Digital BW, The Print

While waiting for Jon Cone to make his cartridge refill kits available, I've been using Epson 
carts on my R2400.

I ran a test of ABW against the QTR driver using Keith Cooper's B&W image (at 
www.northlight-images.co.uk/digital_black_white.html) printed on EEM.

With ABW, I followed Clayton Jones's suggested workflow, Light tone and -5% ink and 
compared it with QTR using the quad2400 driver.  In both cases I chose Neutral for EEM 
paper.

There is a subtle, but noticeable, difference, with the QTR driver producing a better tonal 
spectrum.

ABW does add a small amount of color, raising a question of long term stability.  But I'm 
guessing that QTR uses only the three blacks and would, therefore, avoid this problem.  Am I 
guessing correctly?

(Of course, I'm aware of stability problems with EEM itself, but that's not at issue here.)

Harry

On 13/05/2008 hflockwood wrote:
> While waiting for Jon Cone to make his cartridge refill kits 
> available, I've been using Epson carts on my R2400. 

> I ran a test of 
> ABW against the QTR driver using Keith Cooper's B&W image (at 
> www.northlight-images.co.uk/digital_black_white.html) printed on EEM.

> With ABW, I followed Clayton Jones's suggested workflow, Light tone 
> and -5% ink and compared it with QTR using the quad2400 driver. In 
> both cases I chose Neutral for EEM paper. 

> There is a subtle, but 
> noticeable, difference, with the QTR driver producing a better tonal 
> spectrum. 

> ABW does add a small amount of color, raising a question of 
> long term stability. But I'm guessing that QTR uses only the three 
> blacks and would, therefore, avoid this problem. Am I guessing 
> correctly?

No Harry, the QTR UCmk-EEnhMatte-neut curve uses small amounts of colour 
inks.  If you use QTRgui you can right-click on the name of the curve 
(in the Curve Setup dialog) to show the ink curves.

To eliminate colour inks, choose the UCmk-EEnhMatte-warm curve. The 
'uncoloured' grey inks produce a very warm print on EEM.

Peter Marquis-Kyle

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Peter Marquis-Kyle <peter@...> 
wrote:
>
> On 13/05/2008 hflockwood wrote:
> > While waiting for Jon Cone to make his cartridge refill kits 
> > available, I've been using Epson carts on my R2400. 
> 
> > I ran a test of 
> > ABW against the QTR driver using Keith Cooper's B&W image (at 
> > www.northlight-images.co.uk/digital_black_white.html) printed on EEM.
> 
> > With ABW, I followed Clayton Jones's suggested workflow, Light tone 
> > and -5% ink and compared it with QTR using the quad2400 driver. In 
> > both cases I chose Neutral for EEM paper. 
> 
> > There is a subtle, but 
> > noticeable, difference, with the QTR driver producing a better tonal 
> > spectrum. 
> 
> > ABW does add a small amount of color, raising a question of 
> > long term stability. But I'm guessing that QTR uses only the three 
> > blacks and would, therefore, avoid this problem. Am I guessing 
> > correctly?
> 
> No Harry, the QTR UCmk-EEnhMatte-neut curve uses small amounts of colour 
> inks.  If you use QTRgui you can right-click on the name of the curve 
> (in the Curve Setup dialog) to show the ink curves.
> 
> To eliminate colour inks, choose the UCmk-EEnhMatte-warm curve. The 
> 'uncoloured' grey inks produce a very warm print on EEM.
> 
> Peter Marquis-Kyle
>

Peter,

Thanks for the correction, but I'll stand by  my observation on the tonal ranges.

It's sort of academic (for me) since I'll be going back to piezo inks as soon as Jon releases 
the refill kits.

Harry

Is there any way of using MK + PK + LK + LLK like the HP printers do, in QTR?

Richard

At 02:56 a.m. Wednesday 14/05/2008, you wrote:
>> No Harry, the QTR UCmk-EEnhMatte-neut curve uses small amounts of colour 
>> inks. If you use QTRgui you can right-click on the name of the curve 
>> (in the Curve Setup dialog) to show the ink curves.
>> 
>> To eliminate colour inks, choose the UCmk-EEnhMatte-warm curve. The 
>> 'uncoloured' grey inks produce a very warm print on EEM.

--
http://smallfield.vze.com 

   "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. 
   Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
   Begin it now."
   --Goethe

Yes, but it would be a very warm tone as the Epson and MIS black inks  
are not neutral.  Small amounts of LM and LC are needed to neutralize  
the warm carbon inn the K, LK, and LLK inks.  Also, if you are using  
an Epson printer that has both PK and MK channels (eg. the 4000) you  
cannot access both at the same time, even with QTR.  The only way  
around this Epson firmware issue would be to have one of the blacks in  
another channel (eg. move PK to the Y channel in a 4000), but then you  
lose color printing capability.

On May 13, 2008, at 2:33 PM, Richard Smallfield wrote:

> Is there any way of using MK + PK + LK + LLK like the HP printers  
> do, in QTR?
>
> Richard
>
> At 02:56 a.m. Wednesday 14/05/2008, you wrote:
>>> No Harry, the QTR UCmk-EEnhMatte-neut curve uses small amounts of  
>>> colour
>>> inks. If you use QTRgui you can right-click on the name of the curve
>>> (in the Curve Setup dialog) to show the ink curves.
>>>
>>> To eliminate colour inks, choose the UCmk-EEnhMatte-warm curve. The
>>> 'uncoloured' grey inks produce a very warm print on EEM.