Archival digital inkjet printing........

[Peter De Smidt]

Paul's come up with a bunch of ink sets, including ones that can print on both glossy and matte, but as far as I know, his main inkset is still dilutions of Eboni. On the right papers, a pure Eboni ink set can give a pretty neutral print, one with a max Lab B of about 3. It's a look I really like. If you need even cooler prints, or if for some reason you must print on a paper that gives warmer results than EHPN, then you can use HP Vivera PK, and dilutions of it, as a toner to cool down the print. HP PK inks are, as far as I know, the blended pigment with the best archival qualities, although they aren't as good as pure carbon. Using them as a toner should have only a small effect are the archival attributes of the print, since the print is still predominant carbon, and the HP PK is good in it's own right. I used to use this mixed system, but since Epson's HPN came out, I've found no need to.

So, in answer to Ken's question, the reason to use Eboni + HP PK is to get very long lasting cool toned prints. The prints should last longer than a print from an HP printer, and the greater number of grays leads to higher quality.

Glossy, though, is much tougher, as Eboni won't work with them. You can use a set of HP PK dilutions, but you'll have to use glop or another coating to get rid of gloss differential. For glossy prints, Paul has moved to an inkset using Epson Claria Dye on metallic paper. According to Paul, the prints have tremendous impact, and they sell very well, but they are unlikely to be near as archival as a carbon pigment system, although supposedly they're not shabby. If Fuji Crystal Archive is good enough for you, then it's likely that the Claria dyes would be too.

[Ken Lee]

If we try this solution and want to use a printer/paper which has not been profiled, do we need a sensitometer ?

Around 1 year ago I tried in vain with QTR to make profiles for Pt/Pd printing. I found the QTR curves adjustment interface to be inscrutable and poorly documented (there were at least 2 tutorials on using it, each with a different approach) - and that you don't quite get what you specify via the user interface. What made it worse of course is that I was profiling Pictorico transparency material and making Pt/Pd prints under UV, a slow and inconsistent process. I found that the profiles generously shared by others were not really linear on my printer and required endless guesswork and tweaking. All I was trying to do was print a step wedge with 20 steps, but I never got all the steps: fixing one part of the curve invariably broke another part.

Even with a comparatively mature technology like inkjet printing with ICC profiles, we have to be very careful about getting the monitor turned down to "paper-brightness". Paper brightness varies with the intended brightness of the viewing room. One RIP I recently sampled provides different profiles depending on the color of the intended lighting: incandescent, flourescent, mixed.

Rather than trial and error with QTR, hhy not just put the inks in the printer, use the Epson or Canon or HP drivers, print some targets and send the results out to someone who makes real profiles with a really good sensitometer ? Then we'd be able to work in Photoshop (or some other photo editor that supports soft-proofing with ICC profiles) and see what our print will look like all along, no ?

Has anyone actually used this approach from beginning to end ?

If the HP HPZ3200 system solves all those problems right out of the box and gives prints with high longevity, it's beginning to sound like a real bargain.

[Peter De Smidt]

Ken, it sounds to me that you know the route that you should follow. In my case, I rehabilitated an old 7600 printer. I mixed up a version of Eboni-6, and I made my own QTR profiles using a Datacolor spectrocolorimeter to take measurements. I'm very happy with the prints I'm making. The image tone is very pleasing. I get a dmax of 1.71. The prints are as archival as anything else printed on a quality inkjet paper, the inks are inexpensive, and it's been the most trouble free ink set I've ever used. It does take awhile to make a good QTR profile. (It took me a day of work.) After that, though, it's very easy to use.

Btw., Paul Roark usually has regular driver instructions for using his ink sets. That works for most papers with the exception of printing on Arches water color paper.

[Kirk Gittings]

And I must say that Peter's print quality with that outfit are outstanding.

[Peter De Smidt]

Thanks, Kirk!

[paulr]

Peter, how did you choose this path over piezography?

[Peter De Smidt]

Paul,

I chose it for two main reasons. First, I wanted a more neutral image tone than Cone's Carbon, which Cone used to call "Sepia", while still using a pure carbon pigment ink. Second, I didn't have the money for Cone's system.

For instance, when I bought the 7600 for $200, I called up Inkjetmall and asked for advice. The gentleman there (not Mr. Cone) suggested that I pay about $450 for a set of their refillable cartridges and more for their cleaning fluid, but he expressed doubt that I'd get the printer working. Instead I bought some refillable cartridges for about $120 and mixed up my own cleaning fluid, with a recipe similar to what you posted earlier. It took over a month, but I was able to clean out the printer and get it working...So far! The biggest downside to my approach is that there was no guarantee that the printer could be revived, although it did look like it had very little use.

I don't mean this as a criticism of Inkjetmall! I've seen Mr. Cone on many forums, and he's always been friendly and helpful. I've used Piezography in the past, and was quite happy with it, and I've no doubt that his solutions are very high quality.

Here's a link to where Paul keeps the info on his approaches: http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/
If you're thinking about one of the options, send Paul an email outlining what you're thinking of doing. He's incredibly friendly and helpful! If you use one of his standard approaches, you should be able to use his settings with the OEM driver or his profiles with QTR. If you want to make your own QTR profiles, then it's helpful to have a reflection densitometer or a spectrocolorimeter, the latter is required if you want to make profiles for soft proofing in Photoshop. In any case, Paul recommends that people start out with his settings in the OEM driver. That's easy, and it gives great results with most materials.

[Ken Lee]

Ken, it sounds to me that you know the route that you should follow.

I'm glad someone thinks so It's not clear to me yet.

It does take awhile to make a good QTR profile. (It took me a day of work.) After that, though, it's very easy to use.

You use the QTR tools, take some measurements, and just enter them in ? The Datacolor spectrocolorimeter is affordably priced: less than a box of some papers.

Btw., Paul Roark usually has regular driver instructions for using his ink sets. That works for most papers with the exception of printing on Arches water color paper.

Do you mean that once you make a profile for a given paper, the instructions still apply in a general sense ? You just choose your new paper on the interface and proceed as normal ?

Thanks a lot !

[Peter De Smidt]

The best thing to do is to go to: http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/ and read the info there. Paul does a better job outlining his approaches than I could.

With most of his ink sets and paper combinations, you don't have to use QTR at all. You simply use Paul's settings and the OEM driver. All of this is outlined in his pdfs on the various ink sets. You don't have to do any profiling with this approach, but you do have to follow Paul's instructions. Paul highly recommends this approach for people starting out with his ink sets.

If you want more control, then you can use QTR. If you use one of Paul's setups, then you can simply use his curves. You can always tweak them a bit if needed. This is much simpler than making your own curves from scratch. Paul is a QTR master. I am a padawan.

Finally, if you modify the system enough, which you should avoid if you can, then you'll have to do your own curves. (Paul's curves are still very useful to make extrapolations from.) I followed the procedure on the QTR tutorial included with QTR. Even with a spectro, it's not as simple as simply entering the numbers, although that does really help, you'll still probably need to modify the curves a bit, run a test strip, adjust... For instance, I wanted a profile to give me A) the highest dmax I could get, and B) the most neutral print I could get. With the first run through the process, I got about 85% there. With a few adjustments, I got 95% there, and the rest of the time was spent trying to eek out even more. If I remember correctly, it took me 14 curves to get what I wanted. If 1.69 dmax was enough, then I could've stopped after 5 or so.

Addendum: I wasn't just after a higher d-max, I also tried to get my grayscale ramp to match ideal densities as well as I could get them before I linearized the curves.

[Tyler Boley]

It's very difficult to make general conclusions from specific tests, for example about uncoated cotton papers. I have two tests there, using Epson inks, one color, and mark requested an ABW test as well. The results so far are not as positive as we'd expected.
While some common sense conclusions can be drawn from compared common tests, the most reliable conclusions from a test is for that paper, that ink, that method of printing, under those conditions.
Marks efforts continue to be invaluable, I hope he can persist in the face of lack of concern by the larger photographic community.
Tyler