There are many issues that relate to B&W inkjet printing. Here are some of the ones I'm aware of plus some additional info: Gray Balance: Trying to get perfectly neutral B&W prints from a color printer is difficult. A common solution to this is to replace the color inks with a grayscale set of inks or "quadtone" ink set. Piezography is one commercial product that does this. There are many other sources of quadtone inks: MIS Associates, Lyson, and Sundance to name a few. Some of these ink sets have their own inherent "warm" tone to them and are not exactly neutral gray, although they do look very good. Fade/Lightfastness: Pigment ink in general fades less than dye ink. RIT and Wilhelm Research are the two testing labs that I know of doing accelerated fade testing. Wilhelm has a web site where test results are published, but it is not updated often. http://www.wilhelm-research.com Metamerism: I've found this to be most noticable in B&W prints, but it is also a problem with color. A good definition of metamerism can be found here: http://www.inkjetart.com/2000p/metamerism.html I've found it is easiest to see metamerism by turning a B&W print back and forth between daylight and flourescent and observing the color shift. Gloss Differential or Bronzing: This is a problem typically with printing pigment ink on glossy paper. Traditionally, it's been difficult to get pigment ink to dry on glossy paper, but some of the new inks such as Epson's UltraChrome inks, and MIS's new inks solve this. Gloss Differential appears when the gloss of the paper does not match the gloss of the surface where ink is placed. So, if you have a paper-white area next to an area where ink is laid down, at the proper angle from the light source, you see this difference and it can be quite distracting. In the areas where very little ink is placed, such as transition areas from paper white to areas with lots of ink, (at least for B&W images) it results in a bronze color appearing in those areas which is even more distracting. This is highly dependent on the ink/paper combo you use. Some papers exhibit it much less than others. Others have solved it by sparying their prints with Krylon UV Clear which gives the entire print the same gloss, but there is some speculation that Krylon will yellow over time. New Products: There are some exciting new B&W inkjet products being announced at the PMA show next week. Related Links: - Piezography: http://www.piezography.com - The "new" Piezography product: http://www.piezography.com/media/PMA-2003-Media-Kit.pdf - MIS Assocuates: http://www.inksupply.com/ - Lyson: http://www.lyson.com - Sundance & R9: http://www.bwguys.com/ - New "septone" product: http://www.inkjetgoodies.com/sundance_septone.htm - Colorbyte ImagePrint: http://www.colorbytesoftware.com/imageprint.htm A *great* source of information on B&W inkjet printing is the DigitalBW group on Yahoo: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Russell Baker" <rebphoto@pronetisp.net> To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@listserver.isc.rit.edu> Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 10:20 AM Subject: B&W Digital > Hi Gang......... > > We have talked a lot about color digital > photos fading and all that good stuff................. > > I do mostly B&W publicity type photos > > I have been getting some very good prints > from my Epson 820 printer. > > Does one have to take the same precautions of > displaying B&W digital photos as they do color? > > I am very much figuring on buying a used Olympus E10 > as almost all of my work is 8x10's, this seems to be > a fine choice for my sort of work, > (Theatrical Publicity Head Shots) > > > Thanks > > > Russ > I sing choruses in public....... > > Binghamton, NY USA > www.summersavoyards.org >
