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Digital BW, The Print

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[Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?

[Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?

2002-02-18 by Paul Roark

Mark wrote:

>....
>So how best to print warm tones on the 1280? Invest
>in the piezo system, or can anyone share an alternate
>1280 CIS workflow?

As Mike noted, the  MIS standard quads are an option.  The shadows would be
a bit warmer than the MIS VM warm curve.  The black with the standard MIS
quad is about as dark as the 95% with the MIS VM black.

The MIS VM-Sepia is available if you contact MIS.  It uses the same curves
as the standard MIS VM inkset, and can go from neutral to very warm (sepia).

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com

Re: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?

2002-02-18 by Michael Kravit

Mark,

Interesting, on my 1280 I get beautiful consistent prints with all 4 of the
curves. What paper are you using? I do not have any color crossover with the
toner whatsoever. I suggest you write Paul Roark and perhaps he can offer
some insight and help.

The FS inks were formulated to be used with the Piezo driver or any RIP that
supports the Piezo ink set. Using the FS inks without the appropriate
software that compartmentalizes and profiles the ink and paper will be
problematic. However, I believe there is a workflow on the MIS site that
someone wrote to utilize the Epson driver. I believe it may be the "Wolf
Workflow, but could be mistaken.

For "warm tone" prints and by warm tone I assume that you mean deep brown
and not sepia I would think that the Original MIS Hextones might produce the
warmest prints. The workflow can be a bit daunting, but the 1280 is so good
at printing I believe that you may like these inks. There are workflows
written for them on the MIS sight as well.

The new MIS Sepia-Neutral VM inks should be available soon if not already.
They will use the Roark VM curves from what I have read. The will go from
Sepia to Neutral and are adjustable with the sliders.

Hope this helps, but your options may be limited. Have you tried using the
Epson color dyes for your 1280. They are very stable and on good quality
paper with a good profile should not give much crossover if any at all. You
can print in duotone, tritone, or quadtone. Also you can take your grayscale
image and convert it to RGB and use channel mixer to vary the image tone.

Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "mgoud" <mgoud@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2002 7:32 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?


> After reading many posts on the subject, I recently
> bought a 1280 printer for my bw work.
>
> First I tried the VM inks. Netural and cool tones
> seem to work reasonably well after futzing with the
> curves a bit. But the warm tone curves seem to suffer
> somewhat from crossover effects in the shadows, as
> the blue mixes in prior to the black taking over.
>
> Then I tried the FS inks. Turns out that this inkset
> only uses four shades (not six). And I'm seeing a
> light band just before the black ink kicks in. (I'm
> assuming this comes about because the epson driver
> is blending as if C and M are darker than PC and PM.)
>
> So how best to print warm tones on the 1280? Invest
> in the piezo system, or can anyone share an alternate
> 1280 CIS workflow?
>
>  -Mark
>
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Re: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?

2002-02-18 by mgoud

Mike and Paul, Thanks for your helpful suggestions!
I will try both the sepia and original mis hextone
sets and see what works best....

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Michael Kravit" 
<michael.kravit@w...> wrote:
> Interesting, on my 1280 I get beautiful consistent
> prints with all 4  of the curves. What paper are you
> using? I do not have any color crossover with the
> toner whatsoever.

I have printed scales on both somerset pe and museo
with Paul's original vm curves on my 1280 (using the
recommended color space and print settings).

Here is what I see:
 - Best results are with the neutral and medium warm
   curves, but all show some banding -- mostly in the
   midtone areas. (The warm curve produces a fairly
   distinct dark band right around 60%.) Smoothest
   scale is on somerset pe medium-warm.
 - In all cases there is some mottling in the 60%
   neighborhood (worse on somerset paper).

Now that I think about it, the crossover problems
I mentioned earlier came about using my own curves
as I was trying to fix artifacts noted above. So
that's my own fault.

The best way I have found to see how well things are
working is to print a (~1.5inch diameter) radial
gradient. If there are any nonlinearities, they will
show up as light or dark rings. I don't know if it's
because I'm extra picky or my printer is out of spec
(or just bad karma), but I will try some other ink
setups and see what works best....

Best regards,
 -Mark Goudy

Re: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?

2002-02-18 by Martin Wesley

----- Original Message -----
Show quoted textHide quoted text
From: "mgoud" <mgoud@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?



(snip)

> I have printed scales on both somerset pe and museo
> with Paul's original vm curves on my 1280 (using the
> recommended color space and print settings).

Mark,

Which version of the Paul's curves are you using? Are you on a PC or Mac?
>

(snip)

> The best way I have found to see how well things are
> working is to print a (~1.5inch diameter) radial
> gradient. If there are any nonlinearities, they will
> show up as light or dark rings. I don't know if it's
> because I'm extra picky or my printer is out of spec
> (or just bad karma), but I will try some other ink
> setups and see what works best....

Good tip on the circular gradient. I will give it a try. Another helpful
file to print is Tyler's Z's which you can find in the Files section under:

Files > Image processing and workflows

This will help you find out at what percentage of gray the problems exists.
From what I have seen, none of the separation techniques produce a perfectly
smooth, linear wedge. Fortunately it appears that they do not have to be
perfect in order to make excellent prints. I doubt that the problem is with
your printer. Find the ink color/paper combination you find most pleasing
and make some prints.

Another thing to be aware of is that applying the RGB separation curve to an
image can by itself cause combing of the histogram. In one or two very
delicate prints I have found it necessary to work out all the adjustments in
8-bit mode, go back and apply them to multiple copies of the 16-bit file,
convert these to 8-bit, layer them and mask as needed. This is a pretty
cumbersome way to work but it does minimize the effects of applying the
separation curves.

Martin Wesley
>

Re: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?

2002-02-18 by mgoud

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Martin Wesley" 
<mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "mgoud" <mgoud@y...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y...>
> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 11:24 AM
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?
> > I have printed scales on both somerset pe and museo
> > with Paul's original vm curves on my 1280 (using the
> > recommended color space and print settings).
> 
> Which version of the Paul's curves are you using?
> Are you on a PC or Mac?

I'm on a PC with these versions of Paul's
curves (which I got off the mis website):
-  vmp8-c14, -nc16, -mw16 -w21

I think you're right that the scales don't
have to be perfect to make a beautiful print!
I'd just like to get reasonably close....

 -Mark

Re: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?

2002-02-19 by Martin Wesley

----- Original Message -----
Show quoted textHide quoted text
From: "mgoud" <mgoud@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] best warm inks for 1280?


(snip)
> >
> > Which version of the Paul's curves are you using?
> > Are you on a PC or Mac?
>
> I'm on a PC with these versions of Paul's
> curves (which I got off the mis website):
> -  vmp8-c14, -nc16, -mw16 -w21

Those are the latest ones I have from Paul. I have a couple of others you
might like that I will have to send you off list.
>
> I think you're right that the scales don't
> have to be perfect to make a beautiful print!
> I'd just like to get reasonably close....

I agree. The closer the better but I have seen a lot of great stuff with the
current curves.

Martin

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