# Artisan Black-and-white printing



## DuckRabbit Digital (Apr 25, 2010)

Duckrabbit Digital Website

Duckrabbit Digital came about when the owner moved to New York and away from her cherished printing facilities in Oregon. She tried to find a printer in New York, but found that all the printers knew little about black-and-white images. They would print them, but with the same machines and technology that they used to print color images. The results were less-than-optimal. And thus, DuckRabbit Digital was born.

Duckrabbit Digital is an artisan black-and-white printing company. They print with a carbon-based-ink set consisting of seven shades of black, ranging from deep carbon to barely-perceptible gray. Because of this range of tonality, the images that are produced are high in detail and definition. Details in the shadows and the highlights can be picked up that would otherwise be impossible to print.

Epson produces a set of inks called K3 inks, and these have become the industry standard for black-and-white printing. They use three different shades of black to produce a more detailed image than one could get using the standard single-black cartridge. However, the K3 inks use dots of magenta, cyan, and yellow ink to make its black ink appear neutral (the ink by itself is greenish in tone). This isn&#8217;t noticeable on a fresh print, but becomes an issue over time. Color inks do not decay at the same rate, and black and white images printed using a color ink base will experience color-shifting. In contrast, Piezography inks use 100% carbon in their sepia-toned inks, and the neutral and selenium inks have modifications to the carbon change itself. Meaning, Piezography inks don&#8217;t use color as a base, and thus won&#8217;t experience the color-shifts K3 inks will.

As they say, seeing is believing. So, we are offering *25% off* first time orders through the end of May.

We look forward to seeing your work!


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