Tips for digital negatives using dye based inks?

[Barry Kirsten]

Getting ready to try making digital negatives for alt printing. My reading strongly suggests that pigment inks are desirable because they are opaque to UVA, whereas dye based inks are less so and their response less controllable. I only have a dye based printer and no room in the budget at this stage for a printer upgrade. My main question is whether dye based digital negs are doable, and if so what tricks can be used (if any) to overcome the limitations of dye inks? Thanks for any comments.

[Richard Boutwell]

Getting ready to try making digital negatives for alt printing. My reading strongly suggests that pigment inks are desirable because they are opaque to UVA, whereas dye based inks are less so and their response less controllable. I only have a dye based printer and no room in the budget at this stage for a printer upgrade. My main question is whether dye based digital negs are doable, and if so what tricks can be used (if any) to overcome the limitations of dye inks? Thanks for any comments.

What printer do you have? Someone bought my digital negative profiling system to use with the cape fear press multi-gray dye inks in an Epson 1430/1500 and is making some really great prints with it.


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[Barry Kirsten]

My printer is the A4 Epson T50 which uses the 81N Claria inks.

[Barry Kirsten]

Any thoughts, anyone?

[Richard Boutwell]

Any thoughts, anyone?

You can probably get refillable carts and use the cape fear inks with that printer. Get my pro digital negative system and you’ll be on your way in no time. Doing it with the OEM will be more trouble than it is worth and you might just end up wasting a lot of time and materials


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