW, The Print

Jim,

You wrote:

>I think that you said Legion Photomatte warmed about 1.5
>times that of EAM, and paper yellowed somewhat.

The LPM paper warmed more than EAM.  After 300 hours in the fluorescent
light fader, the results of my scan of the paper was as follows, with the
control test strips also noted:

EAM Control R-G-B:  254-254-254*
EAM after 300 hrs:  254-254-250

*(This is unusually neutral for EAM, which usually measures more like
254-255-253.)

LPM Control R-G-B:  249-252-254
LPM after 300 hrs:  251-253-250

So, LPM paper starts out as blue and "warms" to more neutral, but with a
touch of green, according to my scanner.

> In my six week window test, I found similar results.
>The MW curve is still somewhat acceptable after 6 weeks, nc fairs better.

Jerry Olson found that cooler prints seem to warm less.

>Strangely, after three weeks, things seem to be warmer
>on Hahnemuhle photorag than with Legion photomatte at 6 weeks.

>Also odd is the "c" curve has a disturbing unevenness-
>at 95% it suddenly goes abruptly warm...first time I have
>seen this, wonder if it is just an abnormality, like paper
>touched the glass at this point. Weird...

The MIS VM cool prints to go somewhat warm in the deep shadows because of
the black ink.  I don't modify the black ink, because I don't want to make
it less dense.  So, as the driver turns off the color inks and substitutes
the black ink, there will be a shift to slightly warm.  Usually this is
totally hidden in the deep shadows, so it is not noticed.

I notice that this may become more apparent if the paper is characterized by
bad shadow density fading.  Many papers that otherwise look good have fading
of their, for example, 90% test patches that is twice -- or more -- that of
EAM.  Both LPM and Museo are in this category.  (The only Hahnemuhle paper I
tested -- with Piezo -- gave results that suggested this problem also.
However, I don't have a fully comparable test of this paper.)

>I wanted to ask about your warming experience with Museo.
>With piezo ink I found it warmed about as much as EAM.

Museo is the only paper I've tested that does not warm at all at the 300
hour mark.  The MIS VM ink on Museo warmed the same as on EAM at the 50%
patch, and a hair more if the 20%-80% area was measured.

> I know that some people claim it doesn't print black enough.

When scanned together, I get a relative black measure of 97% for Museo
compared to EAM set to 100%.

>...if you can suggest another paper ...

Eclipse is the only paper I've tested that beat the EAM (slightly) with
respect to fading and warming, and even tied the EAM 90% fade result.  It's
main problem is that the black comes in at about 95% relative to EAM at
100%.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com