Digital BW, The Print

I just printed a 21 step ramp on Epson Fine Art Smooth with the MIS 
Variable Tone Inks. I am getting a significant amount of mottling in 
the midtones and shadow areas 90-95%. At first I thought that it is 
just wet, but it has been a good 15 minutes and it is still there.

Has anyone else tested the EFAS?

Mike

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Michael J. Kravit" <kravit@b...> wrote:
> I just printed a 21 step ramp on Epson Fine Art Smooth with the MIS 
> Variable Tone Inks. I am getting a significant amount of mottling in 
> the midtones and shadow areas 90-95%. At first I thought that it is 
> just wet, but it has been a good 15 minutes and it is still there.

Means that particular paper can't handle the ink load of those particular inks with those curves. Common problem with 
pigments, MIS more so than Piezo. Papers that have these problems require a lot of testing to find out at what percent each 
ink begins to mottle, and also what percentage of ink combinations begin to mottle, as well as total oink limit. oink.
Once you know this, your curves can be worked out within those limits. Generally you bring each ink in up to within it's limit, 
then back it out fairly quickly. Usually results in steeper curves that are harder to perfect, and using each darker ink a bit 
higher up the scale to get the proper value with less ink density.
With some papers like Arches that can't take much ionk, it may be  best to "curve" the lightest onk right out of the picture, 
and just do tritonkes.
Even better, don't use that paper...
Tyler

Sorry to be running off at the keyboard here but I just had another idea that might be very simple for you, and I've had too 
much coffee. You may be able to leave everything the same, but find a media setting in the driver that puts down less ink. 
Do some small tests of the problem values (they'll shift a bit so include the general tonal area) on different media settings. 
If one works, it'll print too light, but you should be able to come up with an adjustment to the file that will allow you to use 
the same sep curves. You may loose some max K, but it might be minimal.
Some media settings change some of the other inks more than the K, to a suprising degree with some drivers, and that's 
what you need.
Tyler