...and I also vastly prefer the QTR interface to the PS/epson driver route (I'm on a PC- macs may be less likely to reset to defaults with every single print command.)...
I just want to stress again that I don't really think black inks are necessarily a problem, or should be avoided at all costs. Except with a very picky process on very picky surfaces, I've have nice results with a full compliment of inks. I can't say that enough.
IIRC, the Epson driver allows you to save the whole custom parameter set by giving appropriate names. All you have to do is to select the correct parameter set just before printing...
Regards,
Loris.
IIRC, the Epson driver allows you to save the whole custom parameter set by giving appropriate names. All you have to do is to select the correct parameter set just before printing...
Regards,
Loris.
You may be right but I have not been able to get smooth results in carbon when using QTR with either MK or PK. I do have a nice profile for QTR that works great for vandyke and pt/pd, which uses black with cyan + yellow, but it is not smooth in carbon.
As I mentioned the only smooth pattern I have been able to get in carbon with the 3800 is the PDN color of G=255, R=110.
So until someone actually has a QTR profile that uses black and gives smooth results in carbon I am going to be skeptical.
Sandy
We may be speaking of different things when we say smooth, but I regard this as meaning even tonal gradation with minimal grain or printer artifacts. I've satisfied myself that it is possible with PK inks. Granted, my work is pretty low-fi, so we may have different tastes altogether, but my prints look just like there's supposed to so. The only time I notice the grain or printer dither is with very high key images or large expanses of even light values. The rest of the time I'm fairly tickled with what a PK profile can do.
I'm leaning towards 15C 60 Y, with 70 Yellow and 15 Cyan.
Friends-- With some trepidation I revisit this subject of the best blocking color (or ink combination) for smooth tones on digital negatives. And before I describe my tests, here are a couple of background items:
First, I am convinced Epson has changed the formulation of the inksets it supplies for the 3800 and for the 4880, sometime in the last year or so. In the old K3 inkset (as I used on my 3800) the strongest UV absorbers were dark black (pK or mK), Y, and LK. But C, M, LC, and even LLK were also significant absorbers and were useful. In the current K3 inkset only dark black (either pK or mK), Y, and LK are significant absorbers with the rest being at least 10-fold less absorbant. I have recently purchased the 4880 which uses the K3 inkset with vivid magenta. That inkset is very similar in UV absorption to the current inkset for the 3800. So, Epson has significantly degraded the ability of its inks to absorb UV. But I find we can still make good negatives with what is left.
Second, everything I have to say is only applicable to palladium emulsions. I have not tested any other.
Third, I have tried these ideas on both the 3800 and the 4880.
Now to the smoothness tests. In Photoshop I made a grayscale gradient 10 inches long by 2 inches wide, from 50% gray to 0% gray (white). Using QTR I then printed negatives of this gradient using different ink combinations. Of the various combos tested only three were really informative.
First I wrote a profile to print the gradient in just two inks, Yellow (70% ink limit) and Cyan (20% ink limit). (I attach the ink chart of this profile below). I printed this negative on a pure palladium emulsion. The print had two problems. One, as the print gradient got darker (ie, the Yellow ink dots were spaced further and further apart) the tones got rather grainy. Two, and a bit of a surprise, there was objectionable banding, parallel to the direction of the print head. So this pure green gradient negative flunked on both counts.
Second, Colin Graham kindly sent me a profile that prints without using any dark black ink but uses all the light inks except LM. I made a negative of the gradient with Colin's profile and a palladium print. This made a much improved print. The medium dark tones were much less grainy and the printer banding was greatly reduced (but not eliminated -- it would still be bad in a medium gray sky). If you look at the ink chart for this profile, I would attribute the improvement to the fact that the light inks are filling in around the Y and C inks. So I do not see this as a "pure green" profile.
Third, I printed the gradient negative using my current palladium printing profile for the 4880. The ink limits in this profile are:
pK 35 going to boost 55, C 25, M35, Y35, LC 35, LM 0, LK 40, LLK 40. As I said earlier, I think pK and Y are doing most of the lifting for the dark inks and LK for the light inks. To my eye the print from this negative was just as grain-free in the high tones as Colin's profile and printer banding was not visible.
OK, maybe adjusting my new 4880 would also help the banding (I will have to try) but clearly using multiple different inks will also cure it. As to grain, I have yet to find any ink combo that is more grain free than the semi-balanced inks in my current working profile. Another comment, I got printer banding on my old 4000 when I wrote profiles using only K and LK inks. The banding disappeared when I started using all of the inks. This seems similar to what I now see when I use primarily the Y ink.
OK guys and gals -- have at it. I expect my experience is not what others are seeing. But it is what I see and I can report no other.
Cheers, Ron Reeder
I you are using an Epson 3800, run an auto nozzle check. This will often reveal serious blockages that you can't see with the simple nozzle check.I think I'm on the right track here, at least for my workflow. I finally got around to making some 'drier' tissues for all the high humidity around here lately and made some actual prints today. The highlights are the smoothest and most artifact-free I've ever been able to produce. Pretty exciting.
A problem though, my profile is giving some slight pizza wheel marks. I tried front loading, but had an odd stripe of garbled, almost herringbone-looking dither at one end of the neg. The strip runs in the direction of the print head and is about 20cm wide. Come to think of it- it literally looks like a bike tire ran over the wet ink. Anyone ever seen this? Doesn't happen at all with the auto loader. I've heard if the backing for the front loader is too thin the print can look fuzzy, but this is definitely confined to one thin stripe on the negative.
dither patterns are from ink laydown, not the pizza wheels, so alignment and nozzle checks can reveal problemsI'm sorry, how does the way the material is fed through the printer relate to the print nozzles? The top/auto feed doesn't exhibit the issue, just the front loader.
BTW the negative size is 6"x13", and taped to a larger 12"x19" backing sheet when run through the front loader.
I think I'm on the right track here, at least for my workflow. I finally got around to making some 'drier' tissues for all the high humidity around here lately and made some actual prints today. The highlights are the smoothest and most artifact-free I've ever been able to produce. Pretty exciting.
A problem though, my profile is giving some slight pizza wheel marks. I tried front loading, but had an odd stripe of garbled, almost herringbone-looking dither at one end of the neg. The strip runs in the direction of the print head and is about 20cm wide. Come to think of it- it literally looks like a bike tire ran over the wet ink. Anyone ever seen this? Doesn't happen at all with the auto loader. I've heard if the backing for the front loader is too thin the print can look fuzzy, but this is definitely confined to one thin stripe on the negative.
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