Baryta papers and UltraChrome ink

[sergio]

I have my old and reliable Epson 7600 w/ ultrachrome inks but I want to use surfaces other than matte. Anybody tried these inks with baryta or other glossy stock with success?

[Geoff Wittig]

I have my old and reliable Epson 7600 w/ ultrachrome inks but I want to use surfaces other than matte. Anybody tried these inks with baryta or other glossy stock with success?

This will work okay, but it doesn't really play to the strength of the 7600, which is its still very competitive performance with matte black ink on cotton rag paper. The best the original Ultrachrome inks can do on luster/semigloss paper with photo black ink is a d-max of around 1.9 - 2.0; this is darker than what you'll get with matte black ink on cotton rag at about d-max 1.6, but IMHO not good enough to compensate for the bronzing and metamerism you'll get. The matte black ink used by the 7800 generation (K3 inkset) is identical to the 7600's, and so print quality on cotton rag paper is not significantly different. The next generation (7880) gives a wider color gamut in the magenta/purple/blue direction, but again I don't think it actually improves on d-max on cotton rag papers. Dithering and so on is more advanced on the later printers, but if you put prints side by side it's remarkable how well the 7600 prints still hold up.

[Richowens]

Sergio,

 I am using Ilford's GFS with a 2200, same ink as your 7600. I am using Ilford's canned profile. I have the ink limit set to -5 otherwise the blacks want to block up a little and I get a little puddlling in the midtone to shadow range.

 So far I am very pleased, especially with the D-max and the saturation of colors. As for metamerism, there is very slight change from tungsten to daylight.  It does bronze moreso in dark blues to almost none in black areas.

 In my opinion it behaves better than any other gloss or luster paper I have tried.

 Atlex has this paper in a sample pack which also includes other baryta offerings.BW-1 Sample Pack

HTH

Rich

[tived]

Hi guys,

How do you measure d-max, I am using a i1pro Proof kit, with the iMatch software. I should say I am learning to use it :-)

I have just profiled Epson Traditional Photo Paper, Ilford GoldFibreSilk, Hahnemuehle PhotoRag Pearl, Satin and Baryta as well as the original PhotoRag on my Trusty old Epson 4000 :-) and on a HP Z3100. I am using PC at home and Mac at work.
Using a 918patch, what I am seeing when printing the Outbackphoto's test image is that I don't see any separation in the blacks in most papers until 12-18 on the different papers and in the highlights 252-253 is the last details i see before hitting paper white.

Someone told me, that due to the color patch is an older version, one used to linearize the printer, I would need to profile the printer several times (approx 3 times) to get a really close profile. Now I am new to profiling and was wondering if anyone here had any experience with this

Thanks

Henrik