Does anyone have experience with carbon inksets?

[Myrrys.eu]

I'm considering purchasing a new Epson EcoTank ET-8550 for black and white only, using farbenwerk carbon inkset. Just cant seem to find any user info about it and it makes me wonder.. I do my colour prints with aging Epson 3880 but it is bit lacking in black and white and converting a printer to black and white which is used is tons of work (cleaning and still there's a good chance there's colour bleed from ink lines over time). ET-8550 is affordable enough to purchase as an addition, but not cheap enough to just throw my money away if it doesn't provide what I need. Printer seems solid by the reviews, but those dedicated black and white inksets don't get much talk on the internets. Piezography inks have more info on them available (of course would have to purchase a different printer for those), but shipping from US is always a hazzle so I wouldn't want to do that in regular bases (as purchasing inks would be over the years). Besides it would be way more expensive.

 

[mrtoml]

I mix my own carbon inks for the 3880. It is very cheap and I have never had any bleed from the lines.

I don't know anything about the 8550.

I use Paul Roark's formulae for creating the eboni inksets. I just buy the black ink and mix my own medium for dilution. You need a set of refillable carts.

Digital B&W Photography Information Index

Information on Black and White Digital Printing

www.paulroark.com

 

[Torvik]

I'm considering purchasing a new Epson EcoTank ET-8550 for black and white only, using farbenwerk carbon inkset. Just cant seem to find any user info about it and it makes me wonder.. I do my colour prints with aging Epson 3880 but it is bit lacking in black and white and converting a printer to black and white which is used is tons of work (cleaning and still there's a good chance there's colour bleed from ink lines over time). ET-8550 is affordable enough to purchase as an addition, but not cheap enough to just throw my money away if it doesn't provide what I need. Printer seems solid by the reviews, but those dedicated black and white inksets don't get much talk on the internets. Piezography inks have more info on them available (of course would have to purchase a different printer for those), but shipping from US is always a hazzle so I wouldn't want to do that in regular bases (as purchasing inks would be over the years). Besides it would be way more expensive.

I have this printer, the ET-8550, AND the farbenwerk Carbonprint Graphite neutral inks.
I had the same research problems as you.
For me this printer seemed to be the best option in terms of price, reliability, alternative ink sets and my idea of b/w-prints.
I use this combination since beginning of 2024. And I am still in the process of evaluating a combination of motive, paper and proper ICC-profiles that fit my needs and ideas.
To date, I have printed about twenty A4 papers and am generally satisfied with the quality of the printer and ink.

 

[Michalm]

HI I would be interested to hear more about your expierience , are you using custom ICC profiles supplied by Farbenwerk or just regular printer profiles ?

 

[Calzone]

M,

I was a BETA tester for Piezography Pro. Initially I started with their K-7, and I printed heavily, so heavily that I was selected to have access to Piezography Pro for about a year before it was publically available.

I have no experience with their Carbon Inksets, but what compels me to post is that you own a 3880 which is a really great printer with a durable print head life.

Consider converting the 3880 into your Carbon printer if you decide to go that route.

With the K-7 I blended Jon Cones Sepia and Selenium inksets to have cool shadows and warm highlights. You could also blend in carbon inksets.

Also at one time the information required to learn K-7 almost required a Master’s degree in Journalism because information was not organized, but that is no longer the case. Also technical support is really great.

With Piezography Pro they developed a carbon black as part of that inkset that would make me wonder if you like black blacks that this is it. Initially I thought my old K-7 did a better job with a broader mid-range. My style of printing from a Leica Monochrom (M9M), SL, and SL2 gets confused with being silver wet prints and large format film.

My secrete is to use a Heliopan “Digital” UV filter that since id made for digital cameras has IR and UV filtering that lowers not only noise (non visual signals) but also helps eliminate clipping. I also tend to shoot like a large format shooter maximizing IQ at image capture and on top of that I minimize post processing as to minimize digital noise. Understand I print big and avoid digital artifacts.

I would later learn that Piezography Pro appeared to have more contrast than my K-7, and when I lowered the contrast slightly I got the mids that scream LARGE FORMAT.

BTW Piezography Pro allows printing for digital negatives, so basically you could contact print using wet chemistry without needing to change inkset. Pretty much a turnkey system.

All the best.

Cal

 

[Freakscene]

My secrete is to use a Heliopan “Digital” UV filter that since id made for digital cameras has IR and UV filtering that lowers not only noise (non visual signals) but also helps eliminate clipping. I also tend to shoot like a large format shooter maximizing IQ at image capture and on top of that I minimize post processing as to minimize digital noise. Understand I print big and avoid digital artifacts.

The Heliopan Digital UV filters help because the MM meter cell has substantial IR sensitivity that the sensor does not have; this leads to overexposure by the already pretty crude meter in the M9/MM cameras. The B+W 486 does the same thing. These filters help with digital photography a lot more than most give them credit for; although modern sensors have good UV/IR filtration, all sorts of colour weirdnesses and odd tonal relationships are assisted by removing the UV and IR before it gets to the sensor. But remember that some of these filters do odd things at the edges with wide angle lenses. Also other filters, for instance the Heliopan SH PMC coloured filters for black and white contrast and tonality control can be marked ‘digital’ but do not cut the uv and ir. Also bear in mind that these filters are laminated Schott glass, probably Schott S-8612 as the UV/IR cut layer, the same glass that caused the Leica M9 generation corrosion problem, so keep an eye out for signs of degradation in the filter. My oldest UV/IR cut filters are now 18 years old and are fine, but I look them over occasionally when putting them on.

 

[Calzone]

Marty,

Thanks for the follow through and expansion.

Cal

 

[Myrrys.eu]

Amazing tips on UV filters, I've mostly used them out of habit but now I think I need to look into what filters I'm using and thinking about them as quality improvement and not only protective layer (which works badly, never broken a lens which would have survived if I would have used a filter when dropped mostly the helicoid gets damaged and lenses are fine, in my experience).

I'll keep the 3880 as a colour printer since it's quite a nice printer for that (and replacing with similar quality colour printer is expensive). I'm leaning more and more going ET-8550 route, mainly due to relatively low cost, easy refills with out modding, and wide range of options from self-made inks to farbenwerk inksets (of which I'm quite intrested). I think I'll be ordering preview prints of those carbon inks. Warm tone of pure carbon is enticing but it depends on if it's more like warmtone paper with sepia treatment or van dyke / salt print. If latter then maybe going with more neutral route is better. I'm not looking for glossy prints since I generally enjoy matt fibre print look more. Usually I use selenium toning or at times have been using gold-chloride or platinum / palladium toner when going for cooler tones.

About doing digital negatives with piezography pro, this is enticing and would come in handy as I love doing gumbichromate prints (and I still do have a working darkroom for traditional silver-gelatin prints), but I feel like it would be similar with farbenwerk inkset due to being high-carbon or pure-carbon inks they most likely achieve high enough d-max to work. I've done some digital negatives with 3880 with normal inks and it does work, but it's relatively flat negative and needs quite a bit of tweaking in darkroom to have a pleasing print.

Loads of things to think about and to do some more research. Not a turn-key solution for sure.

 

[Calzone]

M,

I assume you are looking at Carbon because of the D-Max and the blackest black.

Piezography Pro blends both warm and cool ink sets. Pretty much you have it all: black blacks: warm or cool highlights; warm or cool shadows; plus digital negatives.

I printed so much that I kinda wore out my 3880. I still have a 7800.

Cal

 

[Freakscene]

Amazing tips on UV filters, I've mostly used them out of habit but now I think I need to look into what filters I'm using and thinking about them as quality improvement and not only protective layer (which works badly, never broken a lens which would have survived if I would have used a filter when dropped mostly the helicoid gets damaged and lenses are fine, in my experience).

I'll keep the 3880 as a colour printer since it's quite a nice printer for that (and replacing with similar quality colour printer is expensive). I'm leaning more and more going ET-8550 route, mainly due to relatively low cost, easy refills with out modding, and wide range of options from self-made inks to farbenwerk inksets (of which I'm quite intrested). I think I'll be ordering preview prints of those carbon inks. Warm tone of pure carbon is enticing but it depends on if it's more like warmtone paper with sepia treatment or van dyke / salt print. If latter then maybe going with more neutral route is better. I'm not looking for glossy prints since I generally enjoy matt fibre print look more. Usually I use selenium toning or at times have been using gold-chloride or platinum / palladium toner when going for cooler tones.

About doing digital negatives with piezography pro, this is enticing and would come in handy as I love doing gumbichromate prints (and I still do have a working darkroom for traditional silver-gelatin prints), but I feel like it would be similar with farbenwerk inkset due to being high-carbon or pure-carbon inks they most likely achieve high enough d-max to work. I've done some digital negatives with 3880 with normal inks and it does work, but it's relatively flat negative and needs quite a bit of tweaking in darkroom to have a pleasing print.

Loads of things to think about and to do some more research. Not a turn-key solution for sure.

I have done a lot of digital negatives and printed them on Adox Lupex or Ilford MG FB. For exhibition prints it, as a process, makes the best black and white photos for me, but my dislikes about carbon inkjet sets are things most people can hardly or not see. I spent too long looking at silver prints in commercial darkrooms.

 

[Torvik]

HI I would be interested to hear more about your expierience , are you using custom ICC profiles supplied by Farbenwerk or just regular printer profiles ?

Hi Michalm,
I use the ICC profiles by Farbenwerk instead of the regular printer profiles. I am still in experimental phase.
Torvik