good points. I've noticed a trend in these new coatings, they seem to be able to reach higher individual ink densities, but at the expense of being able to take much total ink percentage. The way the Epson driver works, more and more, it used GCR and total ink control, including light ink and dot size usage, in unique ways that can't be replicated by conventional inn CMYK ink builds.
Therefore, total ink is quite low, bleeding is rare, ink usage is more economical, tech support issues smaller, profiling (for RGB) better, etc etc.
So the coating designers are taking advantage of this, they don't need to support high ink loads, and individual ink densities can stay high, yielding better damx and gamut, at the expense of other issues some of us doing RIP work, or unusual ink and media work are interested in.
Anyway, I agree, I've been able to do things on the older tech Hahnemuhle coatings that yield richer prints, that I have not been able to quite match with some of these new coatings.. very subtle, and probably of interest to very few any more...
Another observation, some of these new coatings are "harder", for lack of a better word, while the older ones are sort of powdery. This has a slightly different look in real world lighting. Even though Sugar Cane and William Turner measure very much the same, WT looks richer and blacker than Sugar Cane because there is a near imperceptable surface hard sheen to Sugar Cane, while WT has that black velvet Elvis art quality that just seems richer.
I've noticed the Alise, and Canson (BFK, Montval) papers have this quality to the coatings. They work well and seem to be more physically robust, but have very slightly harder, and therefore more reflective, surface.
If they were all spotlit, in an otherwise black room, I'll bet the differences would nearly disappear.
Still, some of the most beautiful B&W and color prints I've seen from ink are on German Etching, and it's not even cotton.
Just musing.. back to work.
Tyler
http://www.custom-digital.com/
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "john" <deanwork2003@...> wrote:
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>
> and flaking can occur if you don't linearize the media well and end up laying down too much ink, especially in the darkest shadow zones. Many of us, including myself, have been spoiled in the way that Photorag, and Hanhemuhle in general can absorb lots of black ink while most papers of similar surface can not, then we blame it on the coating of the other surfaces. Innova and Crane media also require more limiting with most printers for monochrome to achieve optimum dmax without flaking, reversing of dmax, or mottling.
>
> This is a factor that one can appreciate with the well thought out Hahnemuhle ink receptor coatings. And, they deserve credit for that quality. Personally I haven't run across any coatings that have performed as well in that regard overall.
>
> john
>
>
>
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "tboleyyh" <tyler@> wrote:
> >
> > Clayton, the tests I've had laying around here for some time seem to me to a bit more robust than HPR's coating, so I'd pursue these other mentioned issues and see what helps. I wouldn't give up on the stuff yet.
> > Tyler
> > http://www.custom-digital.com/
> >
> > --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "ClaytonJ" <cj@> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Another thought - this paper has a strong curl and I am gently reverse bending it to flatten it before feeding to the printer. Maybe this bending is causing the flaking...
> > >
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Clayton
> > >
> > >
> > > Info on black and white digital printing at
> > > http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
> > > I-Trak 2.1 http://www.cjcom.net/itrak.htm
> > >
> >
>