Digital BW, The Print

I've done some more experients with GLOP and learned the following:

- Using 100% GLOP in a profile is problematic. All the bronzing is gone, 
but I get large visible horizontal bands. I think this is because the 
paper is being overloaded with ink.

- Profiles where I jump straight from PKN to the lighter gray and toner 
inks in the UT7 inkset seems to require less GLOP to remove the 
bronzing. Around 50-60% seems to do the trick.

- Applying the GLOP as a separate overcoat at 50% works extremely well. 
No bronzing and dmax seems to be slightly better than when the GLOP is 
applied in the print profile.

- It's much less annoying to print the second overcoat than I thought it 
would be. QTRgui remembers the position of the last image so I just 
reprint it with a glop_50 profile that I've made. I also set the print 
speed to 'Faster' since I figure this doesn't really matter with the 
glop anyway.

- I was totally unable to get any reduction in bronzing at 10%, even 
when I pretty much copied Carl's profiles. The explanation must be that 
I've done all my experiments on Epson Premium Semigloss so far, and that 
other papers do much better in this regard. I will try Ilford Smooth 
Pearl next and see if it's any different.

- When the glop is applied in the profile the tone appears slightly 
cooler. I don't get the same effect when it's used as an overcoat.

- I tried Carl's trick for disabling the pizza wheels on my 2100 and it 
worked like a charm. Finally I can get glossy prints without all those 
annoying track marks! (My exit rollers have already been disabled with 
nylon ties for a long time)

- The dmax of the PKN is really good. The blacks are really black, and 
the neutral tone makes profiling much easier.

- Overall I'm extremely pleased with the results I'm getting. I feel 
that I'm at the point where I can produce usable prints with this setup. 
I still love the look of a good print on cotton rag paper, but I now 
consider glossy prints with GLOP a really good alternative.

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no

Yes PKN on Luster (my A17 patch from the Eye One Colour Profiling chart)
post drying reads 6.4 pre-gloss versus 8.9 for PK.  Thanks Paul!

Now I am wondering if we need PK at all.  I know there is a theoretical
advantage to have a warm PK for warm curves but if we use a dark warm grey
and PKN the PKN will only really hit the 90-100 patches where determining
tone is almost impossible for the eye.  The dark warm should improve mid
tones....

> From: Daniel Staver <daniel@...>

> 
> - The dmax of the PKN is really good. The blacks are really black, and
> the neutral tone makes profiling much easier.
>

By the way, I found that removing all the pizza wheels caused a few problems
when the print was ejected - it could scuff.  So I put 3 pizza wheels back
in: the far right, the far left and one in the middle/left such that it
could assist A4 paper but just the left-most edge.

> From: Daniel Staver <daniel@...>

> - I tried Carl's trick for disabling the pizza wheels on my 2100 and it
> worked like a charm. Finally I can get glossy prints without all those
> annoying track marks! (My exit rollers have already been disabled with
> nylon ties for a long time)
>