From: Larry Roohr (lrryr@attbi.com)
Date: 07/21/02-10:04:44 AM Z
Hi Mark,
There are definitely different density dots there, in the dense parts they
are all smeared together randomly so I don't believe you get the on/off dot
effect, sort of a cross between contone and dots.
The peizo system is available on the 1280/1290 printers which are 2880. I
think your right about the lack of advantage for quadtones. I found that the
Epson driver did a better job on the pictorico because the dither pattern
covered up more printer inadequacy's than the peizo driver on the 1160,
which show up in the first place because pictorico has zero dot gain. The
inadequacy's are so reduced on the C80 with it's 2880 dpi that I'd call them
negligible now.
I'm dubious about 16 bits translating to an advantage on a print/negative.
16 bit files will certainly help if your applying wild curves to straighten
out the printers response on pictorico however. The peizo pro24 is so
expensive it's a non issue for me anyway, but even the non-pro version does
the 16 bit thing. BTW, the peizo software is available stand alone now from
other than the Cone people, 150$ for the driver and with the MIS FS inks
($60 for 16 oz of ink) it's downright affordable now, the paper profiles are
invaluable.
I made an orange negative with the C80 a'la Dan and sure nuff the density on
paper with a ziatype got way up there. It was interesting though that the
orange stepwedge density's matched pretty closely the gray stepwedge
densities on my densitometer, but the papers response went non-linear and so
would require more of a curve to straighten out. I like the work flow of
screen to neg-stepwedge to densitometer, and densitometer readings
translating to paper in a well behaved manner like I have with the all-color
ink gray negatives, and I don't like applying curves, so I'm sticking with
the non-color neg's. I'm able to get enough density for my POP prints when
gold is added to the mix to raise the print contrast. I've been told that a
developed out plat/palad print has inherently higher contrast than the pop
prints so these neg's may be a good fit for that without contrast
enhancement.
The pigment inks seem to have more uv opacity, I haven't verified this
though. The negatives I'm making my pop prints from are about a 1.2 on my
densitometer.
I haven't done anything with dye inks in what seems like forever, but what I
remember is drastic curves to straighten out the response and a lack of
density even in the visible spectrum, maybe I should re-visit that, I've
been operating on the assumption that pigment inks are better, if not the
1280/1290 printers would be the way to go.
The C80 is so superior to anything else I've tried, it has pigment inks and
2880 dpi, the inks only require a mild curve to straighten and the 2880 dpi
eliminated printing defects. The yet to be released Epson 2200 printer is
the first wide carriage 2880 dpi pigment printer, if the inks are as good to
the pictorico as the c80's I'll be lusting after one.
I had a friend at work print a stepwedge on his 2000p last week (before he
sold it in anticipation of his impending 2200 purchase). While not as nice
as the c80 curve it was much better than the peizo inks curve, but it's a
1440 dpi printer. When he gets his 2200 I'll ask him to do another step
wedge and see how it does. The 2200 inks are really a different animal, I've
read is that the pigments soak in and leave behind a protective coating on
the surface of the paper so who knows what will happen on pictorico.
I'm going to copy this to the list in case anyone else is interested, since
this was so much typing, which I do with two fingers, so I wont want to do
it again <g>.
I've got a day off today and my wife and daughter are going to Waterworld so
I get to work on gum printing and process some film, I'll see if I can whip
up a rudimentary web page with curves and stuff pertaining to all this as
well.
Larry
-----Original Message-----
From: Ender100@aol.com [mailto:Ender100@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 11:45 PM
To: lrryr@attbi.com
Subject: Re: Inkjet Negatives for Van Dyke
Hi Larry,
Thanks for the clarification regarding which inkset he is using. The piezo
inks may not work as well on Pictorico. I haven't tried them.
It does (to me) bring up an interesting issue with digital negatives.
(If you get bored easily or don't care about digital negatives, just delete
this post hehehehe but I would welcome others input on this.)
If I may speculate a bit here. I think it is fairly certain with
imagesetter negatives that (unlike a traditional contone negative) you are
basicly printing different size dots where the UV passes through clear
portion of the film and is blocked by the 3.0+ density of the "dots" of the
screen. So you basicly have image density that is "off" or "on". This
could
make it easier to print images with this type of negative rather than with a
continuous tone negatives where you may have more variance in density and
contrast between negatives.
I've seen some really good Piezo prints on Han Photo Rag paper. They are
beautiful. However, I am not so sure that Piezo will necessarily give you
the same when making negatives. Here is why I am doubtful. The printers
like the 1160 and many others that are being used for Piezography prints all
still print at 720x1440. (yes I know the newer Epson printers are up to
2880
dpi, but I doubt if many are using Piezo or even can yet). "If", what I
stated above about the imagesetter negative also holds true with inkjet
negatives, then you are still printing with tiny dots, that are either black
or white. It won't make a bit of difference whether it is Quad Tone inks or
not, the dot size will be the same, therefore there wouldn't be an advantage
with Jon Cones software and inkset or any other quadtone inkset.
Unless........
1. The Pro 24 software with Cone's inkset truely can print 16 bit images
with 65,000 distinct shades of gray.
2. Dan Burkholder's idea for color inkjet negatives work to use color to
filter UV more effectively than the "off" and "on" effect of the above
"black
dots" I spoke about.
Which leads me to two more questions.....
3. Are pigment inks more or less effective than dye inks when making color
inkjet negatives as Dan does?
4. Has anyone tested a CMYK matrix with a RIP on both dye and pigment based
inks to determine where the most effective or perhaps the most "pleasing"
mix
of CMY falls when making these negatives.
oh... and #5 then would be: Which mix would work the best with different
processes given that there has been some discussion of the different
processes being more sensitive to different wave lengths of UV.
OK... hehehe I'll go to bed now.
Thanks for listening to my rambles... I would welcome any feedback. Damn I
wish that densitometer would get here!
Mark Nelson
In a message dated 7/21/02 1:13:44 AM, lrryr@attbi.com writes:
<< To All,
I think Nick was referring to third party quad tone inks in particular, 4 or
6 shades of gray, no color ink. Up till now these inks have absolutely
given superior b&w inkjet prints than color inks and so, one would expect
better negatives as well. The piezo inks dry fast enough to work, but need
an overcoat spray to stay put.
That said, as I posted earlier, I'm getting the best negatives yet (by far)
on a C80 with Epson's pigment inks, that do dry and stay on the pictorico
film, and require a very mild photoshop curve to straighten out the response
(Very, very good). Hopefully the new 2200 printer will follow suit.
Larry
>>
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