Moab Entrada dmax only LAB 24 (approx 1.4 dmax)

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1

Is anyone getting darker blacks with Piezography Pro ink on Moab Entrada Natural paper? I build a custom curve based on the default Piezography curve and measure LAB 24 for pure black. I would really like to get this down to LAB 16-20 if possible.

I understand you only see dmax on LAB 0 pixels. I’ve flushed a ton of ink through this printer, so I don’t think it is an issue of residual OEM ink.

2

I’ll add that I only measured LAB 24.8 on Epson Hot Press Natural using the Hahn-PhotoRag-Neutral curve.

3

Most likely you are printing with Photo Black ink selected on your printer if you are getting L24 ish. Or you are printing on the back of the sheet (uncoated side).

UltraHD MK ink goes down to L* value of 12.89 - 13.7 on most papers.

-Walker

4

Moab Entrada is double sided, so I’m safe there. MK is definitely selected on the printer. I swapped K on the printer and printed PK on Entrada and the result is almost identical (23.9 pK vs.23.7MK)

5

Uh oh. Can you post a photo of your bottle? I need to see the LOT#. May have been a miss-fill of PK in MK. Yikes

-Walker

6

I no longer have the initial fill bottle. Here is my current MK, but it has only been used to top off the cart.DSC00757

7

if it has ONLY been used to top off the cart and you are suddenly getting dMax of L*24 than something else is entirely the problem.

Take a brush, brush a bit of this ink on some matte paper. Do the same with PK. If the MK is much darker something is off in either the printer corrupt settings.

if they are the same then it’s a miss-fill. I verified this batch # with 20 other customer sales though and so far no problems.

-Walker

8

I’m not sure if I’ve ever had better than L*24, but I did do an ink dropper test on the matte paper I’m using and got a L24 on both PK and MK bottles.

9

More tests:

  1. I found an old test print using OEM ink on matte paper. I measure L*16.
  2. I printed both Pro PK and MK inks on photo paper (luster) and got L*5-5.3. QTR applied the GCO on both prints. I don’t have any boxes of photo paper right now, but was able to dig up some samples sheets. Red River Arctic Polar Luster and some other Red River photo paper was used.
  3. I dropped ink straight from the PK and MK bottles onto Entrada and measured L*24 for both. The only way to get darker would be to overlay additional ink.
  4. I printed a QTR ink calibration page to rule out the curves, d’max was still L*24

I checked the matte black bottle and about half (30mm) has been used to top of the MK cart. I don’t know what’s going on.

10

I have confirmed the bad fill so we are going through all sales orders of this LOT# and re-sending.

Thank you for piping up here.

best,
Walker