Making a B&W ink set for 6-color Epson printers

[Łukasz]

Hi pharmacist,

Some years ago I saw some calibration print from Epson Pro 3800. This machine was set to be (offset printing) proofer. There was some claims, that Magenta is contaminated with Cyan drops in darker areas, but I cannot tell why it was (default RIP settings makes printed output so similar to offset print?).

Gloss optimizer could be handled by Y in dye Pixma printers. I mean that it is possible to use both BK on M (or C) and GO on Y (as long as it is safe to printhead - overheat concerns). Not certain sure whatever GO is suitable for dye inks, but coating dye ink prints with any kind of protective layer can greatly improve fade resistance (looks like 3-rd party dye ink cannot soak deeper into photo paper so they are prone to fade).

Ł.

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Lukasz,

It was not me with that machine and contaminated magenta. It must be someone else.

 

[martin0reg]

Lukasz, thank you once more for the detailed instructions!
Now I am even more curious what comes out - hope I can fix my old ip4000 soon...

 

[Lucas28]

And now for a neutral tone!

To get a more neutral tone with these LK and LLK inks I’ve experimented with adding some Light Cyan to the yellow cartridge.
I’ve tried different mixtures, but it appeared that simply filling the yellow cartridge with 100 % Light cyan gave the best tone.

I’ve started with new empty cartridges so no color ink residue could spoil the effect.

The cartridges are now filled with these inks:
Black: K
Magenta: LK
Cyan: 8% K + 92% LK
Yellow: LC

The tone can still be altered by moving the yellow slider in Photoshop, or in the printer driver. Note that more sliding to yellow results in a cooler photo. This scan shows the results of some yellow slider settings.

The effect can even be very strong as the next Scan shows. It was reached after some fiddling with the color sliders in Photoshop.

 

[PeterBJ]

This is impressive!

 

[pharmacist]

Hi Lukas,

I presume you use the matte paper setting to force CMYK printing, not ? Many thanks for the great results: it is even better compared to my method to get a more neutral tone. The problem with pure PK/LK/LLK is the warm glow of the pigment.

 

[Lucas28]

Thanks for the compliments, guys.
The paper setting is 'matte' indeed. It's the only way to have the black ink in the game with this 'Durabrite' printer. The paper I use is Netbit (Sihl) glossy.

The grey inks are rather warm as you noticed. I think it's carbon based ink. The PK photo black is a little cooler than the LK and LLK grey. You can see that when you set the printer driver to 'grey' Then a photo is printed with black ink only. It appears that the print is slightly cooler.
So PK black ink diluted with GO must be cooler than LK grey ink.

 

[martin0reg]

@Lucas28: I like the "warm" tone more than the others .. they are looking too bluish IMO .. the first looks not too warm but almost neutral - on my monitor!

While I am preparing my canon ip4000 to print black only (like lucasz have suggested, post 13-20) I compared different refill inks - not by printing but diluted in a glass (one drop)

Three different BK and two PBK.
The PBK's I would like the most, but it can not be used for photos in the canon.
The BK's are quite different, from violet to reddish...

(kmp pbk - IS bk - coralgraph pbk)

(inkswiss bk - IS bk - coralgraph bk)

Cheers!

 

[PeterBJ]

Nice photo showing that diluted pigment black is a neutral grey or nearly so and that a diluted dye black is purplish or reddish.

Excuse me for being a bit off-topic, but this dilution test can also be used to test if an unknown black ink is pigment or dye. Your photos have a better white balance that the one I posted here, my diluted pigment black was a more neutral grey than my photo shows.

 

[pharmacist]

I wil try a dilution made from the photo black and start diluting it with gloss optimizer to see there will be an improvement.