Is Gray Ink Just Very Diluted Black Ink?

[Dauphni]

I don't think that's the whole story. The main difference between black and grey is how much light it absorbs, but there are more factors at play than just the density of the dye. Colour perception is important too, which you've ignored entirely. I have not actually tested this, but it seems to me that if you take a diluted very light absorbent dye (black) and a more opaque but less light absorbent dye (grey), and make sure that they have the same absolute colour on paper, you will still be able to see that one is black and the other is grey. What happens here is that your eye judges the translucency of the colour, and adjusts how you view it based on that. Does that make sense to you?

 

You can compare the mechanism to how your eyes can judge distance by determining atmospheric extinction. Objectively, things get more sky-coloured the farther they are away from you, but your eye (or should I say brain) adjusts that to interpret it as the same colour.

 

EDIT: That was directed at zhangvict.

Edited April 22, 2011 by Dauphni

[zhangvict]

@jgrasty

 

I meant that the COLOR grey is a less saturated than black. The other parts of the ink, i.e. the inkyness og the ink is the same. E.g if you add colorless ink to black ink, you will get a grey ink I think. The only thing changing is there is less color per cc of ink, but the other inky parts of the ink are unchanged.

 

Hence if you can find a way to make 'colorless ink', maybe by adding chemicals to water to make it behave like ink except it dosent have any color, and then mix this colorless ink with black ink, you will most likely get grey ink I think.

 

 

 

One simply way to solve this. Does Diamiane Grey appear black when it is in the bottle or does it appear milky grey?

 

 

If it appears black, then obviously it is a less saturates black because when you have alot of grey ink, it makes black. When you have alot of an diluted ink, it appears the same as the undiluted color.

 

IF it appears milky gray, then it will truly be a grey ink because it is unaffected by saturation and will always be a "grey" colored ink.

Edited April 22, 2011 by zhangvict

[zhangvict]

I don't think that's the whole story. The main difference between black and grey is how much light it absorbs, but there are more factors at play than just the density of the dye. Colour perception is important too, which you've ignored entirely. I have not actually tested this, but it seems to me that if you take a diluted very light absorbent dye (black) and a more opaque but less light absorbent dye (grey), and make sure that they have the same absolute colour on paper, you will still be able to see that one is black and the other is grey. What happens here is that your eye judges the translucency of the colour, and adjusts how you view it based on that. Does that make sense to you?

 

You can compare the mechanism to how your eyes can judge distance by determining atmospheric extinction. Objectively, things get more sky-coloured the farther they are away from you, but your eye (or should I say brain) adjusts that to interpret it as the same colour.

 

EDIT: That was directed at zhangvict.

 

 

I don't think there is such a thing as an opaque dye based ink. Dyes work by absorbing light and the density of dye affects how much light it adsorbs, so all dye based inks will by translucent rather than opaque. The white color component of grey dye ink will come from the reflection of the white paper through the translucentink to create and illusion of greyness when it is actually just a less dense black.

 

You were comparing a diluted black with an opaque grey. Of course there will be differences, because the opaque grey will not be a dye ink cause it is opaque. One is like a grey translucent diamond while the other is a grey milky pearl. The problem is that almost all grey inks out there are dye based, and hence will be diluted blacks.

 

I have not heard of a truly opaque grey fountain pen ink yet. I think all white pigments are for dip pens, so if you want to mix a nano carbon with white pigment will most likely render it useless for fountain pens.

 

I have heard of Noodler's whiteness of the whale, but I have some serious doubts about the 'whiteness' of it. If it truly an ink capable of producing white color by itself, it should not have to rely on the whiteness of the paper and should appear white when writing on black paper, almost like correction fluids.

Edited April 22, 2011 by zhangvict

[Dauphni]

You don't understand. I never said any of the dyes were truly opaque, just that they were of different opacity. It's all relative. What I'm saying is that there's a definite difference between whether the 'whiteness' is provided by the paper or by the dye. Here's a quick image I made to illustrate the difference. At right is 100% black at 40% density, at left is 50% black at 80% density.

 

http://i53.tinypic.com/xe1rvr.png

 

As you can see, on the pure white above the colours look identical, but as soon as it hits the paper, there's an obvious difference in "colour".

[Ink Stained Wretch]

I've diluted some black inks and they look gray to me. And I agree that some black inks that are sold really look gray out of the bottle.

 

I once mixed gray ink. It was a combination of a blue ink and a brown ink. There used to be a pinned topic about ink mixtures to avoid. I put that mixture in there, not because it would harm a pen or anything but just because I don't like gray ink.

 

So I think it was 3:2 or 4:1 and I don't recall which ink was the larger proportion. But if someone wants to mix a gray ink some combination of a blue and a brown can do it for you. HTH and of course YMMV.

[zhangvict]

You don't understand. I never said any of the dyes were truly opaque, just that they were of different opacity. It's all relative. What I'm saying is that there's a definite difference between whether the 'whiteness' is provided by the paper or by the dye. Here's a quick image I made to illustrate the difference. At right is 100% black at 40% density, at left is 50% black at 80% density.

 

http://i53.tinypic.com/xe1rvr.png

 

As you can see, on the pure white above the colours look identical, but as soon as it hits the paper, there's an obvious difference in "colour".

 

Sorry, I don't get your pictures. Did you dilute some balcks a 80% and 40% of 50% and soaked the paper in the ink?

 

or are they computer generated images? If so, how does that relate to grey ink?