Digital BW, The Print

> I'm meeting with Robert Rex this week and was just curious if anybody had
> given it a try.  Personally I think the blacks rock with Piezo...it just
> needs a profile.  After my experiences with Eclipse, I now know that you do
> not know the potential of a paper with piezo until Cone has profiled it.
> Did you tweak your curves to maximize the black with the MIS?
> 
> Robert

Not sure how to tweak my curves to optimize for the blacks. Glad you brought
it up, cause in the conversation about the Eclipse and it's "perceived" weak
blacks, I was trying it (Eclipse) through the Epson driver, and as I had
some samples at the time I switched over from Piezo inks to MIS VM, I got to
try it with both inks (using the Epson driver for both inks). I found it to
work a bit better with the MIS inks than Piezo, but not much.

Anyway, back to tweaking the curves. I print a black border around most of
my images, so I use that in my assessment of absolute black. IOW, my test
images always have a solid absolute black, so I'd not need to tweak the
IMAGE to get good black. Are you suggesting I tweak the Roark curves to get
a deeper black, or to lay down more ink? I don't know it that is possible,
or if it is I don't know how. That's one of the reasons I was asking about
Dot Density in another post, as that seems to allow for actually putting
more ink on the paper. I can tweak a curve to manipulate tonalities, but I
don't know how to make an image print maximum black any blacker.

If you have ideas on this I'm open to them.

The only thing I know to do is to run the sheet through a second time to
over print my blacks. This has worked well for me with the Epson papers and
I'd expect it to for the Museo too, though the really heavy stuff might make
for less exacting registration than the thinner weight (due to a more
difficult transport). I think (really think, as in haven't found a way to
compare) double printing the blacks would be more effective than just
putting more ink down, because it allows for dry time between that would
allow more ink to be held by the paper without spreading.

Todd