Digital BW, The Print

From:  Paul Roark 

"I do not recommend most people do any more than dilute existing inks.  It
is much safer to use color inks in separate channels.  That opens up the
color issues to a lot of competitive alternatives and avoids many issues of
mixing different pigment types."

OK, well I will have two ink stations unused with my grand scheme to take
over the world; C and LC.

Do I understand correctly, that if I want a heavy brown tone with my carbon
ink system, I would be better off putting magenta and yellow (right colors I
presume?), respectively, into the C and LC spots rather than mixing them
directly into the carbon inks? If so, who's Magenta and Yellow inks would
you recommend from a longevity standpoint?

Wouldn¹t having the color inks in separate stations lead to some of the same
visual defects seen when printing monochrome images with OEM color inks?

If you were going to experiment with such a system, what numbers would you
start with for the two colors, ballpark?

You'll note in my latest inksets, I use MIS carbon, and I use Epson color
or HP blended gray inks in separate channels.  Having inks is separate
channels avoids many problems.  Also, software (making profiles) is a more
flexible approach than color-carbon blending.

That makes sense. It also occurs to me that mixing color inks in with carbon
inks would get very wasteful and tedious as I try to blend just what I want.
Separate channels would mean simply tweaking a profile, but not mixing inks
and possibly having to throw them out. I also use different papers and
therefore the "brown" would require a different ink blend for each paper.
Bad idea. 

HP, from what I can see, makes the best blended carbon + color neutral/cool
ink.  Fade tests and centrifuge testing (I use a medical counter-top unit)
shows good matching of the pigments' characteristics.  I like its color,
and it dilutes well with the generic base (or even MIS's amber base - for
reducing bronzing).  I use it diluted with the generic base to cool Eboni
(in separate channels).

Would I be able to use HP's magenta and yellow inks alongside MIS's K and PK
dilutions without blowing up my printhead? Also, would magenta or light
magenta be better? (This may help: my brown tone is achieved using Epson's
inks with a solid color fill layer at the top of my layer stack set to Hue
43, Saturation 100, Brightness 13. Hue and brightness will vary a point or
two, depending on the paper and image.)

I am not necessarily after duplicating the above brown, exactly, but having
the option to get as close as possible to that is desirable.

Here's a thought too. Could one mix magenta and yellow in a single channel,
leaving the other empty slot open for a different mixed color, say a
selenium color? Or would that mixing present similar problems to those
already described?


For now, the only ink mixing that I recommend for most is, first, use of
available bases to dilute existing pigments without blending. Second, my
experience is that the MIS K4 inkset glossy inks can all be mixed together
with good results for Epson desktop printers.

So I could mix MIS K4 magenta and yellow in the same cartridge and use that
along with a B&W ink set?
(I read what you are saying to mean that all of the K4 inks can
theoretically be mixed together except K, because PK, LK, LLK, M, LM, C, LC
and Y are all glossy inks. Would this also be true of the same inks from
Epson and HP?)

I've been able to make good cross-overs from about 50%
to 20% on the dilution steps.

You lost me at that sentence. Cross-over?


The PK and MK inks have different densities on matte paper; MK is darker.
 So, the PK-LK-LLK (standard 30/70 dilution) will result in a different and
lighter set of matte densities than an MK-30%MK-9%MK progression.

MK being the blended, not 100% carbon black (not K), right? I'm kinda lost
here. Not sure why that blended MIS ink came into the discussion.
The alphabet soup of inks gets confusing.

David Kachel

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Fine B&W Photographs

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