Printing warm toned B/W images

[deanwork]

The most sophisticated and variable way to do these kinds of splits is with Studio Print since you can partition each channel in the software and and blend various hues right in the software with corresponding values in the prints. This is what Tyler does along with custom mixing hues by hand before they are put in the ink carts. This is amazing and can be super subtle, but there is a huge learning curve and a lot of experimentation involved and it is not for most people. The advantage of doing it that way would be to develop several hue/split combinations ( environments ) to choose from on the fly for different projects.  Unless you have a lot of time and a lot of patience I wouldn't suggest getting involved with this kind of work flow.

What you can do though is load various hues from different sets into various ink carts and blend them in printing. Since you have 7 of them you have a lot of possibilities there and that is easy and you only need the shareware QTR. That is essentially what the Special Edition set is.  I find the Special Edition set very beautiful but also too warm for most of what people like. For me I like the pure carbon warm set on matte papers only. That has a kind of platinum-palladium feel but with much greater dmax.

What you could do is start with the Carbon set ( if your making only matte prints ) or the Warm Neutral set ( both matte and gloss ) and progressively become more neutral by mixing the neutral set or the Selenium into it. The Selenium set will give you a little more pinkish highlights, like traditional selenium toning and thus a more noticeable split.  Something like 1-2-3- carbon or warm neutral, 4 -5  50% carbon  or warm neutral and 50% neutral and 6 and 7 neutral or selenium. The smartest and easiest way to come up with such a formulation is to by a cheap used 2200 or 2400 or something like that and use the refillable ink carts for it. Inkjet mall sells some small ones that are very easy to deal with. I bought the inexpensive continuous flow ink system for a 2200 from MIS with the little bottles and it has worked perfectly for years. The advantage to the smaller carts though is you use a lot less ink to experiment with. You can buy buy the various hues in different size bottles. If you try all this with a big printer you are going to go through a lot of ink before getting there. With a small printer hardly any at all.

Others can comment more than me but I find the gloss fiber prints with Piezography are much warmer than with matte papers with all the inksets. I don't know if you will find a pure neutral that way, but you can certainly do that with matte papers.


john

[TylerB]

Jon was working on a dual quad set that you could mix at will with the qtr sliders. Select one or the other, blend at will, including highlight, mid, and shadow exclusive percentages. This would be ideal for most wanting hue flexibility. I don't think it's official yet, but I might recall they can set you up on it with an inquiry.
Yes, any of these sets on a PK paper, then treated with GO, are much more "colorful" than the same set on matte. Since most sets are warm, even the selenium is reddish, gloss prints are warmer for sure.
Tyler

[deanwork]

I was just wondering why they hadn't set up something like with the QTR sliders since they are so variable. If they had presets it could be easy.

[TylerB]

well, for Ergosoft Switzerland.. I'd like to say us few mono ink users are much more than a minor irritant for them but I'd be a liar. Their approach all along seems to have been.. give us every conceivable control over the hadrware they can, without having much interest in what we do with it..
I'd be lost without it, but we're pretty much on our own making it work for unusual setups.
Another aspect of using it "unusually", is to assign a spot channel to an ink tank and control how that ink is used tonally in the in the spot channel in PS.. Ashes and Snow stuff was done that way, and what Jon was doing with those beautiful splits when we were all there together was also done that way. My figure study in "taste like chicken" was also done that way.
Fun printmaking stuff.
Tyler