can one make light magenta and ligh cayn by diluting magenta and cyan

[The Hat]

There really isn’t a But at all, you can print as many reprints as you like and if you’re going to sell your prints then you must use pigment ink unless you are going to put the dye print in a glass frame first.

I have some dye prints under test right now and I will show them off in August, well that is if there’s anything to show, right now they look terrible and they may not even last the distance..

 

[Smile]

There is still a "But" more: Sure you can reprint faded prints for almost no costs - but how often would you really do this? And more important: what about prints you give away (not to speak about purchasing them) - would you like to receive photos as a gift which will fade in less than one year, or even one month?

Well, it all depends on client needs. If the client needs longevity then they should receive pigment ink printed photos, or OEM DYE ink. If they need quality for an album then either will work, even third party quality ink. If you print for a museum then obviously you must be crazy to use third party ink.

That said, a local photo lab prints A6 prints for 0.08Eur, when thewhitewall.com prints same for 5Eur each. They sure print it with outstanding quality if a photolab can print quality photos with it's narrow gamut that even your cheap 4 color printer can surpass.

So cost is not the judging factor, you the maker, and client should understand what you want and what you need. Then use the proper way to make proper decisions.

 

[martin0reg]

Finally I'm back to the original topic of the thread: diluting inks for custom made ink sets
- the "DL-K6" B&W Dye (!) ink set

For diluting the black DL ink to 6 shades of grey I followed exactly the calculation of Paul Roark, like pharmacist did with pigment K3 ink (without the llk/llk)
http://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/making-a-b-w-ink-set-for-6-color-epson-printers.9198/

First prints are really nice, from b&w photos, converted with proper settings - or even directly from color photos! Here are two samples from my scanner (the left is printed from color)



Colors and color shifts are difficult to reproduce with a scanner, but there is a very slightly greenish tint from the almost neutral black on matte paper. For compensation most black inks are slightly magenta/violet, so before my second diluting I put 10% magenta to the original black ink. You could also warm up the set with a little yellow, but for me the original cool greenish prints are fine as they are.

 

[martin0reg]

Stripes! With my first dilution of "DL-K6" I got more or less micro stripes or banding, depending on the setting of paper and print quality. Only in midtone or light areas of the image.
Nozzle check comes out without gaps but some lines appeared somewhat "ripped" or blurred, especialy in Y LC LM

I thought it could be due to my dilution, because in Y LM LC there is only a very small amount of ink left, containing more than 90% dilution. As thinner I used nozzle cleaner first, then pharmacists cleaning solution, but the micro banding would not disappear.
So I made a third dilution of Y LC LM with GLO as thinner (which was my first thinner for the diluted color ink set). First samples are still not totally free of banding at all quality settings, but the results with GLO seem to be best I can get until now.
Later I will exchange also the M and C with new dilutions, hoping to get rid of this annoying banding.

PS: Color printing with the same printer/printhead seems to be fine.
Another reason could be bad ink flow...as I am using new refillables..
What more can cause the banding with my K6 dilution...I don't know..

PPS: Micro banding becomes less or even disappears when I click on "grey" in the printer driver/menu. That's for color images, grey scale images seems to have less or no banding, no matter if "grey" is on or off. And beside this in high quality RPM mode the banding seems to get worse, not better as I was thinking.
Could have something to do with the printer's RIP which is expecting 6 colors...now there are 6 greys and it's hard to know which of the greys is used in certain midtone areas...

 

[The Hat]

PS: Color printing with the same printer/printhead seems to be fine.
Another reason could be bad ink flow...as I am using new refillables..
What more can cause the banding with my K6 dilution...I don't know...

@martin0reg If the viscosity of your DIY ink mix is not correct, say + or minus 3%, then that can have a bearing on how the ink flow goes through the heads..

 

[martin0reg]

Yes I agree, viscosity and other chemical properties will be the main reason of this issue.
Changing settings may increase or decrease the effect, depending on actual ink usage.

In fact with 90% dilution the thinner must have the correct properties to print out well...around 30 small prints later, some paper even shows a kind of light yellowish bronzing. I have to renew the M and C dilution too, because now two different thinners are in the printhead.

Diluting M and C to LM and LC COLOR ink (for making the original 6 color set out of my 4 DL colors) didn't show any problem so far. First thinner which I used was GLO, later on I used nozzle cleaner. No banding or clogging..

Question remains: what may be the best thinner for making "home brewed" ink sets?

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Martin,

I really appreciate your contribution to this forum with your dye ink experiment. After doing a lot of experimenting in the past, I still like dye ink much more than pigment on glossy papers. For matte papers however pigment ink is better. The last few months I have been very busy with my job, so I don't have much time to play with my printers.
Did you try the gloss optimizer of OCP as a diluting base for the inks ? I will give it a try next time, when you send me the samples for my Epson R2000 and try to mix the colors to obtain orange and red inks in my printer. I think I have to dilute down the magenta ink to make a brighter orange, so here the OCP GO comes into action.

Anyhow: I will be near your area end next month in Essen for the ATT Astronomy fair.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I think for a red or orange you don't dilute but mix magenta and yellow in different ratios, orange with more yellow than for red, diluting just would mean you reduce the color saturation

 

[pharmacist]

Yes it is: just mixing let's say 1 part of magenta and 3 parts of yellow is not enough. somehow the obtained orange is not as bright as the original orange. So I think the magenta should be diluted a bit before mixing with the yellow.

 

[martin0reg]

Hi pharmacist, thanks for answering and supporting.
I'm sorry to be late with the ink package, was busy with my new 3880 and still searching for the printer and ink which I want to be profiled...I will send you a pin or email when I'm ready (Essen is indeed very near to me...so maybe I can give you the package there - if I'm around at that time)

Regarding my b&w ink set: Finally no more stripes or banding!
After swapping/refilling the last two carts (M and C) with GLO diluted ink the stripes have disappeared. So the assumption of a bad mixture was right.
Maybe the nozzle cleaner is not really made for this - or I was simply not careful enough at mixing (cleaning the syringes, stirring the mixture,...).

The results are different on different papers, as always...on matte paper it seems to be very good, as good as with my 3880, on cheap glossy it prints almost better..
But on some quality high gloss paper the prints tend to get a yellowish shine, a bit like bronzing, probably due to the inevitable GLO, which is needless here with dye on glossy (original purpose is optimizing pigment on glossy).
And as I already said: diluting 4 colors to 6 results in only two colors (LM LC) of 70% dilution.
But diluting black ink to 6K results in three greys (Y LM LC) of more than 90% dilution (!) and one (M) of 82% dilutin. So there is much of GLO or nozzle cleaner or whatever in your carts - more than original ink! That makes the thinner much more relevant for the printing...

So I keep on searching for a thinner which is like ink without the dye or pigment, no additives like optimizer or cleaner.
- at octopus office there are two sorts of nozzle cleaner:
http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...nreiniger-druckkopfreiniger-fuer-druckkoepfe/
http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...tronen-druckkopfreinigung-rsl-rinse-solution/
- and a "Special Printer Head Preservation Solution"
http://www.octopus-office.de/en/sho...druckkopf-frischhalte-konservierungs-loesung/
- and the gloss optimizer from ocp, which I used lately
http://www.octopus-office.de/shop/d...549/p/ocp-optimizer-fuer-canon-bc-60-farblos/
(you can change the language on top right)
Any ideas when reading the description, what's best as a thinner?

PS: here is a crop of the second DL test print in postin #93. It was a small print 10x15, so the crop is only 4x5cm...printed on really cheap matte inkjet paper 120g...without any tweaking in the driver/menu, just printed on "matte vivid"..