So, we pre-charged a few sets of refillable carts for the Epson R1400 printer. We have only a few sets of these available. If you’ve been thinking of Carbon K7 or Carbon K6 and you have an Epson R1400 printer available to you – this is an excellent way to try this unique ink.

“Prudent display conditions can achieve 100+ years of little or no noticeable light-induced fading for all Piezography ink sets” according to Mark McCormick-Goodhart, director of the Aardenburg Imaging & Archives. But out of all ink sets tested from OEMs and other third parties, only the Piezography Carbon ink set can meet the strict Aardenburg 100 megalux criteria in both the upper and lower ranges. If longevity is your most important concern, this is the ink that has no peer. And now you can try it in the Epson R1400 at a nominal cost.

Carbon is warm and it may not be everyone’s taste. If you like very cool prints – then Carbon is not for you. But, Piezography Carbon is so finely ground that it takes on the hue of the paper beneath it. So the ink can be warmed or cooled depending upon your choice of paper white.

In any event – click here to try this ink set in your Epson R1400 printer for under $100!

PiezoTone ink dominated the monochromatic ink market from 2002 until 2005 with tens of thousands of customers at a time when Epson had still not released any black & white solutions. PiezoTone was originally introduced as a second generation ink designed specifically for use in foam filled cartridges and in CISS systems. It was also the first 100% pigment monochromatic ink set we introduced. The printers for which this ink was initially designed included the Epson 1160 and 1520 (4 ink printers) as well as the Epson 1200, 1270 and 1280 (six ink printers.)

It had many competitors including Lyson, MediaStreet, MIS, and Sundance. At the time, no other ink could produce such a smooth and velvety appearance; zero-metamerism; nor compete with its fade resistance. It was followed by the introduction of PiezographyBW ICC, my second generation PiezographyBW System.

PiezographyBW ICC with PiezoTone inks was a fully Soft-Proofed system that hijacked Epson’s own RGB printer driver as the monochromatic ink engine when used with our newly invented PiezographyBW ICC printer profiles. A fully linearized print resulting in a perfect 1.80 Gamma. It has no peers, yet has been exceeded again with the introduction of Piezography K6 and K7.

PiezoTone inks are true quadblack inks available in four shades (hence the “quad”.) However, with PiezographyBW ICC we doubled up the light shade and medium shade installing them in the light magenta and light cyan position of Epson six ink printers. The PiezographyBW ICC caused the ink set to behave as six shades. In addition to the Epson 1200, 1270 and 1280 we introduced PiezographyBW ICC on the Epson 7000/9000 and 7500/9500 printers. Later we adapted it as a dual ink set on the seven ink Epson 4000, 7600 and 9600 printers. Many of our customers brought this ink forward into Epson 7800 and 9800 printers. A few die-hard PiezoTone addicts even brought it forward into X880 series printers.

The Piezography Profiler could be used to custom profile a customer’s printer and this version was called iQuads. Decidedly ahead of its time, very few photographers and companies were selling ICC solutions in 2005 that actually worked. PiezographyBW and iQuads not only worked, they worked beautifully. It was a quantum leap in quality from our original release of the PiezographyBW plugin and PiezographyBW Pro and were offered at a fraction of the cost.

PiezographyBW ICC was discontinued in 2007 after we released Piezography K7. Today only a few customers of PiezoTone inks remain active and they are totally dedicated to this ink. I’m one of its biggest fans. I use PiezoTone ink in my Roland 12 ink printer. The four shades give me a lot of freedom to turn a 12 ink printer into something quite complicated. But, this ink also had a quality that is not duplicated in K7.

While there is a PiezoTone Warm Neutral and a Piezography Warm Neutral K7 – the two inks are quite different. K7 is encapsulated and has significantly better head performance. PiezoTone is livelier in color tone. It is in some way for me similar to the passing of the IRIS 3047 printer. The grinding of PiezoTone pigment is to a tolerance and technique that can not be duplicated. The original grinder of this pigment notified us last week that it will no longer be able to provide this level of production for us any longer. This ink was the first ink with which we collaborated with our amazing chemist. It is in some way, hard to imagine that we were able to preserve it for so long after creating new generations of ink. But, we had such devoted followers of this ink.

Guest Blogger: Berel Lutsky Associate Professor of Art, UW-Manitowoc

Berel Lutsky received his BS in studio art with a concentration in printmaking from UW Madison, and his MFA in studio art with a concentration in printmaking and drawing from UW Milwaukee. He has taught at several UW Colleges, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Carroll University in Waukesha, and the Avni Institute in Israel. His work is public and private collections in Israel, Belgium, Japan and the US. He is currently an Associate Professor of Art at UW Manitowoc

I was introduced to the transparency inkset while doing a one-on–one workshop at Cone Editions this past summer. At the time I was impressed with the density of the printed image on the film, and recognized an opportunity that has really not been available previously for creating digital transparencies which could be used for graphic arts applications and alternative photo processes. This fall, I set out to develop a work flow for Image-on HD which would use the capabilities of this inkset. In the works are workflows for positive litho plates, cyanotype and multi-color gum bi-chromate prints. I want to thank Jon for his hard work on this inkset, and for Piezography as a whole, and for his and Dana’s help, both this summer and as I was figuring this all of this out. I was also ably aided in this entire endeavor by my student assistant Andrew Musil.

The new Piezography Digital Film transparency inkset plus a new Image-on formulation were a bit of a challenge – but, I believe  I have created a workflow  that will work consistently.  The especially good news is that the new Piezography Digital Film inkset (designed to produce backlit prints on transparent or trans lucent film)  produces a transparency that  enables  a greater range of grays than ever before.  The opacity of the ink deposit approaches that of ortho films and thus enables the formation of very light grays that are opaque enough not to overexpose the image-on at the light end of the ramp, and yields a smooth ramp of grays to  a full rich black. My previous attempts with laser printed transparencies, Epson K3 inksets, using ABW, and the Cone K6 neutral inksets all resulted in a loss of tonal range in the lighter grays – as they were not dense enough to keep the emulsion from completely hardening .  This workfow will allow you to make plates and prints that rival those made with the extremely toxic KPR  process.  Better still, this process uses no solvents, and the plates do not need to be etched and can be re-used. The harshest chemical needed is sodium carbonate (usually used to soften water and control the PH in hot tubs.)

Photogravure, Imageon-on HD, Black ink by Andy Musil

Image–On HD should be applied to the plate per the directions supplied with the product.  This process and other essential Image-On information can be found in Keith Howard’s book The Contemporary Printmaker; Intaglio Type and Acrylic Resist Etching and on various web sites.  Application of the Image-On HD should be done in a safe lit area.  It is best practice to apply the Image-On HD  about 24 hrs  ahead of time, especially if you are using a plastic plate, to ensure that the Image-On film  adheres well.  Edges should not be filed at this time  – only blunted or deburred.   Better still to avoid having to deal with “edge failure” of the Image On (it tends to chip easily at the edges) I recommend  using  a plate 1” or more larger than the paper you plan to print on.  While you will be sacrificing the plate mark – you will be guaranteeing  a pristine edge and margins  for the print.  Plate edges should be beveled and polished after the plate has been exposed developed and hardened.

Photogravure, Imageon-on HD, 3 color by Andy Musil

Your image should be prepared in Photoshop as follows:  Make whatever adjustments you need to make –  and your conversion to BW using a proof set – up  that is simply set  to a 2.2 gamma gray space profile, preferably on a calibrated monitor.  Note, these images when finally printed to paper from an inked intaglio plate will exhibit the tonal qualities of the chosen intaglio ink/paper combination and the “hand” of the printmaker.  Thus, soft proofing at this point only requires a proof set up that will give an accurate representation of the densities of the image.

My Photoshop curve

When the image is to your liking save it as a .psd with all of its layers  etc.  for future editing if need be.  Then flatten the image – add a curves adjustment layer and simply move the black output from 255 up to 128.  The rest of the curve should remain linear.  Although this might seem too simple at the outset – after careful testing of some gentle curve bending to boost the output at lighter end of the ramp, the results of tweaking the curve actually had little effect on the dark end of the ramp – and actually compressed the ramp on the lighter end  – again it is the particular qualities of this inkset  and the underlying  .quad printing curve developed by Jon Cone and supplied here that enable the linear curve to match the sensitivity of the Image-on HD.    It is this adjustment that enables a transparency that will produce a full range of intaglio grays in the Image-on film. Flatten and save the adjusted image as a TIF identifying it as needed.

Photogravure, Imageon-on HD, Black ink

Transparency should then be printed to your film though QTR, being sure to use the correct K7 printing model for your printer and the curve (NewS9aNG2b-PictoricoUPohp) supplied here.  In QTR, the resolution option should be set to 2880, printing speed option should be set to unidirectional, media option should be set to photo paper.  Your transparency should be slip sheeted and stored.  Best practice is to let the image dry overnight before exposing – this will harden the image on the film a bit and keep it from being damaged from the pressure of the vacuum or contact frame.   If you are really in a hurry – still wait for at least an hour before exposing.

Gum bichromate single color by Andy Musil

Exposure takes place in a contact or vacuum frame.  Tight contact of the transparency to the plate is extremely important. Exposure is as follows using an Olec AL 13 lamp controlled by an Olix 121 light integrator.  Units are LU (light units) which are roughly seconds. (see below for more re: exposure)  Light is set to its lowest intensity setting.

Exposure should be done in this order :

Aqua tint screen 45 LU

Flash 1.2 LU

Film Positive (prepared as described above) 60 LU

This set of timings yields a full gray ramp on a step wedge.  You may need to adjust the last exposure slightly, relative to your image –a  longer exposure will result in a lighter print, a shorter exposure will result in a darker print.    Do not adjust the exposure times for the aqua tint screen or the flash!

Gum bichromate 3 color by Andy Musil

Peel the mylar off the plate – and still develop in a covered tray for 9 minutes in a solution made by dissolving 10 grams of sodium carbonate in 1 liter of water. Note: at this point in the procedure the Image-on film is still soft and easily damaged. No agitation or other encouragement of the development process is advised.   Remove – rinse – spray with vinegar water- rinse again – removing the dissolved emulsion if need be, with gentle strokes of a clean hake brush under cold running water. The emulsion is still soft at this point and care must be taken not to damage it.  Carefully blot dry with clean newsprint and let the plate harden in room light for about 45 minutes, or expose to the UV light again for 3 minutes or so.

Gum bichromate 3 color by Andy Musil

The plate may now be inked and printed as a traditional intaglio.  Ink should be stiff, wiping should be done carefully with a stiff tarlatan – finish with a paper wipe.  After printing your plate can be cleaned with vegetable oil followed by a liquid hand soap and water rinse.  Avoid any cleaner with ammonia,  a strong base, Simple Green or any solvents with acetone or toluene which can damage the Image-on coating.  If you have, inadvertently of course, allowed ink to dry in the plate and the vegetable oil will not dissolve it, try kerosene or alcohol solvents first – again followed by a wash with hand soap.  When you have finished printing, the plate can be easily reclaimed by using an ammonia cleaner (quick and smelly) – or soaking the plate in the sodium carbonate solution (slower but more environmentally friendly)

Materials/Equipment:

Image on HD photo emulsion – this product is significantly slower that anything previously released – exposure times were more than double what I had been using before.

Prepared copper, steel, zinc, ptg plastic or plexi-glass  plate

Image on developer -  ( a 10% sodium carbonate solution)

Gum bichromate 3 color by Andy Musil

Exposure unit – preferably a vacuum frame with a UV light source and light integrator – I have an Olec AL13 lamp and a AL 121 light integrator – (how ever this process can be done with a good contact frame and a bank of florescent  lights or even  sunlight, and a stop watch) If you have a light meter that can give you a measurement in foot candles I can tell you for reference that this unit’s output measured at the surface of the vacuum frame is just over 50 foot candles.  Besides the intensity of the light source there is also the issue of the UV spectrum.  The Olec system is designed to emit strongly in the blue section of the UV spectrum which is the most useful for most graphic arts films.  The exposure times I list can be used as a starting point – but you must take the time to figure out what works for your chosen set up.

Aqua tint screen – Do not try to make your own –its just not worth it, a durable, predictable, aquatint screen, with a proven dither pattern and the dot density of a lith film is essential to this process  – an 18” x 24” can be had for $152, 10” x 12 “ for about $67 from Graphic Chemical  or Elizabeth Dove http://www.elizabethdove.com/screens/index.html

20% Vinegar Solution in a spray bottle

Trays or tubs large enough to accommodate your plate

Running water (cold)

2” or 3”  clean Hake brush

Epson ink jet printer with at least 7 ink positions

QTR and Photoshop or Lightroom on your computer

Piezography Digital Film inkset for Methodology 1
Currently available here for Epson 2400, 2880, 4800, 7800/9800

The “NewS9aNG2b-PictoricoUPohp“ K7 curve for this inkset  (this is a .quad file for QTR available here)

Modification curve for Image on (applied to your image before printing through QTR – per instructions above)

Pictorico OHP film – (other films may work – right now this is the best out there and, surprisingly, not the most expensive)

A darkroom or other reduced light area – and a safe light – or 25 watt bug light

A hair drier

10” Hard Squeegee for screen printing

Plastic graphics Art burnisher (or old credit card )

Razor Blade Knife and blades

Guest Blogger: John Dean

John has been a working photographer and visual artist since the late 1970’s. His work involves both still life and urban landscape iconography that is often shaped, colorized, and refined in the computer. He has been working with digital imaging since the mid 1990s. John started his imaging business, Dean Imaging, in Atlanta in 2001 to specialize in the expanding area of high stability pigment based digital imaging for the art community. Dean Imaging works with art photographers, painters, and multi-media artists to materialize their creative ideas digitally.

For me these ultra durable inks have a depth and solidity that no other black and white inks I have used can match. I’ve used them for portraits, landscapes, architecture, still life, and just about everything else. K7 has a dimensionality that my other pigment inks can’t duplicate ( no matter how hard I try). As a matter of fact everything else I’ve tried, no matter how nice, look flat in comparison.

This is why I chose these inks in 2008 to print the historic and amazing photographs by Harry Burton, done in 1922 as part of the original discovery and documentation of the most intact Egyptian archaeological find that was ever found, undisturbed for over 3,000 years. I worked from scans of Burton’s original glass plate negatives that were all shot on location at the original tomb in Cairo as Howard Carter found them.

As a printmaker what I needed most was an inkset that would be incredibly delicate in tonal range, glowing, though not fake looking, and having a good dmax while rendering as high of a resolution as I could muster for these glass plate scans that were often shot in difficult conditions, underground, with very long exposures on an 8×10 glass plate. After many tests using several kinds of printers and inks, the perfect combination for me was Piezography Carbon K7 on the Crane Portfolio Rag paper. This gave me the print color and the resolution that I needed in an inkset that is among one of the most permanent, if not the most permanent ever made. Now that this project is well behind me I still have a warm feeling in the back of my mind knowing that these prints will continue to look they way that I made them for decades and centuries to come. As a matter of fact, like a great Rembrant etching, I expect them to last as long as the paper they were printed on, and beyond. Thank goodness for Piezography Carbon, it is in a class all it’s own. My hat’s off to K7 Carbon.

John Dean
Dean Imaging, Atlanta Georgia

Last week, we received a brand new EPSON 9900 printer seedling. We picked it off the back of our favorite Conway delivery truck (the one that delivers us new printers). Moving it into the building is a typical farm chore. Cathy Cone and Dana Ceccarelli did most the heavy work, while I relied on the mighty Kubota to do my lifting. Life on an inkjet farm is hard. Cathy and Dana cleaned and stripped it of its tough cardboard skin to reveal the metallic flesh beneath. It’s on cardboard curing – not that different than digging up potatoes to dry. But, what we have planned for it is going to be very cool.

Currently, the 9900 is still sitting on the floor of Jon and Cathy Cone’s Cone Editions printmaking studio where all Piezography products have initially been born and raised. Curiously, it is facing the Canon ipf8300 at this point. They remind me of calves.

So what I’m raising up this Summer is two-fold.

Piezography2

I will be doing my first major revamp of Piezography for most of the supported printers which are matte only or gloss only. Currently, the only printers which can be used to simultaneously print matte and glossy prints are the Epson 2880 and the Epson Pro 3800/3880. These printers have enough ink cartridge slots to fit six shades of ink, two blacks (MK & PK) and the Gloss Overprint.

In a nutshell, Piezography2 is going to bring simultaneous matte/glossy capability to the following supported printers: EPSON R1400, 2400, R1800, R1900, Pro 4800, Pro 4480, Pro 7800/9800, Pro 7880/9880. Sorry! but we no longer have R&D 2200, 4000, 7600/9600 printers.

Piezography2 will use the same existing ink sets minus the lightest shade to allow glossy printing across the board. For example on Epson R1800/R1900/R2400 we will feature a K6 ink set with both matte black, photo black and the Gloss Overprint. A new curves architecture and profile library will be available that allows the user to choose between matte and glossy printing.

The 1400 printer will become a K5 printer dropping shade 6 so that Piezography Gloss Overprint can be installed. Because this printer is so easy to operate with refillable cartridges, a user can move between K6 matte and K5 glossy quite easily by swapping out just two cartridges.

The upgrade path to Piezography2 on the above desktop printers will require only one or two bottles of ink that the user does not already have (MPS shade 1 black and Piezography Gloss Overprint) and fresh cartridges with which to put these two inks into.

We have a lot of profiling to do and hope to release this system late Summer or early Fall, during the typical harvest.

Piezography Pro2

We will be introducing an all new Piezography product on the 3800/3880, 7900/9900 printer platforms: Piezography Pro2.

• Now this gets interesting… QuadTone RIP has a feature called curve blending in which 2 or 3 curves can be used simultaneously to blend. The blending is very sophisticated in that the user can select to blend across the entire tonal range or selectively (and simultaneously) in highlights, midtowns and shadows. The net effect is that I want to take advantage of this feature for our customers. I already use this in a personal system I made for myself. It allows the inks installed in a printer to have tens of thousands of different identities.
• We plan to offer two K4 ink groups and one K3 ink group in the Epson 7900/9900 printers. Besides having Gloss Overprint and both matte and photo blacks installed, the printer would have a total of four shades black in Warm Neutral and four shades black in Selenium and three shades black in Neutral.
• Three curves would be made for each of the three installed ink groups for every supported media..
• With three curves for JonCone Studio Type2 (by example), the user could print it as a Selenium print, or a Warm Neutral print, or a Neutral print. The printer essentially could be used as three printers.
• But, the user could blend two or three of the installed ink groups together to form subsets. For example, a 70%-30% blend of Warm Neutral / Selenium. The combinations are numbing.
• Finally, a split tone print in which any of these three ink groups are selected for blending equally or in varying proportions. The blending might be to have nearly Neutral highlights made of 92% Neutral tempered with 8% Selenium; the midtones comprised of 60% Selenium and 40% Warm Neutral; with the shadows comprised of 93% Warm Neutral tempered with 7% Selenium. As you can imagine, it is possible to make some pre-sets that are very autographical.

Yes, it is possible to forgo the glossy option and choose matte inks as well – so that Carbon and Neutral become options in the above scenarios…. There can be some extensive customization possible as long as the shades are installed in the correct positions.

Piezography Pro2 on the Epson 3800/3880 will be a double blending system with two ink groups installed.

I’m opting for more flexibility than while at the same time still exceeding the capabilities of Epson ABW both in resolution and fidelity. That’s a lot to claim in one sentence… While K7 remains a viable option for those who wish to run it on the new printers, Piezography2 and Piezography Pro2 become creative power platforms. The original Piezography systems and curves will continue to be supported!

A gathering of printmakers March 2011 at John Dean's Studio. From left to right: Wells Smith, Scott King, Bill Kennedy, Dana Ceccarelli, Jon Cone, Tyler Boley, John Dean.

An experience like this at the receiving end of Cathy and Jon Cone’s hospitality requires a short story to do justice, the idyllic pastoral setting, Jon’s amazing cooking, the shop itself.. the occasional surreal call of things like “there’s fresh strawberry shortcake upstairs for lunch”!… the following concentrates on my impressions as a printmaker.

dMax strategy meeting...Dana Ceccarelli of Cone Editions Press sharing her black dMax study from the various Cone ink concoctions with Tyler Boley, Walker Blackwell, and John Dean. Each of the inks were printed on a variety of media with and without overprint of Piezography Gloss Overprint. Some interesting variations in depth, glossiness, and warmth.

When you put four somewhat obsessive printmakers in a shop with a wide variety of Epsons, a big Roland, software and inksets, they immediately start printing.. for hours and hours… every day. Interestingly the common thread was subtle hue and surface as a distinctive tool to bring the individual’s images to life, and each worker’s was different. Dana Ceccarelli helped each of us at every step and is a force to be reckoned with in the shop.

John Dean brought prints of 5 different images using a variety of mixes from home to compare with tests he began here with existing sets like K7 Selenium and Special Edition.

Coincidentally over the years Walker Blackwell and I had each landed on an ink combination we loved, with slight variations- a dual quadtone system using the Piezotone Warm Neutral and Selenium inksets, then using StudioPrint RIP to blend and combine them in a variety of ways. With glossy compatible K7 versions of the same sets now available, he wanted to create a version made from the K7 sets that worked similarly, then by adding a GO in an 8 cart printer, give it gloss capability as well. A variable hue, split or blend, gloss or matte, monochromatic inkset.

I long had an ink hue in mind with little chance to pursue, so took this opportunity. My largest body of work is landscapes which I prefer slightly warm. But I have other work never printed in ink I thought needed a bit more of a silvery feel. They are somewhat formal urban images with natural elements, and simpler compositions. Mixing custom sets with a small desktop and refillable carts is easy and fun, the various K7 sets provide endless possibilities and print well without concern for relinearizing or profiling while testing. I knew there wouldn’t be time to complete this work and then translate it over to a larger Epson for StudioPrint work and larger prints, so I brought images that work well at smaller sizes.

Same ink blend, different paper.

Starting tests with Canson Edition Etching, a beautiful paper, I put Selenium in shade 7 to take the cold edge off the highlights as they go into the paper, and get a slight rosy hue. Shades 6, 5, and 4 were from the neutral set, shade 3 from the Carbon set, and shade 2 from the selenium set. I wanted some hard splits in the darkest tones to bring out shadow contrast like silver papers, Azo and Portriga in the past. After some tests, swapping shade 6 from Neutral to Selenium, then shade 3 to a 50/50 mix of Carbon and Selenium. It was very close, but still not quite right. Finally trying Canson Rag Photographique instead of Edition Etching, it all came together. Then I printed a chart for Dana to make a custom profile of the setup to finalize everything.

Jon was working with a truly unique setup. A variety of near abstract tree/branch images done with single optic lenses melded seamlessly into the surface quality of an amazing paper he was working with through the large modified Roland printer. The paper is a triple thick kozo/cotton blend, also described here - with an inkset derived from the one discussed in the same article. The sheets were 39″ squares with a large feathered deckle. He lightly adhered them down to a larger thin sheet and set his image size larger so it printed full bleed completely over the deckle, then removed from the temp backing piece.

The inkset is complex and hard to describe, the visual look primarily a complex warmish gray, crossing over a cold gray in the shadows, then back to a deep almost reddish black. The editing process seemed, just from occasional conversation, to be about the transitional areas on a per image basis. The hue contrast in the dark trunks and branches accomplished by careful ink control and crossovers, the gorgeous surface that melded with the image structure, large size, full bleed, lens qualities, all came together into something I think few have ever seen before in photographic fine art prints. He completed 4 or 5, and an additional with a deckled 32×44″ sheet of the same paper.

Dana, John (seated) and Tyler

Working in the same room all together for several days was a real treat, each of us absorbed in our own images and ink setups, good music playing, lots of art talks, politics, joking, Jon running out for occasional food prep (I’m pasting in his “menu” at the end). On Sunday we were all wrapping things up with a lot of great results.

Watching Dana build my custom K7 profile with Jon’s unique profiler was very impressive, after the measurement data is brought in, you can visually watch each of the seven ink curves adjust accordingly, extremely cool. I proceeded to finalize tonal edits of several images and make final 13x19s. This inkset will make it’s way into what I am doing at home. Walker made slight adjustments and perfected his set, and also printed several nice things. After careful consideration of the prints from home, the test prints from existing sets at Cone Editions, and seeing the other’s work, John decided to complete his prints for the now legendary “Tastes Like Chicken” portfolio, making an edition of one image on Jon’s Special Edition inkset, and another image edition with Walker’s Warm Neutral/Selenium dual quad set. Jon completed several finals, all leaning against the wall in our work room as things progressed.

StudioPrint's Piezography ink linearizer in the mix...

Looking back on what everyone was doing, a few things were consistent to me. Resolution, continuous tone, the practical issues of B&W with ink, are past, it’s just a given that all that is in place. In unique and individual ways, each was focused on bringing together the materials to make the hopefully exquisite “thing”. Paper hue and surface, ink hue, changes/splits/blends for particular images, how that worked with paper base hue.. even particular editing for a materials combination, all to bring an image alive as a physical object. Printmaking is not craft for it’s own sake, the image is the beginning and end, the point being to manipulate craft for the sake of the life of the image. That’s how I saw it, that’s what everyone appeared to be doing…

inks, papers, printers, non-stop for 4 days and nights...

Another striking aspect is how unusual this experience was, in fact very unique. In my formative years there were classrooms, darkrooms, workshops, all over the world tinkering with materials and process to make the effective print, to bring physical life to photographic images. Now in the digital era, it feels was too “special”, it should feel normal, even expected.
There’s much more, it was hard to keep it this short and I’m not giving anyone the justice they deserve. My thanks to Jon and Cathy Cone for such hospitality, for giving us the run of Cone Editions and even their home, and Dana Ceccarelli for her impressive experience, knowledge, and capability. She was as much a part of this as anyone.

Jon Cone at the smoker cutting up chimayo chile rubbed ribs...

Here is Jon’s “menu”-

“On your first night we ate grouper tacos from woodfired (roasted) 4lb slab of fresh florida grouper on soft corn tortillas with quacomole, fresh salsa, cabbage and my remoulade sauce. On Friday I made my chimayo chile rubbed baby back ribs with an apple bbq sauce that was heavy in red pepper but tempered by so much apple jelly. Saturday we had tandoor cooking with a leg of lamb, shrimps and cauliflower – each marinated differently and spiced quite differently. With it we had a peanut chutney and a mint chutney. Cathy made her basmati rice salad which is cold and features too many yummies to mention – but a hint of maple syrup in there along with cilantro, ginger, cashews, garbanzo beans, garlic, currants and spices. Some cool cucumber raita with mustard seed cooled it down. I had brined a brisket before you got here and smoked it for 10 hours on Friday – let it cool – and then yesterday we steamed it for 4 hours before eating it as fresh pastrami. It was covered in the usual black pepper, corriander and some juniper.  :)!!!”

John Dean enjoying a best rib ever...

Photopolymer gravure is a rather new printmaking process that combines modern UV actuated polymers with a very old tradition of photo intaglio printmaking. Gravure is a process that has traditionally meant different things to different printmakers.

For example, I was a gravure printmaker for more than a decade. I used Fox Talbot’s dust grain aquatint gravure method to make prints for artists and photographers. If you recall your history of Photography, Fox Talbot is credited as being one of the early inventors of Photography. He also developed a process in which he could fix images on copper using finely ground asphaltum as a method in which biting the plate would produce tone by virtue of the asphaltum preventing the open-bite. Ink needs something rough to cling to.

Perhaps, explaining the gravure process I used to do will give a better understanding of what gravure is or can be – and then I can explain what others have brought to the table – and finally what Don Messec is bringing.

Jon Cone and Eric Great-Rex from the back cover of the 1997 Real Arts exhibition catalogue. Eric and I made photogravures for artists at Cone Editions Press in Port Chester, NY from 1984 - 1989. In 1997, we collaborated again on a digital exhibition in NYC with a group of painters and photographers.

In the early 1980s while I was teaching printmaking at SUNY Purchase, NY, I met British printmaker Eric Great-Rex. Eric was a Fulbright Scholarship printmaker who was doing research at SUNY. When Eric came to America, he had been influenced by Jon Goodman (a gravure printmaker), and Eric was working at that time almost exclusively with the Talbot method of aquatint photogravure. I’m half English and Eric and I became immediate best friends for life.

I invited Eric to come work at Cone Editions Press in Port Chester, NY. I wanted to see what we could do with this medium if we applied it to the painters and sculptors that I was publishing at the time. Eric was working with both hand painted mylars and photographic positives. At Cone Editions we would work initially with hand painted and drawn mylars which would serve as replacements for the film positives. Photogravure without the photograph!

The process involves taking carbon tissue and sensitizing it with dichromate which can then be exposed to a film positive to hold a latent image. This exposed tissue is adhered to a sheet of highly polished copper and the paper backing is removed leaving a varying amount of carbon tissue emulsion behind. Because this emulsion is hydroscopic, it can be bitten in various dilutions of ferric chloride to which some water has been added. In this manner, the ferric chloride (a strong alkaline as opposed to a strong acid) can be used to bite tone into the copper plate. Those areas of the copper which have little carbon tissue emulsion adhering to it will receive the most biting and produce the deepest blacks when later inked. Those areas of the copper that have very thick emulsion adhering to them are bitten later in the ferric chloride solutions which have greater concentrations of water.

Because an acid or mordant working directly on copper will bite it down leaving only smooth copper in its wake – some form of intermittent blocking out the bite is required in order to create tone – by leaving crevices behind (which will cling to the ink) rather than smooth copper which will not allow ink to cling to it.

I happened to use aquatint as a method to create crevices. Others use a very fine (but mechanical) half-tone screen which is the more popular method. I prefer aquatint for both historical and more importantly, aesthetic reasons. Eric and I built an enormous aquatint box in which we used a compressor to blow the fine resin dust about in a very high chamber. After the larger particles fell back to the bottom of the box, the copper plate with the dried emulsion could be slipped into the chamber and millions of tiny resin particles would slowly fall covering it in a very fine powder. This powdered resin was later melted onto the copper plate by resting it on a hot plate or using a propane torch under it, in order to produce a ground through which the ferric chloride could bite the copper – producing a fine continuous tone.

After biting the copper plate, the emulsion was removed from the plate – a rough copper image of the positive was left behind which could be inked, wiped and printed in the intaglio etching method through an etching press to transfer the ink to damp printmaking paper.

Aquatint photogravure etching by David Humphey, published by Cone Editions Press in 1987. The mylar positive was hand painted. A spit-bite inset plate in red was used. Two additional silkscreen printings of white are included.

What Cone Editions brought to this process was using mylars rather than photo positives. I gave mylars to many of the painters and sculptors that I worked with in the 1980s and they painted and drew on these. I essentially started off making etchings with these artists by producing an aquatint photogravure plate – which they could then further work with spit bite, hard ground, white ground, dry point, whatever….. The artists which I worked with at the time and who made prints with me using this method include Lester Johnson, Wolf Kahn, Willy Heeks, David Humphrey and Emily Cheng. With Carole Seberovski, we produced a series of aquatint photogravures from tissue which she had worked with charcoal and eraser – rather than film positives that had been painted or drawn.

Later in the 1990s, I would work with photographers and this method. I had to steel plate all of these fine gravure copper plates in order to extend their life past a few impressions. The copper was too soft to take the enormous pressure required to extend the dynamic range of tone. I set up an amazing electroplating system using a huge sheet of pure steel that I had imported from Sweden (and now forms the ramp to my motorcycle studio at the back of my house).

1987 digital aquatint photogravure by David Humphey, published by Cone Editions Press in an edition of only 10.

One of the early digital prints I made in 1987 with David Humphrey, was from a linotron film output of a Superpaint drawing from a Macintosh computer. However, after making photogravure plates here in Vermont and teaching the process in workshops from 1990 – 1992, I simply became too ill to continue using solvents in printmaking.

Incidentally, I met Paul Taylor (another gravure printmaker) only a few years ago when he agreed to come and pick up 15 gallons of blue label ferric chloride that I had kept in my basement since 1992. Paul uses Piezography inks to make his fine film positives for his copper aquatint photogravures.

In Photopolymer gravure – copper plates are no longer used. Ferric chloride is no longer used. Instead a UV sensitive polymer is adhered to sheet metal. These can be made by hand, or purchased pre-made. This polymer can be exposed by a strong UV source through a film positive and “developed” in water to leave polymer material behind that can catch ink and  be printed. However, the same problem of open biting is present… A fine (but mechanical) half-tone screen can be used to initially expose the plate to prevent open biting…or the film positive itself can contain a screening of the image.

What Don Messec is bringing to the table is a one exposure method so that a film positive already contains the necessary screening – and he is doing this with the simple method of allowing the Epson black ink only dither to print a digital image on clear film. The dithering at his settings is fine enough to appear non-mechanical and very much instead as a fine aquatint. And he does so in a 100% non-toxic process which I find necessary (from a health perspective) and appealing (from a I sit on my own water and septic system).

So, we wanted to see what Piezography inks and the QTR various dithering patterns might bring to the table. I sent ahead an Epson 2880 printer and five sets of my refillable cartridges. If you read my blog, you should know by now that the Epson 2880 is my development platform and that it shares it’s QTR curve structure with a range of Epson Pro printers – making it ideal to work with in a fluid and fast manner during development. I sent the new opaque WN Black shade 1 and Selenium shades 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 4.5, 5 & 6.

Using the QTR Calibration Mode, we printed 21 step density strips to determine at which density and at which ink dilution, Piezography inks might be useful for Don’s process. We found that a few of the dilutions – namely shades 1, 2, 2.5, & 3 are of interest when the dpi and dithering correspond to produce a good bite. And we also noted by finding this out, that Don and my collaboration together can only have just possibly started. I will need to make QTR curves – and Don will need to conduct experiments on his end – and the discoveries we may make – or the new ink formulations we may decide to produce together – are going to be a long process – and hopefully a long friendship.

Peter Ellzey used to make Don Messec's digital film outputs for many years. Now he's working with Grant Kalvoda at digital2you.cc Peter came to lunch and to see how Don and I were working with the Piezography inks and the photopolymer gravure.

Don almost exclusively works in natural light. There is electricity in the studio of course. But Don chooses not to consume more energy than necessary. The Santa Fe sun and a window make an excellent light table to examine the differences in Piezography inks and QTR dithering patterns and do sizes.

This photopolymer plate was produced from a particularly good looking Piezography QTR film. We can already see the open bite in many of the patches.

Inking with 50% carbon black and 50% transparency will reveal much. I can already see many of the patches are displaying open bite through the ink.

After wiping the plate, clearly many of the inks print with too much density to produce any tone (because of open bite). Dithering is essential. But of course - in the right amounts!

The first test printed! While it does not look like much is happening - a world of information is just printed that will allow me to begin curve making! There actually is a lot there to work with. It just needs to be distributed correctly.

If Don were not smiling, I would be worried...those few patches that held ink - held it beautifully.

The film output at the bottom, a print taken from the plate made from the film output in the middle. At the top is the printing plate.

Now on to food. As many of you know, I consider myself a much better cook than I do a developer of monochromatic ink technologies or digital printmaking. I divide my time between working in the studio and cooking. I print to eat. How I stay fit and trim undoubtedly gives proof to the existence of miracles. New Mexico of course is a land of miracles and chile. Chile is of course, an addictive and pleasurable material that humans have been consuming for 1000s of years.

New Mexico chile is of course – one of the world’s most tastiest. If you measure your chile by taste rather than heat – New Mexico can win 9 times out of 10. We visited El Santuario de Chimayó, which is a Catholic church in the small village of Chimayó, known for its miracle dirt. The chamber in which the dirt is housed was filled with hundreds of discarded crutches and walkers that were no longer needed by the recipients of miracles. They had walked 150 miles to the church on an annual pilgrimage which has been occurring for more than a century. The lands surrounding this church is where the famous Chimayó chile is grown.

I happened to buy a huge supply of air dried chile – the best way of drying chile. What I will do with this chile remains to be seen. Although I have already marinated chicken for grilling in powdered red chile, lemon, lime and orange (yum!) and have made several breakfast concoctions with powdered green chile! Those who intimately know my pork shoulder can expect something amazing soon!

But, while working with Don, I got to eat the #3 burger on the New York Times 10 best hamburgers list: a Bobcat Bite Green Chili burger – all 10 oz of it, smothered in fresh New Mexico green chile. And just outside of Chimayó, I ate a lunch of tender flank fajitas with red Chimayó chile. The entire visit to New Mexico was me and chile: carne adovada (pork drowning in buckets of red chile) as medicinal as it is addictive; breakfast burritos smothered in green or red chile; breakfast quesadillas with homemade chorizo (made with NM chile); soft corn tacos; hmmmmmmm.

The Bobcat Bite green chile hamburger.

The Bobcat Bite green chile hamburger - stacked and ready to go. The burger comes on a bed of light potato chips which catch all the drippings.

The Bobcat Bite green chile hamburger - for me...cooked to perfection. They have seven temperatures at which you can order. Mine was not nearly at the bottom of coolness. Apparently they will just kiss the grill with it if you ask.

The highlight however, was the amazing smoked salmon lunch that Don cooked up at his studio. This is the lox and bagels of New Mexico cuisine. Fresh smoked salmon on warm corn tortillas with lemons as sweet as sugar, cilantro, cucumbers and tomatoes, and a liberal splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. No chile! So refreshing. So good. So addictive. And finished off with buckets of chocolate. How else would one want to spend the afternoon in a perfect Santa Fe spring day?

Marica, a student of Don, starts off the cookout by heating very good, local soft corn tortillas.

Don gets into the tortilla thing as guests begin consuming more and more smoked salmon tacos.

Don has a rule...only make tacos when the tortillas are warm. It's a good and proper rule!

Don shows how it's done. By the way, those wine bottles contain balsamic vinegar and olive oil. A thumb to seal, a shake, and then a splash...

Grant Kalvoda shows up! Grant assisted me in an insane demonstration of color management at PMA 2005 in Orlando, Fla where he and I got 500 people to simultaneously calibrate their displays. Grant works out of www.digital2you.cc in Santa Fe, supplying all the Pro needs of the area. He has a lot of knowledge and experience.

My taco - a good student, I learn to stack it properly...but these lemons! sweetest I ever had - and not Meyers...

Steve Zeifman's taco - a work of art! Steve owns and operates Rush Creek Editions in Santa Fe. He produced the amazing print exhibition by photographer Jamey Stillings which was on exhibit at PhotoEye in Santa Fe.

Luckily, I had been making prints digitally since 1985 – so I had an active venue to pursue and a way to continue moving forward in a more healthy environment. Also, having recently moved to Vermont in 1988, I had access to good naturopathy medicine which totally cleaned me out. But, I had to give up my aquatint-photogravure, steelfacing, intaglio, relief print, silkscreen and monoprint.

Don invited me out for a collaboration of efforts. We are both curious if we can marry some Piezography inks and or process with his photopolmer gravure process.

Not a bad landscape in which to make prints!

My plan with Don was to learn about his safe photopolymer gravure process, and hopefully develop or co-develop some Piezography ink process as a way to improve or gain some other control of it. This first trip to Santa Fe was to meet Don, learn some bits of his process, and hopefully establish a baseline for further work together. And if the process would prove safe for my own studio I plan to setup my intaglio equipment again. What I want is to print my own work in photogravure (again).

I met Don at breakfast at Counter Culture in Santa Fe where we discussed politics and everything else other than printmaking. I had my first hit of green chili, and realized that politics in the Southwest are more systemic than they are in Vermont. Don is an interesting man who vets nearly all his information. I could tell immediately that this was going to be a great experience.

When we arrived at Don’s property it was apparent immediately that this man can not only devise methods to keep generations of artists and printmakers safe in the studio – but he can build anything. He built both his house and his studio. Santa Fe is a land of contrasts. There is abundant sun but sparse water. Collecting it, managing it, and using it sparingly is critical for both survival and good studio management. Vermont is so wet and so lush this time of year. Don’s landscape is a semi-arid climate.

The studio is fabulously equipped. I expected to see an Amergraph exposing unit but found instead a huge production UV exposing unit that had two vacuum tables. There were two etching presses and enough workspace to accomodate up to 12 attendees for his “making art safely” printmaking workshops. If you are thinking about either cleaning up your printmaking act, or wanting to learn safe printmaking process, or how to get your digital images or hand painted images into etching ink – then you need to check out Making Art Safely.

The one thing that was missing however, was that familiar (if not silently deadly) aroma and smell of solvents and drying oils. Don had not cleaned up for me. It’s just how a modern, safe and clean printmaking environment can be today. Don cleans up with things like baby wipes, water, a little dish soap. There are no solvents because there is no need for them. Even the well pigment laden inks (they are incredibly dense) are safely ensconsed in a soy based oil formulation that cleans up with simple water.

Don walked me through his process. Well, we actually made a few plates over the next few days. Let me show you in pictures…

Don Messec of Making Art Safely - notice the clean hands!

Don built his own studio in Santa Fe, NM.

These inks are soy based. They work like oil based inks but are miscible in water.

If you haven't seen one before, this is typical of a print flattener that is designed to dry prints.

Don had a place for me to lay my hat...right by the door. Santa Fe UV is pretty brutal.

Don starts off the process by applying his standard curve to a grayscale image. He prints the image using ConeColor matte black ink on a special clear film. He prefers ConeColor matte black to the Epson matte black.

Don is able to work in daylight as long as know UV is present. His exposing room is bright but the UV is absent.

Don's dual vacuum frame upright UV exposure unit is the object of envy...although it needs a forklift to install it.

The development room is the same as the exposure room. No UV in this bright daylight. Don has filtered that out and the plates do not fog.

After exposing the polymer plate to the film positive, it is developed in water and agitated by means of a soft Japanese brush.

The plate is then rinsed and the amount of water used is incredibly minimal.

A quick blot on dry newsprint to remove the surface water...

The edges are wiped clean. I remember doing this with a paper towel on my bare finger wetted with a keytone solvent...no wonder I got sick! Don only and always practices 100% non-toxic printmaking.

Don dries his plates and hardens them under the intense Santa Fe sunshine...I will have to use my Amergraph at my studio. Vermont is not so blessed with such intense daylight like NM.

The excess plate is carefully trimmed.

The finished plate carries the latent image exposed and developed in water and now ready for inking.

Don prepared the press bed. He cleans up the ink with baby wipes. What a difference from the Solvesso 100 solvent that made me so sick decades ago.

The water miscible soy-based ink is extraordinarily pigment laden. Some transparency is actually required to get a wider tonal latitude.

Hand wiping the plate after it is inked is very much in the traditional method of wiping aquatint plates. But, Don will not use his palms - always adhering to safe methods. Smart man!

Don patiently worked on my hot spot highlight that actually had quite a bit of tone. It turns out we could just make a Photoshop adjustment and another plate in about 30 minutes!

The finished plate now inked and ready to print.

The paper is pre-dampened the night before so that the moisture is evenly distributed throughout the sheet. It also makes it very convenient.

The paper is calendared prior to printing in order to remove most the moisture.

The inked plate is registered to the press.

The dampened paper is then registered to the press over the inked plate...

The blankets are positioned in preparation for printing...

Don cranks the press...

My print is pulled from the inked plate!!!

I worked with two images while at Don's studio. These are images which I have been printing recently with my own process. Photopolymner-gravure has a much more limited range of tone than Piezography. I will shoot differently for this process.

The entire process is overseen and directed by Don's dog Camas, who is named after a white root from Don's wife Charlene Teter's Spokane tribe. The root is used in a variety of ways.

Don inspects his work. Gravure is an amazing process. The way Don uses his film process, the tone is rendered as if with aquatint. There is no discernible mechanical screen and the Epson dither produces a pleasing result.

Don also produced a plate for Jim Hamstra while I was there. Jim is a talented photographer and printmaker who has attended quite a few workshops at Making Art Safely.

Unexpectedly (to me), Don cleaned everything up with water and a touch of dish detergent. We were never exposed to any toxic materials. What a change a few decades makes...

All this in one single day occurred. The following day we planned to crack out the Piezography inks to see what they bring to the table. Look soon for Making Art Safely, Part 2.

The Piezography Archives is intended to serve two purposes. First, it allows institutions and collectors an opportunity to purchase examples of the Piezography process. The Piezography process is an invention that will certainly be included in the history of Photography as the bridge between analogue black & white photography and the ongoing digital color revolution in which black & white photography is being replaced by a subset of color inkjet reproduction.

The second purpose will allow institutions and collectors an opportunity to own and display historical photographs that they might not otherwise have access to.

The cost of these prints is the same as the cost of making a custom print at Cone Editions Press of your own work. The costs are only moderately higher than our online printing costs.

We will be adding new prints on a regular basis. You can get notifications with our feedburner RSS feed, or by pasting http://feeds.feedburner.com/PiezopressNewPrints  into your favorite RSS reader.

Lewis Hines, "Tipple Boy", 1908

Our first offering is Lewis Hine’s “Tipple Boy”, 1908 taken working as an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), Lewis Hine (1874-1940) documented working and living conditions of children in the United States between 1908 and 1924. Tipple boys had incredibly dangerous jobs in which they had to physically sort the coal before it dropped into the crushers.

This image is printed at Cone Editions Press in Piezography 100% Carbon inks on JonCone Studio Type 2 paper from a high resolution scan of the original glass plate negative. The scan was cleaned and imaged by Jon Cone to faithfully reproduce the contrast and tonality of the original archived print from the NCLC collection.

Sized at 11 1/4″ x 17″ and printed on 13″ x 19″ paper. Priced at $100 unframed or $225 framed.

The frame (option) is an 18″ x 24″ honey maple wood, with Alpharag 8-Ply – Pearl White over matte on Foamboard Acid Free Artcare 3/16 inch backing and Acrylic glazing. The archival print is archivally mounted, framed and ready for display.

Click here to buy.

By marrying Precision Digital Negative system to the Piezography Digital Negative process, one is able to eliminate dithering, increase the output resolution, and have a personal method to linearize silver print or any alternative process. The Piezography Selenium inks and QTR curves are an enhancement to PDN.

I redesigned a whole new QTR curves architecture that is compatible with the linearization portion of PDN. I ended up with something that I feel really satisfied with. Making silver prints will be easier for Piezography Digital Negative users, and in many ways a lot of fun.

Do not let me confuse you. PDN can not make QTR curves. If your QTR curve is not already perfectly linearized for film (meaning you tried to make your own and got something lumpy), PDN can not correct that. You will need Piezography made QTR curves to work with PDN. But at $50, PDN is an inexpensive add-on to the Piezography Digital Negative System that brings a whole new level of creativity.

What PDN does is correct your Photoshop images so that it prints in a linear fashion with your choice of alt process. No matter what type of humidity condition you experience, or your hand coating method…PDN can correct for that. Because Piezography Digital Negative are not subject to variations in humidity and hand-coating techniques, very little PDN intervention will be mandatory. But, each different type of silver paper has its own characteristics and PDN can be used with Piezography Digital Negative to linearize the silver print process using just the “Curve Calculator” portion of PDN.

By replacing the color inks portion of PDN with Piezography inks, digital negative makers will find the PDN process significantly easier to use and the results will be worthy of fine silver printing.

Mark Nelson writes in his manual “There are two features of digital negatives that are often referred to when comparing them to analogue negatives or in–camera negatives. The first is the ability to render smooth tonal transitions and the second is the ability to render detail. Basically, I’m talking about holding a print in your hand and viewing it at reading distance—not examining the print with a microscope. I have shown prints to people and once mentioning that they were made with digital negatives, they would look at them more closely and suddenly “discover” that they see something “digital going on.” I think had I not told them that the negatives were of digital origins they would not have either seen or imagined anything digital. But then, I’m over forty years old and way beyond my first pair of reading glasses.”

Many alternative processes can be viewed at “arms length” and the color ink will make satisfactory films for printmakers. But, fine darkroom silver printing has never really been about looking at a reading distance. At some point, the viewer looks at detail and digital artifacting is not something that many darkroom printers will want to aspire to. This is what Piezography Digital Negative brings to Precision Digital Negative. It allows the PDN system to be used for high standard digital negatives, and it makes the PDN system much easier to use by eliminating several of the steps.

And in order to preserve the full dynamic range of a Photoshop image in 8 or 16 bits, I produced a family of QTR curves that produce a specific range of densities that are designed to match the needs of the user’s individual alt process. The user does not need to compress the image data in order to print at the correct density range. Instead, they choose the correct Piezography QTR curve. I eliminated the use of Piezography shade 1 black in favor of Piezography shade 2 very very dark gray.

For example, I can get a full range of tone from Ilford RC paper by using a negative that has a dynamic range of 0.10 to 1.50. So I use a QTR Curve that only produces a maximum density of 1.50. For Ilford Fiber Base, I can use slightly more density, and I now produce Curves that produce density ranges such as 1.40, 1.50, 1.60, etc. These are all perfectly linearized for Pictorio Ultra OHP film.

So an interesting synergy between PDN and Piezography is achieved and an interesting balance now served that lets me concentrate my development time on adapting the new curves to the full range of supported printers.

The interesting thing about using Nelson’s PDN system with Piezography inks is that it only requires the use of the Curve Generator portion. Three time consuming steps are eliminated. The user simply prints out the 21 step inkjet target onto film by selecting the correct Piezography QTR curve and combination of Piezography Selenium shades. The film is exposed and processed as a silver print, and the 21 steps measured by densitometer (or converted Lab). The density measurements are now entered into the PDN Tonal Palette which generates and exports a linearization curve for Photoshop that is used to correct an image before it is printed with the same process.

It is very simple and elegant – and the results (especially when contrast linearizations are added) look decidedly photographic.

I have a method for establishing the correct exposure time that differs from the PDN method and does not require the purchase of a Stouffer strip. Because I have already linearized the inks output onto Pictorico film, the user needs only print the target, expose the paper, and develop the process. Then the final measurement of the printed results is used by PDN to generate a correction curve for Photoshop if needed. The PDN user is able to skip all the tedious portions of PDN and go right to the creative portions of PDN.

Because the Piezography system is based on density rather than UV absorption via color inks, the need to recalibrate is greatly reduced. So instead of the PDN system being used daily to make alt process corrections, it becomes an amazing creativity system for use with Piezography Digital Negatives (or Positives). It is likely, that a single PDN curve may only need to be generated for silver print. And this can be used over a long period of time. But, for alternative process that is subject to humidity and hand-coating of emulsions, the PDN system may need to be used more often (although being density based should not be needed to the same degree it would when using color inks.) We will need to hear more from alt-process users. I can only speak with confidence about silver printing.

Now the really cool thing about the PDN system is that it generates an endless variety of contrast curves for Photoshop. The image is simultaneously linearized in relation to the contrast curve that is applied. I think that that is the sweet spot of the process.

It results in endless creativity. One can even use PDN to create hybrid curves from the best part of two curves. I had a great time in the darkroom with it. I saved these curves in Photoshop and applied them to images as I needed. PDN makes images that retain the toe and shoulder of traditional darkroom printing. The sublime Gamma 2.2 of the Piezography film, though part of the film process, gets converted to the PDN contrast system when it is used. But, the results are more silver looking, so I did not miss the impossibly long tone I had developed several weeks ago.

I think that the extra Zones I brought into the process as few weeks ago were lost on most of the people who saw my silver prints at SPE. If you want endless tone – you have to go to Piezography. But, if you want an easier and higher standard of digital negative than you can make with color inks and PDN, you can bring Piezography inks into the PDN process. And if you want your own Piezography Digital Negative linearization tool, you can bring PDN into your workflow. A perfect marriage!

Now for some technical….

There are Curves and there are Curves. The Curves I make for use with QuadTone RIP are actually sets of individual inkjet curves we call a QTR Curve (or a .quad file). These are used to perfectly overlap shades of Piezography ink. The Curves exported by the Curves Calculator II of the Mark Nelson Precision Digital Negative system are .acv curves – which are Photoshop curves used in Photoshop to adjust an image so that it is linear when printed.

I created a slide show below which shows the new QTR Curves I have generated in comparison to the QTR curves I generated in the earlier processes (one, two, and three).

The first Curve presented below in the slide show is the original Pictorico curve that I made which can still be used and is being used to make silver prints and alternative process. It is a one curve fits all approach that requires image compression to meet the density required in the negative.

The second curve in the slide show is linearized directly to the alt process and while this creates the best possible result – it will simply be too much work to release this as a system; requiring extensive amounts of development time to produce a curve for many of today’s different silver papers and alternative processes. It is also reversed to make a negative from a positive and it automatically masks unprinted areas of the film with dense enough ink so that white borders can be produced during contact printing. And if you imagine that it might be cool to print the film base+ fog – it does… Total overkill but a fantastic exercise in curve making!

The next five slides are five of the new QTR curves I made last week for use with Mark Nelson’s PDN system. These five slides allow you to see how varying densities are produced. Incidentally, all black ink is eliminated in the new curves and Shade 2 is used instead. Would take a microscope at this point to find stray dots in the hightlights of a Piezography Digital Negative!

You can look at the ink recipes on the left side of each slide and get an idea of the changes I have made over the past month. And a density scale at the bottom of each slide shows the progression of tone so that you can look vertically up from any density point to see what combination of inks are used to make that.

For the PDN part of this process, only a portion of the PDN system is actually needed: the Tonal palette and the Curves Generator.

Without going into detail about all the components in the Precision Digital Negative system that are unnecessary to use with Piezography Digital Negatives – I will mention that these PDN steps are skipped in my process when used with PDN:

• Perform a Project Baseline Printing Time Trials
• Perform a Project Standard Printing Time Trials
• Perform a Project Color Density Range Palette

The only part of the Nelson system that is needed is to print the “21StepTabletInkjet” image from QTR using my one of my new QTR curves, contact print this in the darkroom, and measure the results with a densitometer and perform the

• Project Tonal Palette

This will create a set of density measurements that will allow you to “linearize” your output with a Photoshop curve that is exported from the Nelson system. The Photoshop curves are produced by the Curve Generator in Nelson’s CurveCalculator II. The entire time spent with Nelson’s PDN is a tiny fraction of what would be spent if you were using color inks.

But, it is a very powerful system that will allow you to export a Photoshop curve that will “linearize” your image or adjust it in a wide array of interesting contrast effects. This portion of the system is where all the creativity happens. I highly recommend PDN for use with Piezography Digital Negative.

Do you absolutely need the PDN system to use Piezography Digital Negatives? No. The Piezography film curves in QTR produce open shadows. The prints might be a little dark without linearization and you could actually just apply a simple mid level boost in Photoshop and be satisfied. But, the PDN system adds a way to boost contrast while at the same time making sure things are linear. It’s a no-brainer solution and it’s only $50. I can’t imagine anyone would not want to add this onto Piezography Digital Negatives.

But, where the PDN system really shines is its ability to darken shadows and brighten the highlights. It will help make the system look decidedly silver without closing up everything. The PDN system when used with Piezography inks can be considered to be more of a contrast control system. That is how I would characterize it when used with Piezography digital negatives.

The PDN system can produce a numbing array of Photoshop Curves if you wish to play with the double hybrid features. To give you an idea of some of the more basic curves, I have plotted their results by measuring the 21 step tablet from an Ilford RC print that I made from a Piezography film in which the 21 step file was adjusted with a PDN curve.

PDN Curves

The SL is straight line. I liked this curve the least because it made a very dark print. Mark’s linearization process appears to be Gamma 1.0 based – so it’s actually very straight line. But, if you begin playing with what Mark calls the Hybrid Value, you can then build contrast curves. Any value between 0 (Straight Line) and 1.0 (HD) can be used.

The HD is the most contrasty of the curves and you can see this readily in the Orange graph line that was plotted from actual density measurements from the silver print. But, if you like the properties of one curve in the shadows for example, and like the properties of another curve in the highlights… you can combine these into a new curve Mark calls a Double Hybrid Curve. And this is where the power and elegance of Mark’s system comes to enhance Piezography digital negatives.

All of these curves were made using the 21 step strip, one time through in a process that took less than one hour in the darkroom. PDN offers a process for fine tuning if desired. And PDN has a target with a much higher resolution of measuring points (101 gray steps) available in the first version of PDN. The quick and dirty method however is quite satisfying. How much time you wish to spend perfecting the curves is totally up to you.

QTR Curves = 32k34-16-lin_d1_4 (through 1.8).quad
32k34-16-lin_d1_4 (through 1.8).quad

What Piezography Digital Negative and Precision Digital Negative do for each other is to form a synergistic relationship in which the user will be able to generate the best possible results.

So, what’s next? Really my digital negative work is now nearly done. I plan to generate a series of density curves for all of our supported printers of which we still have a printer: R1400, R800/R1800, R1900, R2400, R2880, 3800, 3880, 4000, 4800, 4880, 7600, 7800, 7880, 7900, 9600, 9800, 9880, 9900. I will also try and create smooth dotless curves using shades 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, so that current Pieography users can make their own negatives without having to use the new half-shades. Then I need to write a manual so that it’s easy to understand for use with or without the PDN system – and of course an easy manner of converting EyeOne Lab data to density measurements for input into PDN.

Then I move on to creating a Piezography Digital Positive for digital photopolymer gravure. I plan to begin that work in May and will document it here. My 36″ x 72″ etching press awaits… I spent a decade making aquatint photogravures before giving it up in 1991. I can’t wait to get inky again.