Digital BW, The Print

"piezobw" <jon@...> wrote:
>
> And at 60 MegaLux, the Piezography Sepia inks are running the strongest of the monochromatic inks with scores still in the 100s.

Piezo Carbon Sepia inks are excellent, 100% carbon inks.  100% carbon is the key.

The only thing that is stopping the Carbon Sepia from having overall scores as high as the 1800 3MK is that the Museum K is not doing quite as well as it probably can -- could be random.

Given the sensitivity of the eye to hue changes with B&W, I think the only way to beat the OEMs with respect to fade testing like AaI&A is doing is to use 100% carbon.  The OEMs appear able to get better colors than third party players, and the R&D cost of matching the fade rates (not to mention other characteristics) of color pigments for lots of different papers is probably too high to bother with.  HP, with a billion dollar revenue stream to protect, can simply do things the niche players can't do.  

However, while the OEM systems are doing rather well considering how much color they have in the mix, that color will eventually fade, leaving the carbon.  It's just a matter of time.  Then again there is gas attack that is not being tested for the most part.  So, whenever there is color in the mix, there is an elevated risk of tone (hue) change in the print.  Thus I (clearly) strongly advocate 100% carbon as the viable alternative to the OEMs.

The latest paper of great interest to carbon printers is the Epson Hot Press natural paper.  Its very low delta-b allows the most neutral looking 100% carbon pigment prints on non-OBA paper that I've seen.  I think it is close to a game changer.  See the graph on page 2 of http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Carbon-Print-Tones.pdf

 
> We're resubmitting fresh Neutral K6 tests to Mark, because the starting points of the Neutral K6 ink tests that are now at Aardenburg were not "neutral". They were too blue and too red with *ab values as high as 3.70 rather than -0.35 to 0.35,...

The Neutral K6 starting Lab (a,b) at 50% was (0.7, 2.9).  This is not blue; it's slightly yellowish already.  The Lab A is also already marginally too low.  The start for the 3MK was (1.7, 3.6).   

I really don't think pulling out more magenta is a good idea.  Green is not a good color for B&W.  A better magenta ink would help.  Frankly, I'd use Aardenburg Imaging testing to find a matched pair of color inks -- ones that fade at the same rate on lots of papers.  Mark has, in effect, injected a huge amount of R&D into the field (for those who pay).  It's the best bargain we have available to us. 

It's probably no secret that I recommended a premium B&W set to MIS years ago based on my own testing that showed the green shift we're now seeing in AaI&A testing.  My recommendation was close to what I am suggesting above.  MIS had no interest, but I think the economics can work.

On the other hand, I'm sticking to my primary position -- 100% carbon is where B&W fine art should be.  The other approaches are fine, but the purity and stability (including profiling stability) of having no colors in the mix will have great appeal to purists.  What I'd like to see is some competition to find a better, more neutral carbon pigment.  The existing champ -- Eboni -- is available, of course.  But that just happens to be what I found some years ago.  Maybe there are better ones now.

On the other hand, the existing blended B&W inks from the third party sellers are not bad inks.  They have and will continue to provide very nice B&W prints to lots of people.  Most will never see the green shift that we're trying to deal with here.  After all, none of us has actually had a digital B&W print on our walls for 18 years.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com