Re: [Leica] Could this actually work...?

[Mark Rabiner <mark@rabinergroup.com>]

Martin Howard wrote:
> 
> I've been speculating.  Actually, what I've been doing is playing with
> my
> i950, trying (with varying success) to get it to print B&W prints with
> predictible results, while reading lots of things about digital B&W
> printing on the 'net.
> 
> It would appear that this is an area in which there is a terrible
> amount of
> confusion and very little science.  Filling the void is speculation on
> everything ranging from tonality to longevity, plus a number of
> companies
> that sell various solutions.  Most expensive, some probably very good.
> 
> However... I've been thinking.  Good quality inkjet printers are
> available
> today for less than $250.  That's not a lot of money.  I bought my i950
> from B&H for that and it's a 6-ink, 2 picoliter inkjet printer.
> 
> Piezography BW have apparently annouced that they are going to release
> an
> ink kit plus ICC profile for this printer.  However, judging by the cost
> of similar products for the Epson line, it would appear that this alone
> is
> going to cost more than half the cost of the printer.
> 
> So... I've been thinking.
> 
> India ink is permanent.  Good quality, "archival" paper is readily
> available.  The i950 is blessed with not with separate ink wells, but
> also
> with a removable printer head.  Together, these seem to suggest a
> solution.
> 
> I'm guessing that it would be possible to dilute concentrated ink to
> reproducable dilutions.  I'm also guessing that it would be possible to
> refill empty Canon ink wells with such diluted ink.
> 
> Creating step wedges in Photoshop is easy.  So, let's play a little game
> of thought.  Imagine that we got some suitable ink.  Imagine that we
> diluted this in six different dilutions, from one very black, through
> six
> levels of dilution, to one very light.  Imagine that we filled empty ink
> wells with this, plugged them into a dedicated printer head and slapped
> the whole thing into an i950.
> 
> Then, we fill our printer with some good quality, archival art paper of
> suitable weight.  Now, imagine that we created a set of step wedges in
> Photoshop and printed these on, say, 8x10" or 8.5x11" paper.
> 
> What we need to do now is somehow measure the density of the various
> patches of the step wedge.  From this, we could create an ICC profile
> that
> would be plugged into Photoshop to allow on-screen, soft-proof editing
> of
> an image.  Voila!  Reproducable, pure ink, archival quality prints.
> 
> Or am I wrong?
> 
> Questions:
> 
> * What kind of inks could you use?
> 
> * What would you dilute them with?
> 
> * How do you measure the density in the output?
> 
> * Am I totally bonkers?
> 

Pay the Five dollars Martin! Yes!  bonkers because an ink by any other
name does not smell as sweat!

We could say "hey! these people are just making a big deal about the
development of ink jet printing all  you need to do is grab some ink and
dilute it and put it in these containers and blow some air through it...
But i think they ran into some snags along the way ...
and I'll bet they didn't start out with India Ink!
	And had to burn some midnight oil figuring it out. I'd say hundreds of
thousands of hours.
I don't think you are going to second guess years of work of the Epson
research And development section on a lazy rainy Saturday afternoon.

The work the people put into coming up with the right inks, how to
dilute them how much and with what and it can be stored for release and
which worked with the right inkjet heads was both involved and valid.
And involved many innovations. I'm giving them a lot of credit and I'm a
darkroom guy for thirty years.

Ink making and it's use is both a science and even an art. You can take
a course in Ink Making in art school and you can take a course in ink
making in graphic arts school.(where people learn how use large printing
presses to do commerical work) I learned this in school where i did a
lot of printing and not in the darkroom. It was with inks; Intaglio,
Engraving, Etching, Drypoint, Aquatint we had to do it all in the
program. We started out with a potato; cut it in half. And we had to use
and learn about inks in a variety of ways. One thing i remember is that
they have different viscosities. They repel each other when they have
different viscosities. But press operators dont care if they repell each
other. All they care about it getting the ink through the machine.
http://www.sbu.edu/qac/AIE/docs/what_is_a_print_kit.pdf
India inks are a pain in the ass. We avoided them for everything is my
remembrance. But I guarantee they will clog up your heads no matter how
much you dilute it and what you dilute it with.
Some photographers sign their prints with them because bugs do not find
them delicious.
I dot let the stuff in my studio/house.
I think it took them years to come up with the formula for inks which
would do what they had to do to do the inkjet thing.
When the inkjet thing hit, it hit when they pretty much came up with the answer.
You might as well say "why don't i make my own inkjet paper it cant be
that hard all i need is some pulp and some water and..."

We see people mix up their own paper developer and film developer and
other darkroom chemicals from scratch. I do it.
But I doubt we are going to see people mixing up their own Inkjetting
inks from scratch. Ink making is too high a technology. We'll see but my
money is on "No".
Ink making, paper making. Martin if you're head is in this space for
much longer I'd recommend taking a course in generalized print making.
http://www.polymetaal.n l/beguin/alfabet.htm

Lets not forget "photography" is just one of many print making
processes. 
My very first portfolio reflected that when i first started out. They i
got a studio and specalized.


Mark Rabiner
Portland, Oregon USA
http://www.rabinergroup.com
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