Black Point Editions

Introducing our Epson 11880

We now print nearly everything on our new Epson 11880 – a true 2880dpi, 9-channel, 3.5 picoliter, variable-droplet, on-the-fly matte and photo black printer produced to perfection by Epson. We have it all profiled for both Advanced Black and White and color for most in-house papers.

We would like to give a big shout-out to Jim Doyle and Shades of Paper for selling us the printer. He’s the best paper seller in the US. He knows his stuff when it comes to fine-art paper and he’s provided our company with prompt shipping and excellent service for years now.

Introducing Advanced Black and White ICC profiles

Many people today use Epson’s Advanced Black and White printing workflow with their new ’800 series printers. We have two of these printers in-house, the 3800 and the 11880. Both of these printers are exceptional and we’ve built gray-scale ICC profiles to work with the Advanced Black and White option. What this does is Linearize the Advanced Black and White to give you exact shadow detail and a perfect tonal scale from shadow to highlight. We do it because it lets us proof on the 3800 for the 11880. This way both printers will print exactly the same.

Here are the ICC profiles.

When you print with preview in Photoshop, make sure to select the profile with a rendering intent of Perceptual with Black Point Compensation on. Your Shadow Mid-tone and Highlight settings should all be at zero and your tonality setting should be set to “Dark”. Your hue can be set to whatever you want it to be. We build the profiles at a hue setting of 0,0.

Download the files below and enjoy.

Epson 3800 for Crane Portfolio Rag Advanced Black and White

Epson 3800 for Hahnemuhle Pearl Advanced Black and White

Epson 3800 for Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Advanced Black and White

Epson 11880 for Crane Portfolio Rag Advanced Black and White

Epson 11880 for Premium Luster Advanced Black and White

Epson 11880 for Premium Semi-gloss Advanced Black and White

Epson 11880 for Hahnemuhle Pearl Advanced Black and White

Epson 11880 for Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Advanced Black and White

Printer Settings:
For Matte-surface papers use the Velvet Fine Art printer setting. For gloss papers use either the pre-defined Epson printer setting or a default of Epson Premium Luster.

If you would like to get a grayscale ICC profile for your own particular ABW printer, please download the swatch file in our downloads section (to the right) and mail the swatch to our Vermont location with instructions. We will read the strip and email you an ICC profile.

Epson 9600 K3 Profiles

We currently have RGB profiles for Premium Luster and Premium Semi-Gloss (I know, we had to print with that paper.) as well as Hahnemuhle Pearl. This is for the Epson 9600 running K3 ink and Photo K black ink. Please give us an email if you want the profiles. We also have a CMYK studioprint profile for Hahnemuhle Pearl. Take care, Walker

New Hahnemuhle Print Environment

Here’s a new Hahnemuhle Photo Rag StudioPrint v12 (Smooth Diffusion) print environment for the Epson 9600 (Running normal Ultrachromes). Click here to download.

Enjoy.

K3 Ink dMax

With StudioPrint v12 Smooth Diffusion software and the amazing ability to fine-tune the black ink transitions, we’ve been able to reach a maximum K dMax of 2.95 (*L value of 1.72) with K3 Photo Black ink on Premium Luster 250 and 260 weight papers with no reflective problems or over-inking. Our maximum printable (limited) K dMax for color images is currently at 2.8-2.85. This is with a converted Epson 9600 printer. Current LightJet prints max out at a dMax of 2.4. Normal Ultrachrome Photo Black Premium Luster dMax is only at 2.2.

The values we are getting are well above those that Epson claims you can get using K3 ink on Premium Luster. Check their statement out here. (Search for dMax)