[Leica] Carbon Printing... any experiences?

[Paul Roark]

I probably have my biases, but I obviously prefer the carbon inks.  The MIS
B&W inks are my designs -- most open source that they just picked up.
Originally Bob Zeiss there was very good and helpful.  The new owners are
people I don't know much about.  I have never had any formal agreement or
connection to MIS and never received any royalties.  I just make what I
want and publish the formulas.

The early B&W inksets were, to a certain extent, a learning experience.
They worked well for a fair number of people.  In the days of the Epson
1280, the third party B&W inksets made such better prints than the OEM inks
that, when my "UT2" desing for the 1280 was released by MIS, which had
30,000 customers, UT2 became their best selling product within one week.

Those days are over.  With the advent of the K3 inkset approach by the OEMs
most people just went that direction.

By that time I'd done enough of my own fade testing to know what the
weaknesses of the inks were, and it's the color that is used in them to
neutralize the warm carbon.  The carbon is incredibly strong.  So, I
decided to try and make a 100% carbon inkset.

Today the only 100% carbon inks are those using the carbon usually known as
MIS "Eboni" and Cone's carbon sepia.  All the others have color pigments in
them to offset the warmth of the carbon.  Those color inks fade at
different rates, causing tone shifts.

The 100% carbon inks are extremely lightfast -- far better than the OEM B&W
approaches or even the old selenium toned silver prints.  As a practical
matter, with 100% carbon pigment the paper is the weak link.  That is why I
believe the only prints that will look good hundreds of years from now
might be those printed on Arches watercolor paper (uncoated) with the Eboni
or similar carbon.

While the 100% carbon inks are very tough, the third party sellers do not
have economical access to the best color pigments.  Thus the "carbon" inks
made by MIS or Cone suffer tone shifts worse than the OEM B&W approaches.
That is why my current B&W inks use Canon cyan and blue pigments to tone
the carbon.  These latest inks still suffer some tone shifting, but they
are beating the silver print, which is good enough for me.

Third party inks have a bad reputation for clogging.  I, personally, have
not had the problem.  I do try to run my printers at least once very two
weeks.

One of the primary causes of clogging is the binder that is in inks
designed for glossy paper.  It's glue to keep the pigs from being rubbed
off slick glossy paper.   The "Eboni-6" formula is made for matte paper
only and has no binders in the dilution base.  In my experience, it is the
least likely pigment inkset to clog.

Another primary factor in clogging is the ink pigment load.  The Eboni MK
(MIS's trade name) that I base the Eboni-6 inkset on is a high load MK.  If
my 7800 is going to show a gap in the nozzle check, it's almost always the
100% MK and a couple specific nozzles at the bottom of the head.  In fact,
with the new version of Eboni (v. 1.1) even this is rare if the sit time is
only 2 weeks.

I, in fact, do not buy much from MIS.  I buy from their supplier.  Image
Specialists (and owner/founder/chemist Walt ---- [never knew his last
name]) designed the MK that I selected as the one to base my current
inksets on.  It gave the best dmax and also most neutral 100% carbon
image.  It is a high load/density MK.  By starting out as more neutral,
less color is needed to make a truly neutral B&W.  This means less color to
differentially fade and cause a tone shift.  Walt died and STS Inks bought
IS.  STS modified the Eboni MK only (they say) by upgrading the dispersant
to a state of the art product.  (There have been advances.)  The new Eboni
is not quite as neutral as the old, but still better than any of the
alternatives.

"Eboni" from STS inks is their product wj1082.  (W is probably for Walt.)
 A liter costs $75.  This is not on their web site, but I can supply the
contact for anyone interested.  I then dilute this myself with the generic
base that I formulated.  (It didn't hurt that my brother was a PhD
chemist.)  The cost of my B&W carbon inks ends up being about 2 orders of
magnitude less than the cost of ink in small Epson cartridges.  It is the
most lightfast ever tested by http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/ (the best
-- Mark the owner/founder was a scientist with the national gallery for
about 30 years).   As best I can tell, and according to my experiences,
this 100% carbon inkset is the least likely to clog of any pigment inkset,
OEM inksets included.

Most third party inks are said to be garbage.  For those who really want
the best for the least, however, there is a DIY approach that a lot of
people now use with great success.  MIS sells the inks premixed (but not
the Canon toner).

My various B&W projects are usually summarized in PDFs that I put on my web
page.  http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/ is my B&W information home page.
Eboni-6 as well as some fade test results are summarized at
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Eboni-6.pdf.  I discuss ink mixing here:
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Ink-Mixing.pdf

I generally use Google even to find my own PDFs.

This is not rocket science; carbon inks have been used for thousands of
years.  While the best color pigments for inkjet printing are tied up with
the OEMs, carbon is easy for the third party types to get.

Not for everyone ...

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com