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Author Topic: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!  (Read 41945 times)

deanwork

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #20 on: October 28, 2016, 12:02:47 pm »

In the distant past I would have agreed with you but the Vivera yellow and magenta are fantastically durable. Even the Canon and new Epson hues are amazingly permanent when used in such small amounts according to Aardenburg. I had tests that I sent in to Mark with this HP "neutral" formulation right when he started accepting submissions to test. I also put up the Cone Carbon K7 and neither one of these tests ever showed any change at all. And these were not even coated with a uv spray and even before I started using the Canson media that Wilhelm had rated at >450 years with the HP with full color. I wish Mark had let those tests go on for years and years but I totally understand why with his budget he had to stop somewhere. It gets expensive keeping the lights on for years. With all the good products out there now I'm mainly concerned with gradients and more dilutions of gray with the ability to tone them as apposed to longevity.

One thing I find curious is that Epson comes out with three versions of their 44" printers and two of the 24". One with 11 channels, and two with 9 channels in the 44" size. Why wouldn't they just come out with one or two 11 channel printers and if you didn't have use for the orange and green have the ability to put grays or whatever hues you wanted in those slots. People say oh that would take effort in designing the software, yea if they refuse to let QTR help out, but not as much effort as constructing a different set of hardware.




Yes, the HP PK diluted or HP OEM grays are the best, in my experience.  (I have not tested or seen tests of the newest Epson LK & LLK.)  The HP PK dilutes well with the generic base (http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Ink-Mixing.pdf at p. 5), as well as the MIS/www.Inksupply.com (STS Inks) gloss optimizer if one wants to cut the bronzing.  So, these types of inksets can be very effective for the DIY B&W types.  I've used them in a number of ink setups for Epson printers.  (HP inks work fine in Epson printers.)

That said, I still prefer a variable tone B&W inkset with lots of 100% carbon channels.  Adding yellow and magenta (via a rip) to the gray inks to make a warm print doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of longevity and simplicity.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
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Paul Roark

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #21 on: October 28, 2016, 12:51:36 pm »

I agree the best OEM yellow and magenta are far better than many that we used early on.

My main source for longevity information has also been Mark's work at http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/ .  I used 100 mlux hour tests on the same paper to compare the color inputs I was looking for to make the cool toner needed to offset carbon warmth.  I paid a lot of attention to the delta-e values of the blue and purplish-blue test patches.  In addition to their delta-e values, I looked at the change in the Lab A values.  This is what causes the greenish shift that has been a problem.  Happily, with the best modern color pigments used to cool carbon, we can print neutral "carbon" prints (toned with an offsetting blend of color pigments) that are more lightfast than the traditional lightly selenium toned silver prints.  As a practical matter, it's the paper that limits silver and carbon print performance in these tests. 

Paul
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deanwork

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #22 on: October 30, 2016, 11:14:26 am »

HP has had the digital high volume press called Indigo for close to a decade now. This system allows the publisher to switch from cmyk insets to a quad black and with a simple change of inks. This capability is just now starting to be used for limited edition book editions at an affordable price ( roughly twice the price of cymk Blurb books ) which is radically cheaper than traditional trip-tone or quad tone offset. We had a photographers book fair here in Atlanta which featured the best photo book publishers from across the country. I saw a few samples of the quad tone Indigo output in direct comparison to the equivalent offset version and it is amazingly good.

What I can't understand is why if HP and offer this for print on demand books why they can't offer the same for their inkjet pigment printers. Same with Epson and Canon.

This one of the companies that is using it. http://www8.hp.com/us/en/commercial-printers/indigo-presses/10000.html

john

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Farmer

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #23 on: October 30, 2016, 03:09:22 pm »

Installing an Indigo, depending on what you do exactly, can be a million dollar investment.  Even done "cheaply" is many hundreds of thousands of dollars.  You simply can't compare that technology with inkjet and say "oh, the press can do this, why not the printer".
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Phil Brown

deanwork

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #24 on: October 30, 2016, 04:38:48 pm »

I wasn't suggesting people go out and buy an Indigo.  ::)  The resolution is too low anyway for portfolios.

My point was that this technology for swapping out the cmyk inks for a quad set was sitting there for years and years ready to go, and established by HP for books. But small run book publishers are just now starting to use it for small edition books, that rival really good expensive tri and quad tone offset, and beats the cymk monochrome books being done cmyk in China for much less cost and much faster turnaround.

The HP Z printer for super permanent hi-res inkjet could be used the same way, easily, now, if HP offered the diluted gray Vivera inks for it and a simple driver based on what they have now, with the onboard spectro that they have now to linearize it. The carts are so small, and the heads so cheap that there is no big issue of doing that.  What I have heard over and over again over the years is, yea they could do it, but there is no big market for it. That is exactly what Blurb and others were about using the monochrome version of the Indigo, until now. Once people see it they say, wow, I want that.

john



Installing an Indigo, depending on what you do exactly, can be a million dollar investment.  Even done "cheaply" is many hundreds of thousands of dollars.  You simply can't compare that technology with inkjet and say "oh, the press can do this, why not the printer".
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Farmer

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #25 on: October 30, 2016, 07:19:25 pm »

Presses have almost always support changing inks more easily (analogue and digital).  For a small use market (and the critical B&W photo market is extremely small compared to almost everything else), it's a high cost for little return.

There are many, many things that can be done, but most people aren't prepared to pay for it (either individually or as a group if amortised over the whole user-base), particularly when photographers are amongst the first (some, not all) to complain about a few cents worth of ink per print :-)
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Phil Brown

deanwork

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #26 on: October 30, 2016, 07:23:24 pm »

Don't believe it. That's like saying there is no market for bw film and chemistry. You'd be surprised how big of market there is globally.
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Farmer

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #27 on: October 30, 2016, 10:44:02 pm »

As a percentage of the entire printing market, yes, I'd be surprised if it was more than a rounding error.  The reality is the photo is just a very small portion and B&W a much smaller subset of that.
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Phil Brown

unesco

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #28 on: October 31, 2016, 07:47:17 am »

Don't believe it. That's like saying there is no market for bw film and chemistry. You'd be surprised how big of market there is globally.
How big? Do you have any numbers?
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richardboutwell

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #29 on: October 31, 2016, 12:09:33 pm »

You do realise that you can do this now fairly well using the QTR-Linearize-Quad program that Roy Harrington now includes in QTR?  IJM will undoubtedly say that the new toolset will be better, but the fact remains that it can be done today.


I don't have time at the moment to respond with my hopes and opinions on the new PeizoPro  system, but if you are interested in the Linearization tools for existing quad curves that go beyond the QTR LINEARIZE-QUAD app and the error correcting tools the like the PiezoPro/DN system uses check out the updated version of my QuadLin tools here:
www.bwmastery.com/quadtoneprofiler

One of the best things is that you only need 51-steps, and you can change the shape of the final density curve with input and output points and watch the quad curves remap in real time before you export them to a new .quad file. You might thing 51 steps isn't enough but lithe actual correction is done with 128 control points before calculating the final 256 step quad curves.

This is for 1-8 ink printers now, but I will have an update at the end of the week for 10 ink printers—it will just take some time to extend all the lookups, interpolation functions, and final quad compiling functions.




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« Last Edit: November 01, 2016, 11:59:14 pm by richard@richardboutwell.com »
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deanwork

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #30 on: November 01, 2016, 04:19:40 pm »

Hi Richard,

Your link is not working.

What brands of printers does this software work with?

John

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richardboutwell

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #31 on: November 02, 2016, 12:14:03 am »

Hi Richard,

Your link is not working.

What brands of printers does this software work with?

John

I fixed the link. the capital letters in the URL from a text expander snippet was the problem...

here is the working link again: http://www.bwmastery.com/quadtoneprofiler

This is made for making QTR profiles and curves so it is Epson only.

Everything QTR supports will be able to use the ink descriptor files and the .quad curves made with these tools excluding the 10 ink models—the x900 printers and their replacements.  The issue is with how I make the RGB values used to create the ink separation images for the auto ink limit and auto cross over point calculations. It should be an easy fix, but there are a lot of small changes behind the scenes to work out and test. The curve smoothing and curve linearization tools will be updated in a few days to support the 11 ink printers. Again, there are a lot of lookups and calculations I need to copy/edit/expand for the additional channels and some VBA code I need to redo that generates the final quad values. I'll send an update to all who have already purchased and update the site with the new info.
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wblackwell

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Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #32 on: November 19, 2016, 10:47:26 pm »

Hey everyone. Walker here (creator of PiezoPro ink and one of those dual quad printmakers at the print off in NYC in 2006). We are delayed a week or so in production as we are waiting on some final equipment for the creation of the final few shades up here in Vermont.

Our current i1pro2 test of pre-production UltraHd-MK 100 carbon is 1.81 dMax on Hahnemühle photo rag.

We strive for this balance in all inks:

1. How good does it look: we gloss optimize through the white of the paper and offer advanced bezier-curve split toning and diy Lin.

2. How easily does it print: as easy as Epson when it's all loaded.

3. How long does it last: carbon and pigment. It will not last as long as 100% carbon, but we will all be long gone before anything shows. It encapsulates the paper edge against pollution though and this, I believe as a survivor of the professional printmaker real-world, is the most important thing, even more so than ink!! And nobody is talking about it.

This is a holy trinity of fine art ink and there are trade-offs in all of these areas. But as someone who has dreamed and wanted Piezo to do this for 13 years, well, now it's doing it.


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wblackwell

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Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #33 on: November 19, 2016, 10:53:00 pm »

Oh, and we'll be updating the calibration tools to enable profiling of Piezography using actual xRite i1profiler algorithms for any labs needing more than 129 steps. Working on it.  And, the error correction algorithms in the diy calibration tools are specifically designed to fix flicker and averaging errors in spectrophotometers while using high-patch count targets.


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wblackwell

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #34 on: November 19, 2016, 11:15:03 pm »

And last but not least, there is some wiggle room in where one places quad shades. We worked out a shift in L between the middle warm and middle cool shades enabling an overlap that was not 1-1. This + the fact that we are actually using just as many nozzles as k7 for printing gives great nozzle frequency. PiezoPro on the x900s can be anywhere from dualK4 to (preferred) dual K5. When 10 channels print monochrome ink, it's pretty impressive.


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unesco

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #35 on: December 27, 2016, 03:01:22 pm »

Hi all, Any news also, form independent users-early adopters, about print quality of Piezography Pro inks? Is metamerism a problem?
I was wondering if/when those inks are available in Europe also for pre-tests? I am still between conversion to K7 Selenium or Pro or using Epson inks by making my own  K6/7 by diluting/mixing Epson inks ...
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wblackwell

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #36 on: December 27, 2016, 03:33:24 pm »

As the creator of the ink I can't say I'm independent. Initial demand was so strong that we sold completely out in a week. More raw materials are arriving at our facility in early January for more production. We will then have enough made to fulfill more orders.

On bare scientific levels, we are getting to a dMax of 1.82 with the new matte black ink on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag (specifically on the x900 series printers. Some dmax varies from printhead model by a few percentage points.)

Best,
Walker


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Cincinnati

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #37 on: December 29, 2016, 12:29:22 pm »


For a decade Jon Cone tried to convince (often successful) that 7 shades of gray are better than Epson's 3 shades because 7>3 + all consequences coming from that fact as well as because Piezography is carbon (BTW, Epson's grays are also carbon as far as I know). Those additional shades give us more tonal resolution in both dark and light tones. There is no metamerism because of neutral nature of the inks.

Now, Pro series is going to nearly cancel above mentioned advantages.

From all the marketing noise I have read, it looks like, Pro is going to be the best solution ever made. But it only has 4 shades and 4<7 (as for my 3880) and additionally two tints what might have some consequences, e.g. visible metamerism, especially when neutral print is a target.

It wasn't that Jon Cone was trying to convince the world that Piezo was better than Epson b/c 7>3. Epson inks could not seamlessly generate all densities while maintaining print detail.

As far as Piezo PRO being a step backwards for the same mathematical reason of 7>4, here's why I don't see it that way. The original Piezo ink set was 4 shades. That's b/c printers - the Epson 1160 -,were 4 ink CMYK .  PIEZO software was able to apply those 4 shades in a way to create 1% density changes from 0-100%. When Epson changed from 4 to 6 inks, Jon added 2 additional shades to fill the ink heads, but Piezo quality in terms of stemless density changes and detail rendering were no better on the 6 ink system than on the 4. The additional 2 shades were a mixture of the four inks.  That same mixture was being created in the four ink system, but it was mixed on the paper at printing. So Piezo is better than Epson ABW, but not because 7>3, but because of seamless density step changes with increased resolution of detail.

With Piezo PRO, we essentially have 2 four ink systems, a warm and cool set, and curves that control the amount of each shade so that it still prints stepless increments of density across the imaging spectrum.

If Epson or Canon we're still making professional 4 ink photo printers, I would surmise we would have a 4 ink Piezo system.
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wblackwell

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #38 on: December 29, 2016, 01:01:39 pm »

4 shades is not as good as 7 (although much better than 3). Dual K4 is much closer to 7 than single K4 and much better than 3 (in certain circumstances it can have more nozzle fault tolerance than K7). When changing the variance between the warm and cool shade L values (shade 3 cool is not the same L as shade 3 warm) a slightly uneven relationship (k7-ish) overlap takes place that adds more than dual K4 tonal gradations.

This is only one of a full range of factors that make the ink good.

dMax, gloss diff, bronzing, material, etc, are the others.

Best,
Walker


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Rado

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Re: Jon Cone Piezography-Pro inks!
« Reply #39 on: December 29, 2016, 01:18:59 pm »

The piezography website recommends sourcing an used Epson 4900 7900 or 9900, flushing it and converting it to piezography. Do these printers suffer from the same clogging issues with piezo inks as they do with original Epson inks? I would like to try piezography but it's not available for my P800 (and maybe never will be) and I'm not a frequent printer (I've had zero clogging issues with P800 so far).

Separately, Epson sells continuous ink tank systems in Asia and here in cheaper parts of Europe (the L800/L1800 models) which use 6 dye based inks and seem to side step the whole issue of chipped ink cartridges - is that something that could be converted to piezography?
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