Quad black vs. small gamut inks

Does anyone know the best quad black inks and what are the advantages, if

any, over small gamat inks?

Cheers

http://www.inkjetmall.com/store/piezographyBW.html

http://www.inkjetart.com/archival_inks/lysonic_quad.html

http://www.inksupply.com/index.cfm?source=html/quadtone.html

My personal preference is for the Piezotone selenium inkset. YMMV, depending on what your preferences.

At least have a look at Clayton Jones' excellent print exchange

evaluation:

http://www.cjcom.net/articles/techprnex.htm

Thanks heaps for the info and links. Is it better to go for quad blacks or small

gamat because of the tones? ( I guess thats a personal pref thing ) But can the

toned B+W prints be made equally as good on a well profiled

7600,9600,4000 as with small gamat inks. If this is the case would it be better

to use Neutral quad blacks and do any tones with the colour printer. Does

small gamat do the same job as quad blacks and a better job of toned prints

than colour inks?

Cheers

Many people are happy with printing B&W with color inks. The ImagePrint RIP does this well, if what I read on the lists and forums is any indication.

Of the quad-black inksets, I think all are varible tone inksets with the exception of the Piezotones. By variable tone, they use quad-blacks and cyan and/or magenta "toners" to color shift them (from cool to selenium to warm to sepia). In contrast, the Piezotones come in four fixed "colors" of black.

What I've seen, and it's not been a scientific test at all, is that the B&W from color inks is inconsistant in tonality from black to white, with some tones being more smooth and others being more "gritty" to my eyes, and even more inconsistent from a color stand point. B&W from color inks also has matamerism problems. B&W varible tone quad-black ink sets for me suffer from inconsistent tone color from black to white.

After considerable research on my own, I now use the StudioPrint RIP to drive my Epson 7600 using the Piezotone selenium inkset on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308 gsm paper. This combination gives me a very solid neutral tonality, amazing smoothness of tonal transition from black to white, and more shadow *and* highlight detail than I have seen from competing products, including dark room prints. IMHO, Cone's Piezotones are the best B&W solution available today.

Of course, YMMV. One way to find out is to get samples and look for yourself. Most of these companies have samples available in one form or another. Samples are usually quite informative, at least in showing you what the inks and papers are really capable of.

You can also find service bureaus around the web that will take your digital file and print for you. Look around and find people using the various inks/papers you are interested in and see what *your* images look like with the various inks. It might help you make a decision on what is right for you.