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Author Topic: we want white ink !!!  (Read 12501 times)

Happyfish

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we want white ink !!!
« on: August 29, 2007, 11:09:45 pm »

all I wanted was the idea of white ink  and thought that would be cool ?

guess some people dont like conversation and thought this was a troll ?

sorry to those that thought it was cool idea ?

man to start a conversation and be called clueless and told I am a troll etc..

when people do not even know me
« Last Edit: September 05, 2007, 09:44:41 am by Happyfish »
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D White

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« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2007, 11:48:59 pm »

I agree. This would also eliminate gloss differential.
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Ernst Dinkla

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« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2007, 03:15:43 am »

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I agree. This would also eliminate gloss differential.
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You need a thick layer of an opaque white to get rid of a warm paper color. If that opaque white is a cool white anyway as my silkscreen printing experience tells me the more opaque the warmer. That kind of ink isn't glossy either. The amount of ink/pigment needed will be hard to get through a water based inkjet head and will dry slow. The easiest way to create cool white snow on warm paper is to start with cool white paper and print the border warm. Printers think like that. Qimage has the convenient tools for that. A warm matte in the frame is another solution.

There are white inks on solvent inkjet printers and UV curing printers like the Durst. They spit larger droplets from big heads and often the real white fond if needed has to be printed first before the other colors follow. The result is nice for signs though.

There are white textile inkjet inks as far as I know and there is a water based soluble glass (waterglass) ink that's white and has been used on an Epson 4800 to print on glass and rigid materials to be heated to 150 C afterwards for curing. Seen little of it after the show 3 years ago where it was demonstrated.


Ernst Dinkla

try: [a href=\"http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/[/url]
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Happyfish

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« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2007, 04:44:39 am »

not worth it
« Last Edit: September 05, 2007, 09:45:17 am by Happyfish »
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Happyfish

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« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2007, 07:01:21 pm »

funny so many views and nobody thinks this would be cool ?
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Bruce Watson

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« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2007, 08:51:24 pm »

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funny so many views and nobody thinks this would be cool ?
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I think part of the problem is that it's an unfamiliar concept for inkjet. Most people don't know what you'd want to do with it. And of course it's a real problem for drivers and/or RIP software, and for the hardware.

It seems to me that you could go a couple of ways. You could have a really opaque white to use to try to create a consistent "background color" regardless of substrate color. This implies trying to place white ink dots wherever there aren't color ink dots on the page. This would put a premium on the accuracy of dot placement because with a really opaque ink if you overlap an existing color dot you change the HSL value of the effected pixel in interesting ways. And you could never cover all the paper showing between dots because you can't make the ink "wrap around" the color dots -- with non-overlapping circular dots (which assumes a lot about dot gain all by itself) you end up with little cross-shaped bits of substrate showing through. Even then this would probably use a surprising amount of white ink.

Else, you could use a fairly transparent white. This the RIP would use to replace the "photo ink" colors like light-magenta and light-cyan. The one white ink could be used with any ink to "lighten" it. IFF you could accurately place the white ink dot over the color ink dot in a controlled way. The advantage is you'd get "light everything" with just the one white ink which would actually save the manufacturer a bunch of nozzles while increasing the smoothness of the print.

Both of these choices would be hell on driver and RIP software designers, and both would require extremely accurate dot placement which is probably not available yet with today's inkjet mechanisms.

Still, it's an interesting idea. But I can see why none of the manufacturers has jumped on it yet.
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SeanPuckett

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« Reply #6 on: August 30, 2007, 09:06:42 pm »

White would be nice for printing transparencies.  Other than that, can't imagine a real need.  There's hundreds of substrates to choose from, but only one set of inks you can lay down.  Painting white down too would make the substrate almost... unimportant... except for texture.  I suppose if our printers had started out this way, it would be natural.  But given the variety of papers there are, and what we can do with our pigments (especially creatively), I don't see a big need.
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Happyfish

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« Reply #7 on: August 31, 2007, 01:00:48 am »

not worth it
« Last Edit: September 05, 2007, 09:45:51 am by Happyfish »
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iancl

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« Reply #8 on: August 31, 2007, 01:33:26 am »

Couldn't you just print or image of the mountain with white peaks on a brighter white paper and carefully tone the rest of your image just a shade warmer? Then you just need a a natural rag mat.

I suppose you end up using an OB paper that you might not have wanted to.
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Ernst Dinkla

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« Reply #9 on: August 31, 2007, 03:53:04 am »

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I dont see it as painting white down as a complete layer ?
imagine a shot of a mtn with snow peaks on a stormy day and to have that white be white but yet the print is on a nice non OB paper ?

if I wanted the white and I had to print it on white paper I might loose other parts
I wonder would it have to be pure thick white ? or just whiter or enough to help lighten the part ? I dont know its kind of out past what we have thought of ?

but to say its not needed ? I dont know I think is short sited really we have white in this world !!!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136491\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ask an offset printer what he thinks about printing white on cream colored papers especially if it has to be done inline with the CMYK towers. Ask him what is better, offset white or silkscreen white? He has the means to do it and it is also much more suitable on an offset machine than on an inkjet printer. 90% will answer that it is a silkscreen job.

If needed the silkscreen printer can add an inkjet coating on that white as well, like it is done on printable CD-ROMs.

The amount of white ink needed makes it impossible to run it at the same time with the  other inks if both inks are water based inkjet inks. Underneath any CcMmY droplet there should be white at 100% inklimit. And that white has to be as opaque as possible and loaded with OBA to get any effect. Either you have to throttle the colors to avoid bleeding or you get bleeding.

Apart from printing on transparant foil there is hardly a need to do it because other solutions exist like printing the paper color up to the edges. A thing I do more often as artists use off-white or grey colored papers.

Get some white ink and a brush and check what you have to apply on inkjet paper to get the effect you want. Gloss difference on glossy papers and soaking on matt papers counted.

In my view it is mainly a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

Ernst Dinkla
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Scott Martin

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« Reply #10 on: August 31, 2007, 10:24:15 am »

I've been working with the Durst + VuTek UV curable, white colorant machines since their inception. Since UV Curable can "fry" a ink splotch on just about anything (glass, metal, wood, gatorboard, etc.) this process has little to worry about as for as dot gain is concerned. More importantly, it is the non-white materials that present the need for a white ink. One company did a big campaign where they printed their logo (which contains white) on a section of a wood fence. White on wood, black gatorboard or brushed aluminum looks really cool!  But people with these printers aren't using white that much due to the learning curve on behalf of the designers and the need for shops to educate them.

Printer manufacturers have long considered putting white in signage printers but held back due to the low demand and high level of complications. Durst introduced their white colorant printer as a means of entering the UV curable printer market with a splash.  VuTek and others reluctantly followed suit to give Durst some competition. Printing with white is a hot and growing topic right now but the real world usage and demand isn't very high.

Bringing white to desktop ink printers with pigmented inks is considerably more difficult. In addition, the vast majority of inkjet media is some variety of white which lessons the need for white ink. Existing users wanting bright whites on image areas can print on bright white paper and print the cream (or whatever) paper color outside of the image area.  Looking at it from the manufacturer's perspective, I wouldn't realistically expect this technology to reach the desktop anytime soon.
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neil snape

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« Reply #11 on: August 31, 2007, 12:01:24 pm »

Kodak had a little A3+ ribbon cartridge printer driven by Best (EFI) with a strange hybrid driver somewhat 4 channel , somewhat multi channel.
 You simply plugged in up to 4 cartridges in the bays of your choice, white, gold, silver 032, etc and used the base CMYK for the offset side which were indeed colorants up to most offset specs.

This proves that there are different ways to run inks including white.

Believe me it can be done on inkjets too.  Yet  thick coating would be a special head, also doable. So if you want a coating head it's doable. If you want a white ink head , that too is doable. Configuring the driver is a challenge but then worth it if the demand is high enough.
Therein lies the problem. R&D for limited demand puts the price required on the inks to be quite excessive. It's as you all know not the cost of the ink itself , but to have a return on it sets the price quite high on such configurations.
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Don Libby

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« Reply #12 on: August 31, 2007, 12:03:28 pm »

neat idea!

Happyfish

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« Reply #13 on: August 31, 2007, 01:39:27 pm »

Neil I totally remember that printer now  


thanks neil you are one of the guys I always get good info from
« Last Edit: September 05, 2007, 09:47:24 am by Happyfish »
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Ernst Dinkla

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« Reply #14 on: August 31, 2007, 01:58:27 pm »

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Kodak had a little A3+ ribbon cartridge printer driven by Best (EFI) with a strange hybrid driver somewhat 4 channel , somewhat multi channel.
 You simply plugged in up to 4 cartridges in the bays of your choice, white, gold, silver 032, etc and used the base CMYK for the offset side which were indeed colorants up to most offset specs.

This proves that there are different ways to run inks including white.

Believe me it can be done on inkjets too.  Yet  thick coating would be a special head, also doable. So if you want a coating head it's doable. If you want a white ink head , that too is doable. Configuring the driver is a challenge but then worth it if the demand is high enough.
Therein lies the problem. R&D for limited demand puts the price required on the inks to be quite excessive. It's as you all know not the cost of the ink itself , but to have a return on it sets the price quite high on such configurations.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136577\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The subject is: we want white ink !!!

It's doable as long as you do not expect the same inkjet head to run along with the rest and all together laying down the illuminated picture on a grey background in one go. One way or another it has to be fixed immediately like the ribbon printer does, the UV curing printer, the solid wax inkjet printer and more of that kind. Preferably with a thicker layer than the inkjet printers we talk about here.

There are the Roland PC 60 etc ribbon models, intended for vinyl marking foil but usable on paper. Silver, gold, white, was or resin base you name it and up to two feet wide.

I doubt he is looking for a solution like that.

I think the Tektronixs solid wax printers could run white ink, the technology allows it.

Ernst Dinkla
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Scott Martin

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« Reply #15 on: August 31, 2007, 02:04:19 pm »

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I have this killer shot of a couple on the beach and the waves breaking in I love it on a warm paper but I want the ocean to be white where it should be  !

I cant tone the image warmer and print on bright paper ! its way way way to much work to try to then mask out ocean waves breaking on sand it will never look the same
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Why not leave the image as it is and extend the canvas area with a cream color and print that on bright white paper? No need for masking.
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Scott Martin
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Happyfish

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« Reply #16 on: August 31, 2007, 03:01:28 pm »

not really looking for a solution just thinking it would be cool  
and yes it might be tough to do from a tech point ? but look where we are from 30 years ago
« Last Edit: September 05, 2007, 09:47:47 am by Happyfish »
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neil snape

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« Reply #17 on: August 31, 2007, 03:13:40 pm »

For an image like that white ink wouldn't do what you think.
We are not 30 years away from putting these ideas to test.
They've been done and if there were the demand it could be a possibility to bring it to market. Yet just as some radioactive phosphors were used in test CRT tubes, they are fine in theory, yet problematic to bring to market, if not for safety, environmental issues , yet also ROI for R&D to make it work.
Very cool idea though , maybe a coating company work with the ink makers, who in turn work with a printer maker. It would put a lot of fun back in experimental printing, and differentiate those with the tools to do so. That's why I like ideas such as this, to break out of the norm.
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Scott Martin

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« Reply #18 on: August 31, 2007, 03:40:22 pm »

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on brighter paper the image then takes on a dif look since the base is not warm
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but if you extended the canvas with a warm tone and printed the whole thing the paper would have a warm base. It would be very easy to do, too.
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Scott Martin
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Happyfish

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« Reply #19 on: August 31, 2007, 03:58:02 pm »

« Last Edit: September 05, 2007, 09:48:14 am by Happyfish »
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