Digital BW, The Print

Hi,

Thanks for that reply. I understand in principle why a quadtone 
should show very little dot pattern, and why the single-strength 
toning inks would lead to visible dots as soon as they are used in 
highlights or midtones; that's why I qualified, my statement 
saying "if you don't use the ... toners".

Tyler, in your reply you mention partitioning in the driver. I 
haven't heard the term used in that context before, what does it 
mean? Is it the proportioning of the inks according to a set of 
crossover curves? Regarding the rest of your post, you seem to be 
saying what I thought, intuitively, must be true: there is no reason 
why a UT7-based setup should be especially "dotty" compared to the 
quadtone Studio Print system.

Ok, you lose a bit by having three rather than four tones, but with a 
suitable driver and avoiding the toner inks, there's no reason why a 
print created on a 2200 using Paul's workflow shouldn't be very 
smooth indeed. Of in practice the Epson driver might well NOT be 
doing the "right" thing -- anyone know from firsthand experience what 
the case is? Steve M, if you're reading this would you care to 
comment?

TIA

-= mike =-

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, hogarth 
<hogarth@s...> wrote:
> You have to think like the printer does. To make a tone, you put 
dots on
> paper. To make a tone as dark as you can, the dots touch so that 
there
> is no paper showing. 
> 
> To make a lighter tone you can go one of two ways. First, you can 
space
> the dots apart, and the resulting tone is a combination of the 
color of
> the ink, and the paper. If little paper shows, the tone is darker. 
If
> mostly paper shows, the tone is lighter.
> 
> If you are using a single ink (black only printing, for example), to
> make the lightest tones, you spread the dots very far apart. In very
> light areas of the print, you can then see the dots, because the 
very
> dark dots stand out in the sea of very light paper.
> 
> The second way, is to use dilutions of the black ink. This allows 
you to
> bring the dots closer together to create the same tone. The 
lightest ink
> in a quad set, for example, may be only 7% as dark as the black. 
That
> is, for a tone that is 7%, the printer would make the dots touch, 
with
> no paper showing (that's not really how it works - there are xovers 
and
> most tones use more than one ink, but I'm keeping it simple for the 
sake
> of argument). That's as dark as that ink can be. As the tones 
decrease
> to 1% or less, the dots are still very close together - 
thus "dotless"
> printing, yes?
> 
> Now we go to a variable tone set - one that has four dilutions of 
black
> (a quadtone set), plus a warm toner and a cool toner. 
> 
> The two toners are single dilution inks. To tone the lightest areas 
of
> the print, the printer uses the dark toner dots spread very wide 
apart.
> Sometimes you can see the dots of toner, just like you can see the 
dots
> of black when you do black only printing.
> 
> And that's why, for "dotless" printing, you need a fixed tone quad 
ink
> set.
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2004-04-21 at 13:00, mike_nunan wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > This is my first post here so treat me gently ;o)
> > 
> > I've been researching the world of dedicated B&W printing for a 
> > little while now, getting ready to take the plunge with (almost 
> > definitely) a second 2100 to sit alongside my existing unit, 
which 
> > I'll keep for colour use. I've sifted through a lot of the 
discussion 
> > that has gone on here, and I think I've got a pretty good handle 
on 
> > most of the issues. I've also swapped a bit of direct email with 
Paul 
> > Roark which has been very informative in getting to grips with 
the 
> > finer points of UT7 (thanks Paul!)
> > 
> > I've got one question to ask now, one that springs to mind after 
> > reading Steve M's recent thread about using quadtone inks in a 
7000. 
> > He implies that if you want "dotless" printing, then you want a 
true 
> > quadtone inkset. It seems logical enough that having a fine 
gradation 
> > of different ink shades would help hide the dots, but what I 
don't 
> > understand is why it would be much different for say UT7 using 
Paul's 
> > workflow. If you don't use the cold and sepia toners, then you 
still 
> > have pure black plus two shades of grey to work with -- 
essentially 
> > a "tritone" pure carbon inkset. Why should that be noticeably 
more 
> > dotty than a quadtone? Or is it more to do with the effect of the 
> > RIP? But in that case, why doesn't QTR give similar results?
> > 
> > Yours confused,
> > 
> > Mike Nunan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]