Has anyone replaced the blacks (I’m using a 3880 so it would be MK, LK, LLK) in an Epson or ConeColor inkset with piezo blacks? Many years ago I read about this and wanted to try it but never did. The hope was to get better neutrals in my color images and a truer neutral in a selective color image.
Since the ConeColor Pro inks are a direct replacement for Epson, I’m guessing the blacks probably mirror Epson’s blacks in that they are not truly neutral. I think Epson drivers use a tint of other colors to produce a neutral looking black.
I get better Quality prints on my 3880 than my lab can give me. Although Clients and family members never see color sues, I’m always looking for a “unique” and finer quality print. That’s why I’m raising this question.
See the seventh question and answer:
http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?126-FAQ-ConeColor-inks
The question addresses ABW, but the same principles would apply using QTR-K3, which would be a better option than ABW.
This really only works with RIPs I think. The base epson lookup tables put color ink down in the neutrals no matter what. So even if you had neutral ink in there, the driver+custom-profile would put a corresponding amount of color ink in there that would be “neutral-balanced” but still color ink. 
I came up w/ that workflow for color printing back in the day when using StudioPrint.
best,
Walker
Yes, on reflection that’s right. On the few occasions I have dabbled with ABW I have found it a bit too too cool at its neutral setting. I.e. it’s adding in a bit too much of the colour inks to cool the naturally warm black. If you start with neutral black inks then that’s only going to be worse. You could correct for that in the ABW toning settings, but if you’re having to do that, then what’s the point of mixing inksets?
QTR (a RIP) would be a better option, but for the same reason you’d probably have to make your own curves, but that may be as simple as removing the toning inks from the shipped curves and relinearising.
On the few occasions that I have read about people swapping out K, LK, & LLK from either OEM or CCP and using Piezo shades 1, 4, & 5 in their place, I thought they were doing so for colour printing because of the supposed advantages. You’d need to reprofile of course.
[QUOTE=walkerblackwell;11351]This really only works with RIPs I think. The base epson lookup tables put color ink down in the neutrals no matter what. So even if you had neutral ink in there, the driver+custom-profile would put a corresponding amount of color ink in there that would be “neutral-balanced” but still color ink. 
I came up w/ that workflow for color printing back in the day when using StudioPrint.
best,
Walker[/QUOTE]
Why did you abandon using those blacks in a color printer?
I was a beta tester back in the days of the first Cone color pigmented inks in an Epson 1160 ( I think). I was printing PiezoBW from that printer model as well. When I sold my studio in 2007. I took a hiatus from printing. I followed Piezo advances periodically over the years. I’m guessing 2009-2010 after the advent of 6+ ink printing that I read about substituting Piezo blacks for the color blacks. Perhaps you were the one writing about it in the Cone forums. Somehow, I thought it was Jon doing that work.
Perhaps with advances in the Blacks of the ConeColor pro ink sets, there is no longer an advantage to using a neutral piezo substitution. When I read about this, I thought if I ever get to start printing again, I’d use this approach in hopes of a higher quality print.
To those of you who have stayed current and are printing color, can you see any current advantage to this idea, or has state of the art Epson printer technology - specifically the 3880 with ConeColor Pro inks- overcome any gained advantage?
I’ve generated some wonderful prints on that printer and only recently experienced an issue in one image where skin tones as well as other colors were true, but greys were cyan-blue ish. That one image is the catalyst to my inquiry.
I think that state of the art color (for epson) should be done with inks tuned for epson lookup tables at this point.
That workflow before was for the 9600 with only 2K inks and using a true CMYK rip meaning each channel could be isolated. Using neutral K2 ink enable me to have less color dots that the normal OEM driver. However, at this point with K3 and about six times more nozzles printing, and the general quality of the epson OEM driver (as apposed to $3500.00 rip), I think it’s on-par or better to use the driver+cone-color than rip+neutralK.
best,
Walker
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