Digital BW, The Print

I am overwelmed by the number of inksets appearing on the market
for printing Fine Art B&W. The go from 3 densities of grays (like
Epson K3) up to 7 densities or so.
My question to the experts (expecially
Paul Roark for his extensive research in the field) is the following:
which is a reasonable number of gray densities needed for an inkset
to make top notch B&W prints?

Thanks,
  Daniela

Daniela,

>I am overwhelmed by the number of inksets appearing on 
>the market for printing Fine Art B&W.

Competition can be messy, but we all benefit from it.

If you look at just what the offerings are for the printer you have, the
numbers are much more manageable.  Also, simply stay away from dyes.  

> The go from 3 densities of grays (like Epson K3) up 
> to 7 densities or so.

>My question ...:
>which is a reasonable number of gray densities needed for 
>an inkset to make top notch B&W prints?

Short answer: With a modern hextone or better printer I see little value in
more than a black ink and 2 densities of midtone inks.  These printers use
variable dot sizes -- 3.  So, one might argue that you really have 9 levels.

The long answer:

It depends on the printer quality and how closely the print is examined,
among other things.  You'll definitely get different opinions from different
people.

The older printers with non-variable dot sizes required the very light
Piezo/MIS FS - Y-position ink due to their large dots.  My 7500 is best with
such an ink, for example.  So, for the older ones we've usually used 4 ink
densities (black, dark gray, medium gray, and light gray).  Even with this
many, on very close inspection of totally smooth areas one can sometimes
detect the cross-over points in the older printers.  As such, they arguably
would have benefited from more shades if one was printing very small images
with them.  However, for large display prints, the film grain and other
problems are far more significant.  So, I find 4 ink densities in the old
7500 to be just fine for my large prints.

The newer printers with variable-dot technology and very small dots don't
need as many ink densities.  For example, the MIS EZ B&W inks for the C86
(or C88 now) use only one midtone gray density, plus a black.  Some will see
the dots in the highlights, but many think it does an excellent job and see
no reason for more.  It just has 2 ink densities, but the lighter one is
used by 3 jets firing their smallest dots at very high resolution.  

I personally like the additional print quality the modern hextone printer
give over the C86 or C88.  So, for me the printer that gives the best for
the buck is the R220.  With a black and 2 midtone densities, it does an
excellent job.  That combination also allows the Epson driver to be used.
This is also an advantage in my view.

Probably the best printer I have is the 2400 with the same black and "color"
midtone inks as the 220, but also the LK and LLK.  I'm not sure how much of
the LK and LLK add to the quality.  I'm not sure I can really tell the
difference between the two.

I might add that more light ink is not better in all respects.  Light ink
fades faster.  Too much light ink will cause papers to ripple.  It also
increases artifacts on glossy papers.  Frankly, super-light ink is rather
expensive water.  But, there are definitely some who believe the more inks
the better.  I'm not among them.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

The answer to that is six. You can make beautiful monochrome prints
with 3 or 4 dilutions but Hextone is better. One day someone will fill
one of those Canon 12 channel machines with two sets of 6 and that it
is going to be amazing.(remember I said that)
john

> >My question ...:
> >which is a reasonable number of gray densities needed for 
> >an inkset to make top notch B&W prints?

In a message dated 8/10/06 6:11:50 PM, dgattarino@... writes:


> I am overwelmed by the number of inksets appearing on the market
> for printing Fine Art B&W. The go from 3 densities of grays (like
> Epson K3) up to 7 densities or so.
> My question to the experts (expecially
> Paul Roark for his extensive research in the field) is the following:
> which is a reasonable number of gray densities needed for an inkset
> to make top notch B&W prints?
> 

Well, three is really a minimum, since it allows blending neutral and near 
neutral tones mostly from gray inks, instead of having the lighter tones mixed 
mostly from Light Cyan, Light Magenta, and Yellow, as was the case with systems 
using only one or two levels of black. Beyond that, its a matter of many 
factors. I find some systems that attempt to stack several grays into the process 
actually are less smooth or less detailed for it, instead of more so, but that 
can vary with the profiles/linearization/ink definitions/dithering used. 

Extra inks beyond three or four tend to have more to do with tint control 
that just with extra levels. This means such inksets (be they color inksets with 
multiple grays, or "gray" inksets with subtle color tints in some channels) 
can be more flexible in printing a range of tones and tints, and addressing 
papers which print warmer or cooler more effectively. The dust has not settled yet 
on what the "best" solution is, as both the components available, and the 
expectations of users are changing over time.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com


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

Thanks from the few of you who answerd my question.
However, none of the replies mentioned the reason for the number they
quote as the minimum number black inks for fine art B&W.
I made a couple of considerations in the meantime:
1) The gray shades where the print start to look poor ar the lightest.
That's where the dots from the print start to become visible.
I have never seen such dots in the mid or dark tones
2) From a recent post from Clayton Jones
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/messages/78918?threaded=1&m=e&var=1&tidx=1)
it appears that the gray ink used by far the most is LLK. This means
that LLK has to cover a larger range of tones by itself, when compared
with the other gray inks. Therefore, it might need some "help" from
another gray shade.

The above considerations would suggest that the minimum number of gray
shade for best results is, infact, 4 with a LLLK supplementing Epson's
LLK in the highlights.

I would like to know what you think about the above.
Thanks. Cheers,
   Daniela

dgattarino wrote:
> Thanks from the few of you who answerd my question.
> However, none of the replies mentioned the reason for the number they
> quote as the minimum number black inks for fine art B&W.
> I made a couple of considerations in the meantime:
> 1) The gray shades where the print start to look poor ar the lightest.
> That's where the dots from the print start to become visible.
> I have never seen such dots in the mid or dark tones
> 2) From a recent post from Clayton Jones
> (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/messages/78918?threaded=1&m=e&var=1&tidx=1)
> it appears that the gray ink used by far the most is LLK. This means
> that LLK has to cover a larger range of tones by itself, when compared
> with the other gray inks. Therefore, it might need some "help" from
> another gray shade.
>
> The above considerations would suggest that the minimum number of gray
> shade for best results is, infact, 4 with a LLLK supplementing Epson's
> LLK in the highlights.
>
> I would like to know what you think about the above.
> Thanks. Cheers,
>    Daniela
I make no claims of authority, but I'll give you my take. The assumption 
I'm making in the following is that the goal is high quality "dotless" 
prints.

You need at least three inks. A black and two grays. Depending on the 
printer, this may be sufficient if everything is perfectly aligned, and 
the print head is in the center of it's design tolerances. No deflected 
nozzles, no alignment problems, all that.

The problem is, there aren't any three ink printers out there. When this 
all started, there were four ink printers (CMYK). So most of the 
pioneers used four inks (black and three grays). This put inks in all 
four slots, and took significant pressure off the hardware/software 
being really good. With four inks you can generally get quite nice 
results. Quad-tone inksets work really well.

When six ink printers (CcMmYK) came out, what most of the manufacturers 
did was to duplicate the most used inks. IOW, you were still using 
quads, just with a couple of positions doubled.

Only recently has software come available to allow direct control of the 
individual ink channels in printers (QTR, StudioPrint, IJC, others). 
This lets us have six, seven or more individual ink densities to play 
with. Many people think you get better tonality - smoother prints - 
using a black and five grays. As a result, hex-tone and sep-tone inksets 
are becoming more common.

So, to answer your question, I think the minimum number is three. The 
minimum *practical* number is four. The biggest bang for your buck is 
probably six-eight. I doubt there's any reason to do 12, but we won't 
know until someone tries it ;-)
-- 
Bruce Watson
/















/

I totally agree with what you said Bruce.

When it comes to Cone's NK7, the 7th channel is almost invisble and I
suspect put in there just to round out the total number of carts on
the new Epsons. There is no question that having a Hextone set
increases your tonality. The sixth channel is really really light and
definitely gives a smoother result than the quads. Before the K6 and
K7 inks came along recently, A guy out in California has been custom
diluting the older PiezoTone inks into 6 channels for some time with
outstanding results in regard to smooth transitions. 

I was sort of joking about trying the 12 channels of the new Canon
machines, but if you had those extra 6 spaces to play with and you had
a lot of time on your hands and a good rip that allows partitioning,
you could go to town with split toning arrangements. Some people a
year from now will undoubtedly engage in this. I think Cone is doing
it in a Roland now. 

John

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dgattarino"
<dgattarino@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks from the few of you who answerd my question.
> However, none of the replies mentioned the reason for the number they
> quote as the minimum number black inks for fine art B&W.

That's because it's one of those questions no one with much knowledge
would want to get into in depth.
It's too broad. Minimum to accomplish what? "Fine art B&W" by whose
standards?
It's like, "what's the best car?". A great deal more needs to be known
about your needs and wants, and even then there's a subjective element.


> The above considerations would suggest that the minimum number of gray
> shade for best results is, infact, 4 with a LLLK supplementing Epson's
> LLK in the highlights.

It may be, but as Paul suggested, it depends on the nature of the
source material, and the quality of the particular printer.
On the other hand, some might say you need all you can get. In all the
years of different inks and workflows I've seen, it certainly looks to
me like it just gets better and better with more, given proper
implementation, though surely there are diminishing returns. Other
people might not even percieve the difference. I use primarily sets of
4 partitions, but without changing the ink sets at all, got a recent
boost in quality just through some new software features, so it's not
just the number of inks. Also, with some source material you wont
realize the improvements. Then, at what cost? Do you want to control
hue or are you happy with a monochromatic ink set? When the K7s came
out, many said it's way more than necessary, well then, how come the
prints look so great?
There are a number of solutions out there touting different ink setups
and numbers of grays. Instead of working from a hypothetical "best"
standpoint, I think it would be better to see examples of results from
these systems for yourself.
Tyler

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dgattarino"
<dgattarino@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks from the few of you who answerd my question.
> However, none of the replies mentioned the reason for the number they
> quote as the minimum number black inks for fine art B&W.
> I made a couple of considerations in the meantime:
> 1) The gray shades where the print start to look poor ar the lightest.
> That's where the dots from the print start to become visible.
> I have never seen such dots in the mid or dark tones
> 2) From a recent post from Clayton Jones
>
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/messages/78918?threaded=1&m=e&var=1&tidx=1)
> it appears that the gray ink used by far the most is LLK. This means
> that LLK has to cover a larger range of tones by itself, when compared
> with the other gray inks. Therefore, it might need some "help" from
> another gray shade.
> 
> The above considerations would suggest that the minimum number of gray
> shade for best results is, infact, 4 with a LLLK supplementing Epson's
> LLK in the highlights.
> 
> I would like to know what you think about the above.
> Thanks. Cheers,
>    Daniela
>


I'll disagree slightly with this, while also agree slightly (how
redundant is this statement?). The way Epson did this was the same way
they do all their inks. They make the light inks do most of the work,
biasing the mixing toward the dark end. If they had used a lighter
light black, and lighter medium black, they would have been able to
get better highlights without needing as much color inks. However
doing this has some trade-offs in that you have a longer stretch where
the inks overlap, and this can produce higher ink loads on the paper.
This really comes into play when you are printing color and may have
considerable amounts of any two colors, plus considerable amount of
two black inks. The current Epson inks peak in density (on paper)
around the following (from a post by another member here about 3-4
months ago):
black - 100% (of course)
medium black - around 75%
light black - around 50%

So you still have a long space that the light black needs to cover,
and this of course requires the spacing between the dots in the
lightest shades. if you moved the light black to 25% max, and the
medium up to 50% max density, then you would get better coverage (more
ink on paper) up in the highlights, which gives a smoother tone. The
problem with this is that the full black will start to be dotty up
around 50%, so you would need to run increasing full black from 50% to
75%, as well as run the medium black for a longer period to get down
to the 75% density. The same will go for the light black to medium
black transition. When you start to look at the amount of ink on
paper, you may find that to produce a gray of 40% maximum, you need to
have the light black spraying almost at full capacity, and the medium
black at half capacity (or 150+% ink coverage). This really doesn't
mean much for neutral and lightly toned prints, but can really mean a
lot when you are doing color prints. And it is easier to understand
when you start graphing the density on paper vs. the amount of ink
being used.

So in short, you can get away with 3 carefully chosen black inks to
get really good results, but there may be a trade-off with the amount
of ink on paper. That's (one reason) why the Cone set uses 7 inks, the
amount of ink on paper is very consistent, and fairly small throughout
the entire density range until you get to full black ink. It allowed
the overlap areas to remain very short, where a 3 ink set might have
very long overlaps. 4 inks would reduce the amount of overlapped area
between any two shades, and if you run a 7 ink printer, you could
still have a real CMYK output.

This post has probably been more confusing than enlightening, sorry.

In a message dated 8/12/06 5:03:51 PM, dgattarino@... writes:


> Thanks from the few of you who answerd my question.
> However, none of the replies mentioned the reason for the number they
> quote as the minimum number black inks for fine art B&W.
> 

With only one black, all tones short of dark gray are blended from CMY 
colors, to avoid black grainy dots. With added "light black" tones from midtones on 
to black can be mixed with little color, and mostly gray, so that the amount 
of ink used is less, lowering bronzing. Adding a "light, light black" means 
that even the light grays can be gray, not CMY color blends. That means that even 
when printing color images, neutrals all the way to paper white can be 
printed well with gray inks, and minimize viewing light color shifts in graytone. 
Thats why I stated that three blacks were the minimum for good gray results.

C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Division
DataColor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com


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

Daniela,

I believe 4 shades are a safe bet, 3 may be problematic, and 5 may be 
overkill. It is important to note this depends on many variables; 
among them (1) printer droplet size, (2) printer driver (or RIP) 
which controls the dither, (3) relationship in color between the 
paper and the ink, and (5) viewer's visual acuity.

The modern Epson UC and K3 printer (and the older 1270, 1280 too)
drivers have a the capacity of very smooth prints, probably because 
of some proprietary dither algorithms. In comparison, the "Ordered" 
dither commonly used in QTR produces coarser prints, and therefore 
require more shades of gray. Try printing black only with QTR and 
compare with BO using Epson driver and you will see what I mean.

I am in the process of profiling right now, using the MIS UTFS (pure 
carbon) inks on a 2400 printer, using QTR. I have made custom 
dilution of the inks to increase the shades from the nominal 4 to 6 
shades. The papers I am profiling are Hahnemuhle William Turner and 
German Etching, both fairly warm tone papers. These papers are a 
wonderful color match to the pure carbon inks, and I must say that I 
see no visual reason to go beyond 3 shades when using 2880 
dpi, "better" options in QTR. For example at 60% ink limits, I start 
seeing the K (black) dots quite readily at 60% patch, which gets 
progressively worse at lower patches (brighter). The C (dark gray) 
dots become visible at the 55% patch. The M (medium gray) dots are 
virtually invisible even in the 5% patch. So, for this combination of 
printer, paper, ink, QTR at 2880 dpi, 3 shades are essential AND 
sufficient. My visual acuity (when I take my glasses off) is probably 
the equivalent of a 3X loupe; I focus on a 4x5 camera ground-glass 
without any aid.

Another note: If you are using QTR on the original UC (2200, 4000, 
etc) printers, you will (or at least I do) see dots when printing 
with "warm" curves, which use just 2 inks (K and LK). But curves such 
as "cool" or "cool-selenium" additonally use LC and LM inks, and the 
dottiness is definitely lower.

I hope this helps. Best regards and good luck.

Shilesh

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dgattarino" 
<dgattarino@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks from the few of you who answerd my question.
> However, none of the replies mentioned the reason for the number 
they
> quote as the minimum number black inks for fine art B&W.
> I made a couple of considerations in the meantime:
> 1) The gray shades where the print start to look poor ar the 
lightest.
> That's where the dots from the print start to become visible.
> I have never seen such dots in the mid or dark tones
> 2) From a recent post from Clayton Jones
> 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/messages/7
8918?threaded=1&m=e&var=1&tidx=1)
> it appears that the gray ink used by far the most is LLK. This means
> that LLK has to cover a larger range of tones by itself, when 
compared
> with the other gray inks. Therefore, it might need some "help" from
> another gray shade.
> 
> The above considerations would suggest that the minimum number of 
gray
> shade for best results is, infact, 4 with a LLLK supplementing 
Epson's

> LLK in the highlights.
> 
> I would like to know what you think about the above.
> Thanks. Cheers,
>    Daniela
>

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Greg"
<dfaprinting@...> wrote:

snip...
> This really comes into play when you are printing color and may have
> considerable amounts of any two colors, plus considerable amount of
> two black inks. The current Epson inks peak in density (on paper)
> around the following (from a post by another member here about 3-4
> months ago):
> black - 100% (of course)
> medium black - around 75%
> light black - around 50%
> 
> So you still have a long space that the light black needs to cover...

which, along with David Tobie's post, brings up an  interesting point.
Epsons lk inks were designed primarily to improve performance for
color printing- they can do a longer GCR which helps a number of
persistant problems.
That it improves B&W printing and allowed them to put an IP style ABW
mode in the driver was no doubt icing on the cake.
But those densities are clearly a bit less than ideal if considered
for B&W performance alone. Certainly better than 2 ks though.
Tyler

Oh,

I forget to add: As you go down in density of say K and the dots 
become visble at 60% patch desity, the next dense ink has to be able 
to support this density at reasonable ink limit, preferably less than 
80% ink limit.

I hope this does not make my logic even more murky.

With this in mind, and judging based ONLY on ramps, I may want to 
revise my recommendation to a higher number of ink shades than 3.

Shilesh

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Shilesh Jani" 
<shileshjani@...> wrote:
>
> Daniela,
> 
> I believe 4 shades are a safe bet, 3 may be problematic, and 5 may 
be 
> overkill. It is important to note this depends on many variables; 
> among them (1) printer droplet size, (2) printer driver (or RIP) 
> which controls the dither, (3) relationship in color between the 
> paper and the ink, and (5) viewer's visual acuity.
> 
> The modern Epson UC and K3 printer (and the older 1270, 1280 too)
> drivers have a the capacity of very smooth prints, probably because 
> of some proprietary dither algorithms. In comparison, the "Ordered" 
> dither commonly used in QTR produces coarser prints, and therefore 
> require more shades of gray. Try printing black only with QTR and 
> compare with BO using Epson driver and you will see what I mean.
> 
> I am in the process of profiling right now, using the MIS UTFS 
(pure 
> carbon) inks on a 2400 printer, using QTR. I have made custom 
> dilution of the inks to increase the shades from the nominal 4 to 6 
> shades. The papers I am profiling are Hahnemuhle William Turner and 
> German Etching, both fairly warm tone papers. These papers are a 
> wonderful color match to the pure carbon inks, and I must say that 
I 
> see no visual reason to go beyond 3 shades when using 2880 
> dpi, "better" options in QTR. For example at 60% ink limits, I 
start 
> seeing the K (black) dots quite readily at 60% patch, which gets 
> progressively worse at lower patches (brighter). The C (dark gray) 
> dots become visible at the 55% patch. The M (medium gray) dots are 
> virtually invisible even in the 5% patch. So, for this combination 
of 
> printer, paper, ink, QTR at 2880 dpi, 3 shades are essential AND 
> sufficient. My visual acuity (when I take my glasses off) is 
probably 
> the equivalent of a 3X loupe; I focus on a 4x5 camera ground-glass 
> without any aid.
> 
> Another note: If you are using QTR on the original UC (2200, 4000, 
> etc) printers, you will (or at least I do) see dots when printing 
> with "warm" curves, which use just 2 inks (K and LK). But curves 
such 
> as "cool" or "cool-selenium" additonally use LC and LM inks, and 
the 
> dottiness is definitely lower.
> 
> I hope this helps. Best regards and good luck.
> 
> Shilesh
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dgattarino" 
> <dgattarino@> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks from the few of you who answerd my question.
> > However, none of the replies mentioned the reason for the number 
> they
> > quote as the minimum number black inks for fine art B&W.
> > I made a couple of considerations in the meantime:
> > 1) The gray shades where the print start to look poor ar the 
> lightest.
> > That's where the dots from the print start to become visible.
> > I have never seen such dots in the mid or dark tones
> > 2) From a recent post from Clayton Jones
> > 
> 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/messages/7
> 8918?threaded=1&m=e&var=1&tidx=1)
> > it appears that the gray ink used by far the most is LLK. This 
means
> > that LLK has to cover a larger range of tones by itself, when 
> compared
> > with the other gray inks. Therefore, it might need some "help" 
from

> > another gray shade.
> > 
> > The above considerations would suggest that the minimum number of 
> gray
> > shade for best results is, infact, 4 with a LLLK supplementing 
> Epson's
> > LLK in the highlights.
> > 
> > I would like to know what you think about the above.
> > Thanks. Cheers,
> >    Daniela
> >
>

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Shilesh Jani"
<shileshjani@...> wrote:
>
> Oh,
> 
> I forget to add: As you go down in density of say K and the dots 
> become visble at 60% patch desity, the next dense ink has to be able 
> to support this density at reasonable ink limit, preferably less than 
> 80% ink limit.
> 


Even if the next lightest ink does not cover where you get visible
dots, you can still get a dotless print. Lets say we are talking about
full black and medium black. Full black becomes dotty at 60% maximum
density, medium black maxes out at 40% density (full coverage though)
keep your medium black at nearly full density and add in some full
black. This will increase the density, and you will still have full
coverage. As the percentage of full black rises, you decrease the
percentage of medium black until you get a complete hand off to full
black.

In theory this is perfect. In practice this has some trade-offs which
I explained in my previous post.

Greg,

I agree. I just finished linearing the 3, 4, and 6 ink set-ups, and 
there is certainly no visible difference between them in smoothness 
in a 10 inch print of a 360 ppi ramp. One has to remember that 
William Turner and German Etching at slightly textured, so they may 
be better at hiding the dots.

Shilesh

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Greg" 
<dfaprinting@...> wrote:
>
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Shilesh Jani"
> <shileshjani@> wrote:
> >
> > Oh,
> > 
> > I forget to add: As you go down in density of say K and the dots 
> > become visble at 60% patch desity, the next dense ink has to be 
able 
> > to support this density at reasonable ink limit, preferably less 
than 
> > 80% ink limit.
> > 
> 
> 
> Even if the next lightest ink does not cover where you get visible
> dots, you can still get a dotless print. Lets say we are talking 
about
> full black and medium black. Full black becomes dotty at 60% maximum
> density, medium black maxes out at 40% density (full coverage 
though)
> keep your medium black at nearly full density and add in some full
> black. This will increase the density, and you will still have full
> coverage. As the percentage of full black rises, you decrease the
> percentage of medium black until you get a complete hand off to full
> black.
> 
> In theory this is perfect. In practice this has some trade-offs 
which
> I explained in my previous post.
>

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Shilesh Jani"
<shileshjani@...> wrote:
>
> Greg,
> 
> I agree. I just finished linearing the 3, 4, and 6 ink set-ups, and 
> there is certainly no visible difference between them in smoothness 
> in a 10 inch print of a 360 ppi ramp. One has to remember that 
> William Turner and German Etching at slightly textured, so they may 
> be better at hiding the dots.
> 


From the testing that I've done, Willy Turner and GE hold a very tight
dot. Much less gain than Photo Rag, so if you were going to see dots,
you would have seen them.

In my mind it is really about the highlights. You have to be able to
get that area covered, and then just blend everything else so that you
get the smoothest output possible.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark"
<paul.roark@...> wrote:

Paul,

(looks like I finally made it to the group, this is my first post!)
 
In your answer to Daniela,

> I personally like the additional print quality the modern hextone
printer
> give over the C86 or C88.  So, for me the printer that gives the
best for
> the buck is the R220.  With a black and 2 midtone densities, it does an
> excellent job.  That combination also allows the Epson driver to be
used.
> This is also an advantage in my view.

Basic newbie level question here: With a black and 2 midtone
densities, aren't there three empty slots in the printer? How can that
work? ... or do you leave three color carts there and simply not call
them up when you print?

Thanks!

Paul

Paul,

 

Glad to see you finally got on the forum.

 

The R220 R2 ink approach uses all the spots on the hextone printer.
However, the 2 dark grays are the same density, and the light inks,
including yellow, are all the same.  So, there is a full set of inks, but
there are not 6 different densities.

 

Paul

www.PaulRoark.com <http://www.paulroark.com/>  

 

 

  _____  

From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
paulmwhiting
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 1:20 PM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] FIne Art B&W and number of black inks

 

--- In DigitalBlackandWhit
<mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint%40yahoogroups.com>
eThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark"
<paul.roark@...> wrote:

Paul,

(looks like I finally made it to the group, this is my first post!)

In your answer to Daniela,

> I personally like the additional print quality the modern hextone
printer
> give over the C86 or C88. So, for me the printer that gives the
best for
> the buck is the R220. With a black and 2 midtone densities, it does an
> excellent job. That combination also allows the Epson driver to be
used.
> This is also an advantage in my view.

Basic newbie level question here: With a black and 2 midtone
densities, aren't there three empty slots in the printer? How can that
work? ... or do you leave three color carts there and simply not call
them up when you print?

Thanks!

Paul

 



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