Digital BW, The Print

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 8, 2010, at 10:28 PM, "tboleyyh" <tyler@tylerboley.com> wrote:

> We see now, due to Marks invaluable efforts, that some of the OEM inksets including Epson's ABW that include color inks in the hues, are outperforming my favorite inksets in strict longevity terms. There is no way to find fault with the results, or now back down from keeping longevity high on the list of concerns after years of yelling about it, with any credibility.
> So it's time to accept that, yield that high ground, give Epson, Canon, and HP props for addressing that concern and making good ink.
> Actually, once that is done, I'm not in the least unhappy with the tests results reflecting the inks I use, support, entered for testing. Results are good, just not best. Thanks to David Tobie and others I have vehemently argued with for not immediately beating me up when the results came out.

Your main issue has always been the images you could produce; and no one has ever had any criticism about them. My response (mostly to keep this list looking at all of this in perspective) has been that, once one moves beyond pure carbon, the color used to tint it (even to tint it to neutral for the media involved) can be from full color carts; in fact there is some theoretical advantage to that, as it avoids printing highly diluted color dots (more prone to fading) and avoids mixing colors into carbon inks (prone to differential settling and thus uncontrollable color variation). 

My follow up comment has always been that from typical viewing distances those color dots are not a visual issue, in terms of grain, though they still do their job of tinting. You may still choose to disagree on that point, as it is unrelated to the longevity point that Mark's testing has more clearly illuminated. 

There is a third point worth noting. After ceasing to develop toned B&W ink sets, for the reasons noted above; I proceeded to develop an ICC profile based system for printing, adjusting, and softproofing B&W and tinted B&W prints (which is built into the current Spyder3Print SR product, though it was calling PrintFIX Pro 2.0 at the time). This system was often dismissed out of hand on this list due to the fact that it used the color printing mode of the printers. This meant colored dots, as noted above; and with some drivers it even meant a few MORE colored dots than the drivers B&W method (it actually can be used to profile the driver B&W modes as well, but then it is merely a linearization tool, as all it's color control capability has been taken away).

I would like to point out that this system is now equally vindicated in termed of longevity; against any other color controlled method, and that the inclusion of yet a fee more microscopic color dots in some drivers doesn't really change the visual results either. 

So, anyone looking to produce long life, controlled tint images, including cross-tints unavailable through driver B&W solutions, and offering easy adjustment tools and the ability to preview densities and tonalities as both soft proofs on screen, and in hard proofs from the printer, for standard drivers, high bit export modules, and a number of specialty drivers and RIPs, should consider the Spyder3Print SR solution, which still offers all of that, with even more clearcut assurances of longevity. 

Oh, and the same system, even the same profiles, can be used for color printing as well, which is the other main advantage of this type of solution. And if Tyler Boley was using it to build profiles and make prints, then there would be some really impressive sample images available. ;-)

But Tyler is using other solutions, and I sure can't argue with his results.

C. David Tobie