B/W printing with the ET-8500/8550

[Ink stained Fingers]

The German distributor for refill inks farbenwerk is offering a new Carbonprint B/W inkset specifcally developed for the ET-8500/8550 Ecotank printers, using such inks eliminates typical problems printing B/W or monochrome with dye inks.

https://www.farbenwerk.com/start-cpm-et8500-eng

 

[PeterBJ]

Do you know if something similar is available for Canon printers? Years ago Mikling sold an ink set with photo black and 3 different greys to replace the CMY inks.

Yellow seems to be a light colour so I think the grey replacement for that should be a much diluted photo black, Cyan seems to be darker and the replacement ink should be less diluted and magenta seems even darker so I think it should be even less diluted.

I once saw a suggestion to how much the CMY replacement inks should be diluted, but I cannot find that info again. Does anybody have a guess?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

These Carbonprint B/W inks by farbenwerk are carbon based pigment inks replacing dye inks in the listed printers. I'm not that much into B/W printing but I could assume that switching from dye to pigment in Canon printers is more diffcult or impossible than with Epson printheads - or there is just less interest by Canon users - I don't know.

'matte papers and printouts in a naturally warm black tone. Because of the warm tone of carbon pigments, the tone of the resulting printouts ranges from neutral warm to almost sepia.' as stated on the farbenwerk web page.

And this inkset would not allow you to use software or driver support in Epson printers with the advanced B/W mode to change the hue of monochrome prints - a steelblue tone would not work with the Carbonprint inks.

I don't know if a forum member has specific experience with such carbonprint inks ; I think you should direct further questions directly to farbenwerk.

I have seen other B/W inksets - as well dye inks - with diluted and adjusted black inks - but that's not the same as the Carbon inks.

 

[PeterBJ]

I know that pigment inks for Epson most likely would ruin a Canon printer for dye inks, It might be off-topic but I was interested in the diluting ratios for dye photo black for B/W use in a Canon printer.

It would of course not be the same quality as with the Carbon inks as I think the carbon pigment will be totally resistant to fading, which after market inks are not.

 

[The Hat]

It would of course not be the same quality as with the Carbon inks as I think the carbon pigment will be totally resistant to fading, which after market inks are not.

The problems with making an all-black ink set is, after about a week the printout hue will change and it won’t be anything like the same B&W print your originally made.. Colour start to creep in..

This is not new, even the old wet room prints had the same fade issues, even when kept in framed glass, not as much dough, because we don’t have anything to compare them with, like a new reprint..

It’s like trying to balance on the head of a pin.. B&W prints are more effected by light direction in a room, than colour prints are, hang the print on one wall and it looks great, but on the opposite wall it can fail to impress the host.. Colour prints are more forgiving..

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

farbenwerk is stating that this new inkset creates a warm look of the prints

Because of the warm tone of carbon pigments, the tone of the resulting printouts ranges from neutral warm to almost sepia.' as stated on the farbenwerk web page.

But I see on the farbenwerk web pages that they offer as well another version of the Carbonprint inks - the Carbonprint Pearl inks allow some toning of the prints which should get you closer to neutral blacks.

• Minimal amount of color pigments
• Easy toning option

https://www.farbenwerk.com/carbonprint-pearl-eng

The use of color pigments should prevent color shifts over time - but as well these inks are only available for Epson printers. @websnail may have some information about other B/W inksets from other suppliers incl. Canon compatible versions. I do not have any experience with these inks and cannot comment on the size of the tonal range available with this inkset and cannot comment on the differences between the different Carbonprint inksets.

 

[websnail]

The use of color pigments should prevent color shifts over time - but as well these inks are only available for Epson printers. @websnail may have some information about other B/W inksets from other suppliers incl. Canon compatible versions. I do not have any experience with these inks and cannot comment on the size of the tonal range available with this inkset and cannot comment on the differences between the different Carbonprint inksets.

To save any blushes later I should note that I only have any insight into the Epson B&W inks as per Paul Roark's recipes and due to time constraints most of my experience is third hand through customer shared info and from Paul himself so I'm no expert in the subject.

 

[Simon Knight]

Bump! I use to print using a Epson 1400/1500 printing loaded with Paul Roarks Carbon Inks. This was some time ago as the printer eventually died and I was unable to find a replacement.
If you use an all carbon inkset then you can only print on matt papers, these include not only the normal suspects from Epson et al but also uncoated papers produced for the general art market such as water colour papers. Mr. Roark is a fan of Arches papers which, I believe, are produced in France.

I used QuadToneRip and possibly other software (my memory) to produce paper profiles using a desktop scanner. The system was very reliable and I and others liked the look of the warm toned prints it produced. Compared with the OEM inks the carbon ink was as cheap as chips and there are no worries about how long the prints will last : >180 MegaLux hours. The downside was having to import the ink from MIS in the USA and the potential mess caused when refilling the cartridges.

The new Ecotank printers are tempting because they are simple to refill with whatever you like. Someone is bound to worry about re-filling a mostly dye ink printer with pigment inks. As I understand it the print head has nozzles that are about 25 microns where as a good quality pigment is less than 0.1 microns meaning that the worry of clogging by clumps of pigment particles is probably unfounded.

Lastly I have read that Canon thermal print heads are more of a challenge for producers of third party inksets as the ink is boiled while cooling the printhead.

I'm thinking of buying a ET-8550 and filling it with carbon ink from either farbenwerk or Martin at Octoinks.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

You may have a look to the recently released ET-18100 which is a kind of updated re-release of the 1400 as an Ecotank printer - with the same type of inkset with 6 inks - Photoblack - M - LM - C - LC - Y so you have the choice of 2 similar printers - ET-8550 and ET-18100

 

[Simon Knight]

Thanks for the steer. I'm presently reminding myself of the work flow/s used and one issue may be that the application QuadtoneRip is not compatible with any of the EcoTank printers. I may be leaning more towards the P700 or gulp the P900 but need to confirm that its possible to refill them here in the UK.