Which Pigment Ink for Epson 1500W?

[RogerB]

Okay, the color that you see in the one-drop-dilution is certainly not the color of the same black printed on paper ... but it is definitely in the ink, no optical effect. Just take a look at post 49!
I'm not the first who noticed a violet tint of many dye blacks - and a surprising neutral tint of the claria black.
How a certain black will look on a print is another question, because the second factor is the paper.
For example see p 3-4 of this pdf from Paul Roark, where he adds magenta to the DL black to compensate the printing on some sort of papers:
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/BW-Dye.pdf
My prints in posting 58 and 60 are showing exactly this (very slight) color tint of black. They are printed with r285 in "black only mode" (using only the black ink channel) and comparing coralgraph with fuji DL (which is obviously pretty much the same as claria).

BTW I came to the "one drop dilution", because I wanted to estimate the density of normal and light inks. Took each 30ml of one-drop C and LC (of different sets), then diluted the C more, step by step, until it looked like LC. So I got a roughly estimated ratio for diluting my DL C+M to LC+LM. Besides I got helpful information here in the forum and from Paul Roark's site.

Now for DL ink in the 3880 I will have to dilute also to LK and LLK...how to do it?
I will take the calculation for B&W as an existing dilution ratio:
K: 100% (C: 30%, M:18%, ....)
LK: 18% black ink + 82% gloss optimizer
LLK: 6% black ink + 94% gloss optimizer
And to prove this with real UCK6 I will do the estimation with one-drop-dilutions of original K LK and LLK.. hoping the results will be at least very similar to the 18% and 6% - although these rates sound like very less black...

Have I misunderstood your post 64 where you refer to UCK3? I take this to mean that the greenish tint is from OEM PK pigment. Is this not the case?

 

[martin0reg]

Yes it is. In posting 64 the first image shows the inks of the bottles behind, second from left to right: epson UCK3 - OEM claria - fuji DL. I just wanted to point out, that
- almost all dye blacks which I had in my one-drop-glass have a tint to the magenta/violet side
. claria and fuji DL are exceptionallly neutral, and UCK3 is surprisingly on the green side

BTW this does not has to be incosistent to your impression of a yellow cast in your QTR prints, as green and yellow are close in the chromatic circle, both on the warm side, while magenta to blue is on the cold side. Printing on certain paper will result in a certain cast of the print...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

translucent and reflective colors of a dye are different anyway, and the only thing what's important how the ink is perceived, or measured, on the actual paper. I don't see another way than measuring that, and using the results either to manually tune the mixture, or running a profile and letting the software doing the corrections. Otherwise there is too much personal judgement and preference and the influence of varying illumination situations, or are you using a daylight box for all your observations ?

 

[RogerB]

Yes it is. In posting 64 the first image shows the inks of the bottles behind, second from left to right: epson UCK3 - OEM claria - fuji DL. I just wanted to point out, that
- almost all dye blacks which I had in my one-drop-glass have a tint to the magenta/violet side
. claria and fuji DL are exceptionallly neutral, and UCK3 is surprisingly on the green side

BTW this does not has to be incosistent to your impression of a yellow cast in your QTR prints, as green and yellow are close in the chromatic circle, both on the warm side, while magenta to blue is on the cold side. Printing on certain paper will result in a certain cast of the print...

The point I was trying to make is that the green colour that you show is not consistent with what I, and others, find with the printed colour using the Epson K3 blacks. It is universally accepted in the QTR circles that the K3 blacks are very warm, so much so that for warm-toned B&W the blacks are used with no colour toners at all. The resulting colour is virtually neutral on the Red-Green axis (a* < 1) but very positive (yellow) on the Yellow-Blue axis (b* > 7). These are measured results, not visual judgements.

To make the K3 prints neutral in QTR it is necessary to add roughly equal amounts of cyan and magenta (= blue) to counteract the inherent yellow. There is no significant green tint, either visually or by measurement.

translucent and refelctive colors of a dye are different anyway, and the only thing what's important how the ink is perceived, or measured, on the actual paper. I don' see another way than measuring that, and using the results either to manually tune the mixture, or running a profile and letting the software doing the corrections. Otherwise there is too much personal judgement and preference and the imfluence of varying illumination situations, or are you using a daylight box for all your observations ?

This is really what I am saying - the only real indication of ink colour is the colour that it gives when printed on paper.

 

[martin0reg]

Okay I understand.

I will report later when I have received my refillables and try running the 3880 with DL ink.

Any comments on the dilution ratios for LK and LLK?

...
Now for DL ink in the 3880 I will have to dilute also to LK and LLK...how to do it?
I will take the calculation for B&W as an existing dilution ratio:
K: 100% (C: 30%, M:18%, ....)
LK: 18% black ink + 82% gloss optimizer
LLK: 6% black ink + 94% gloss optimizer
And to prove this with real UCK6 I will do the estimation with one-drop-dilutions of original K LK and LLK.. hoping the results will be at least very similar to the 18% and 6% - although these rates sound like very less black...

PS: what about QTR "calibration mode"...this function is printing color charts of each ink with percentage numbers...will try that too!

 

[RogerB]

Okay I understand.

I will report later when I have received my refillables and try running the 3880 with DL ink.

Any comments on the dilution ratios for LK and LLK?

I don't know how dilution rates affect the printed density, However, I can tell you that for the 3880 the printed densities for the LK and LLK are 52% and 15% respectively of the density of the PK. In other words, 100% LK gives the same density as 52% PK and 100% LLK gives the same as 15% PK. Based on that, my gut feeling is that your ratios are a bit low.

I'm not sure if it will help, but here is a scan of three step-wedges printed with PK, LK and LLK. These are produced using the calibration facility in QTR. In each one, 100% represents the maximum amount of ink delivered for the ink channel. You will see that LK is actually quite dark, but as I said I do not know how the printed density relates to dilution.


I don't know if you have QTR, but for the kind of experiments that you are doing I would say it should be extremely useful.

 

[martin0reg]

RogerB, thank you very much for posting - that's exactly what I need!

I will try this with my QTR too...but as you are possibly more familiar with the "calibration mode"

- could you post a complete print of these step-weges, showing also M / LM and C / LC
..and also tell me your density percentages of LM compared to M and LC compared to C.

So that I could compare and prove my previous and actual dilutions for light inks too
(which is 25-33% of M/C to get LM/LC, for 6 channel printers)

 

[RogerB]

RogerB, thank you very much for posting - that's exactly what I need!

I will try this with my QTR too...but as you are possibly more familiar with the "calibration mode"

- could you post a complete print of these step-weges, showing also M / LM and C / LC
..and also tell me your density percentages of LM compared to M and LC compared to C.

So that I could compare and prove my previous and actual dilutions for light inks too
(which is 25-33% of M/C to get LM/LC, for 6 channel printers)

Here is the complete ink separation plot for my 3880 with OEM ink.

For the LC and LM 100% is equivalent to 30% C and M respectively. That seems to fit very well with your dilution numbers.

I should say that this scan is not colour corrected, and since the colours are very saturated the absolute accuracy is not guaranteed.

 

[martin0reg]

Okay, so for diluting LM and LC you are close to my actual ratio, used for a 6 channel R285

I haven't printed out a separation plot from my 3880, I think it may differ..a bit..??

Besides I have read this pdf concerning the calibration of a R2400
http://www.quadtonerip.com/Calibration.pdf
- here the calculated ratio of LK and LLK to K is: 33% and 12%
..and my own estimation of LM und LC by looking at these images on monitor and rgb values
- LC is ca. 33% of C
- LM is ca. 23% of M

My conclusion for the moment (using the thread as my notebook)
- for LC: 33% = 1+2 thinner
- for LM: 25% = 1+3 thinner
- for LK: 50% (your measuring of 3880) or 33% (R2400 measured in the pdf)
- for LLK: 12% - 15%

All this is based on the assumption that there is an almost one-to-one correlation between dilution of inks and lightness of the printed color..


Beside the ratio there is the other question, which sort of thinner...GLO or nozzle cleaner or..."Storage and Preservation Solution" ??

http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...549/p/ocp-optimizer-fuer-canon-bc-60-farblos/

http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...tronen-druckkopfreinigung-rsl-rinse-solution/
http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...nreiniger-druckkopfreiniger-fuer-druckkoepfe/

http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...druckkopf-frischhalte-konservierungs-loesung/

 

[RogerB]

Okay, so for diluting LM and LC you are close to my actual ratio, used for a 6 channel R285

I haven't printed out a separation plot from my 3880, I think it may differ..a bit..??

Besides I have read this pdf concerning the calibration of a R2400
http://www.quadtonerip.com/Calibration.pdf
- here the calculated ratio of LK and LLK to K is: 33% and 12%
..and my own estimation of LM und LC by looking at these images on monitor and rgb values
- LC is ca. 33% of C
- LM is ca. 23% of M

My conclusion for the moment (using the thread as my notebook)
- for LC: 33% = 1+2 thinner
- for LM: 25% = 1+3 thinner
- for LK: 50% (your measuring of 3880) or 33% (R2400 measured in the pdf)
- for LLK: 12% - 15%

All this is based on the assumption that there is an almost one-to-one correlation between dilution of inks and lightness of the printed color..

Beside the ratio there is the other question, which sort of thinner...GLO or nozzle cleaner or...
http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...549/p/ocp-optimizer-fuer-canon-bc-60-farblos/
http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...tronen-druckkopfreinigung-rsl-rinse-solution/

I would not assume that the R2400 and the 3880 will have the same (printed) density ratios. They are different printers so the ink partitioning may be different even if the ink is the same.