[Leica] Carbon Printing... any experiences? -> Paul Roark

Sat Jun 18 16:28:50 PDT 2016

Hi Paul,

I have no words to thank you for your time and your detailed explanation helping me to understand much better the system. I’ve spend some hours reading different websites, first at all I want to say you my congratulations for your great work, your site is fantastic and I’ve learned a lot of things.

I find really vey interesting what do you say about your Eboni inks that clogging issues are not so usual as with the others.

I’m not sure if I’ve understood that Eboni can be used only for Matte papers and preferably on Arches Watercolor paper. IMHO this is a great paper for fine art photography but for my style I think I don’t need this fine quality and that the semi-gloss Canson Infinity Platine Fiber match generally better on this style than matte paper. However I’ve read that you can mix Eboni 6 with some other to be used on semi-gloss paper.

Another point I have to consider is that the suppliers of these are in US, I have not see if they have European dealers and this aspect makes a little bit more complicated the things, freights, customs….

About printing, I understand that I can use the ICC profiles from the paper manufacturers, or QTR. I’ve never build a profile myself and I think this will be difficult and need a lot of time, I consider myself a simply photographer and I like and prefer invest my time shooting and editing.

Thank you very much again, I will appreciate if you can clarify the points I’m not yet sure.

Cheers
Lluis

> El 18 juny 2016, a les 5:18, Paul Roark <roark.paul at gmail.com> va escriure:
> 
> 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
> 
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