Re:Bad news about printing B&W images with color inks

["Jerry Olson" <jerryols@badlands.nodak.edu>]

To all:      

Just found out about a dismaying problem printing Black and white images
using the Grayscale space and color inks.

I have about 30 13 x19 prints that until now looked great, or so I
thought when I made them. I was showing them to a dealer today in very
bright Northern window light. On 90% of them , you can see a spotty
coloration that varies between the Gray they should be, and areas that
look noticeably  more red. The reddishness is especially obvious in the
Shadows. Where I make the prints, I don't have nearly as bright light to
view them in, and this wasn't noticeable then. It isn't a very large
variation, and in room light, you probably wouldn't notice it unless you
were aware of it. But it is definitely there in bright light!

This has happened with THREE different inksets. The Epson originals, the
MIS archival inks, and the Fotonic inks. The epson inks have the least
amount of this color variance, the Fotonics the most. But there still
isn't really a LOT of difference between them.  The paper used doesn't
seem to make any difference. Printing with just the black inks would
take care of the problem, but the results are too grainy. Quad inks
would also take care of the problem, I THINK, but I need color inks also
for other work.

Has anybody else noticed this?  Look at your prints in Really bright
light, and let me know. The color is always reddish, and usually, but
not always in the shadows. It seems to vary in large areas over the
print. Again, this is a subtle effect, but hardly acceptable if you are
selling your prints as fine art prints to hang on the wall. Where would
you even begin to find the cause of this problem? It seems like there is
just one thing after another that goes wrong when you are trying for
really high quality Prints.

Thanks for any help any of you can offer.

Jerry
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