This is the latest incarnation of the Piezography system by the Master Printer Jon Cone of Cone Editions Press. Piezography inks and software are sold exclusively in the USA by InkjetMall, and are formulated by Vermont PhotoInkjet, LLC of Topsham, Vermont.

The Piezography MPS system for the Epson 3800 / 3880 printer comprises nine Piezography inks which are a direct replacement to the Epson Ultrachrome ink set. There are seven shades of Piezography black ink which include two shades similar to Epson’s LK and LLK. Piezography adds two additional darker shades and two additional lighter shades dramatically increase highlight and shadow details. Additionally, Piezography includes a matte black and a photo black so that the inks can be used on the widest possible range of media. The ninth ink is the Piezography Gloss Optimizer which is used to overprint glossy prints and produces perfectly equalized gloss with absolutely no bronzing nor metamerism. In short, Piezography MPS produces perfect matte or glossy prints, both of which exceed the Epson Advanced Black & White system. Unlike the Epson ink set which must perform both color and monochromatic print operations, the Piezography MPS ink set perfects the printing of black & white prints without compromise.

Customers who are fanatical about the quality of their black & white prints will benefit by using Piezography MPS. The 3800 and 3880 printers offer 17″ wide media and can be used with economically priced inkjet papers or any of the more expensive fine art media from the major paper makers. Piezography inks are sold in refillable cartridges that permit customers to use these printers at a fraction of the cost of Epson ink while sparing the ecology the fate of one-time use carts. More than 450 million one time use carts are thrown into landfills each year in the USA alone. Piezography MPS is not only the highest standard quality product in the world, it is also an ecologically responsible product to use.

A customer replaces all of the Epson ink cartridges with the Piezography refillable ink carts – which are filled with Piezography inks from included funnels. The customer can refill the carts without removing then from the printer, and the level of ink remaining is easily seen through the translucent material. Additionally, the included resetting mechanism for the ink cart chips can be used to reset the maintenance tank. The customer simply removes the top plate from the maintenance tank, removes the material and replenishes the maintenance tank with absorbent material. There is now no longer a need to throw away the plastic maintenance tank which includes a semi-conductor chip.

Neil Selkirk, a photographer of national reputation who’s powerful and uncompromising portraiture has appeared in all the major US magazines, including the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, and Interview is a recent adopter of the Piezography MPS system. “I have never seen a D-max this dark before in digital or silver,” said Selkirk.

Currently, two MPS systems are sold and the customer chooses between Selenium MPS and Warm Neutral MPS. The difference is a pronounced selenium like toning effect in the former, and a slight bromide greenish warmth to the latter. We generalize these as an Ilford style and an Agfa style ink set. However, the inks are comprised of finely ground encapsulated pigment that will take on the cast of the paper white allowing a wide range of tone according to the paper chosen. Look at the examples below of the Selenium and the Warm Neutral ink systems. These are actual Soft Proofs which include ink color and paper color.

Piezography Selenium Glossy on Epson Exhibition Fiber

Piezography Selenium Glossy on JonCone Studio Type5

Piezography Warm Neutral Glossy on Epson Exhibition Fiber

Piezography Warm Neutral Glossy on JonCone Studio Type5

Piezography MPS is used in conjunction with the QuadTone RIP, a $50 shareware written by Roy Harrington. The software is a sophisticated print driver that allows the printer to be used with up to seven shades of monochromatic ink. Piezography has included a wide array of “profiles” for most of the popular Epson and 3rd party media companies, and these are free to the customer when they download the QuadTone RIP. Additional custom profiles are available directly from InkjetMall – though QuadTone RIP includes its own profile creation tools that are compatible with the X-Rite EyeOne device. The profiles provided by InkjetMall are made with the Piezography BW profiler. InkjetMall has been providing these proprietary media profiles for nearly a decade. Further reading on Piezography BW curves is provided here.

Piezography is the brainchild of Master Printer, Jon Cone. Cone established the World’s first digital printmaking studio in Port Chester, NY in 1984 and has been at the forefront of many of the most significant advancements in digital printmaking in a career that has spanned three decades. Most recently he produced the enormous monochromatic fine art prints for Gregory Colbert’s monumental Ashes and Snow exhibitions of the Nomadic Museum, which have now been seen by more than ten million people worldwide. This customized extension of Piezography was produced in 11 inks customized for the photographer and printed on enormous sheets of handmade kozo/cotton paper weighing as much as 5kgs per sheet.

“I suppose we are a little late out the gate for glossy black & white printing, ” said Jon Cone who has been providing matte Piezography systems since 2000. “On the other hand, I’ve been able to see the perfected systems from Epson, HP and Canon who now offer competitive systems to Piezography. I have now introduced a new system that significantly raises the bar again above the standards they’ve achieved.”

FineArtPix Lab, Aurau, Switzerland and the Piezography MPS System for Epson 3880

Piezography MPS is in use at many studios worldwide with early adopters such as Markus Zuber of FineArtPix Studio in Aarau, Switzerland. “We have tested the most relevant printing systems on the market by the big inkjet manufacturers,” said Markus Zuber, of FineArtPix, a professional print studio and lab in Aarau, Switzerland. “Neither the OEM software nor OEM inks have ever been able to entirely resolve issues like bronzing, metamerism or gloss differential.” “Using Piezography MPS we are getting what we have dreamt of for quite a long time”, said Zuber. “We finally have the perfect combination of finest details and tonal richness optimised for both matte and glossy papers, and we are convinced that this technique gives us the best longtime stability – which has been proven recently in studies by Aardenburg Imaging.”

The Piezography MPS system is also in use at studios which are specializing in making digital negatives and positives. Paul Taylor, Director of Renaissance Press, in Ashuelot, New Hampshire is widely considered one of the best gravure and platinum printers. Taylor has been using the Piezography MPS Selenium ink set for making film positives and negatives used in the production of its copper plate photogravures and platinum prints. “The Piezography MPS Selenium ink set has the greatest durability, longest tonal range, and finest dither pattern of any of the inks I’ve tested,” said Paul Taylor. “It is remarkably suited for creating both positive and negative transparencies on film for hand applied photographic processes.” Mr. Taylor is also an instructor in both Copper Plate Photogravure and Digital Hybrid, a course, which combines digital imaging with hand, coated emulsions at The Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. “The Piezography MPS Selenium ink set has met with great success among both students and faculty at RISD,” added Mr. Taylor.

Piezography MPS is used to make digital negatives and positives at Paul Taylor's Renaissance Press in Ashuelot, New Hampshire.

Technically, the MPS system is also available for any of the eight ink position printers, provided you do a black ink change procedure according to the Epson manual – which will allow switching between Piezography MPS Black (our photo black) and Piezography K7 black (our matte black). On all of the InkjetMall web pages for Piezography Selenium K7 and Warm Neutral K7 we now feature an optional matte black position cart and ink bottle to make this easy.

For those who love split-toning – please refer to this blog entry which explains how we use some of the Warm Neutral inks in combination with some of the Selenium inks to produce a beautiful split-tone glossy print.

Piezography MPS inks and refillable cartridge for Epson 3800/3880

Like all of the Piezography inks, Piezography MPS can be operated in an Epson printer at less than half the cost of using the OEM inks, while at the same time they are an eco-friendly alternative. All of our systems are sold in user refillable cartridge systems. The average cost of the OEM ink for the Epson 3880 printer is $1.00 per ml while Piezography ink is priced from only .10¢ to .35¢ per ml.

Direct links to purchase the Piezography Selenium MPS system for the following supported printer models: 2880, 3800, 3880, 4800, 4880, 7800/9800, 7880/9880

Direct links to purchase the Piezography Warm Neutral MPS system for the following supported printer models: 2880, 3800, 3880, 4800, 4880, 7800/9800, 7880/9880

MPS is not a brand new ink line – it is the use of two of the Piezography K7 ink sets (Selenium K7 or Warm Neutral K7) in combination with both the Piezography MPS Black (our photo black) and Piezography NK7 shade 1 (our matte black) and the Piezography Gloss Optimizer. We are now producing glossy Piezography curves for support in QuadTone RIP and we can provide instructions for the use in ErgoSoft’s StudioPrint RIP.

Mark is the Visual Arts Department Chair and teaches photography at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in Bronx, NY. I have always thought that Mark has an amazing photographer’s eye. I have been a fan of his work for some time. He has a tremendous amount of visual patience and can concentrate on one subject for a long period of time. I love his work.

Mark has his own studio which includes a Howtek drum scanner, large and small format Piezography printers. So his quality expectations are very high and his own printing experience is strong. He often shoots large format with Polaroid 4×5 direct negative film, a film which is now extinct. Mark says he still has a small stash of this film left. Mark is no stranger to digital. He uses a Canon 5D-MKII and often makes HDR exposures. Many of the prints we made were of B&W HDR images. It changed my mind about how I think about HDR. I’m not a fan of color HDR because it seems so unrealistic to me. But, the B&W version of this process can be very compelling. I plan on exploring it soon.

At one point, we were concentrating on one image of his that I wished I had shot. From time to time I see photos that make me wish I had shot them. Photo envy…I’m way too incidental sometimes in my own shooting. Mark had known this particular subject place for a long time, and very carefully chose the day and the hour of day when he knew the shadows would be right. In fact, Mark showed me a photo that he took that had only a few hours opportunity on one particular day of the year when the sun is at the right angle to make it between buildings and do its thing. I wish I had Mark’s photographic patience. I admire it. It’s something else for me to aspire to now.

So, this photograph of the Regent Control building that we were concentrating on has that perfect combination of contrasts. We were printing it in both Piezography Warm Neutral Glossy and Piezography Selenium Glossy on both JonCone Studio Type 5 paper (which is unlike anything else in this country right now), and Epson Exhibition Fiber paper. Type 5 is a non-OBA baryta paper which is now regarded as the best baryta paper being sold.

Incidentally, when I heard that Epson was discontinuing Exhibition Fiber, I literally bought a ton of it. I like it very much. I used to sell a particularly similar sheet to it. But, the same manufacturer of it could not offer me the same premium quality as they did Epson. My Type 4 paper was made by the same mill in both surface and coating. Anyway, I bought a ton of paper in 24 x 30 and 13 x 19, and now I hear it’s not discontinued. So I have a ton occupying a large space in the studio. On the other hand, I paid 1/3 of what it now costs…

So we printed this image in these two inks on these two papers. You can click them for a larger gallery of images is you wish.

Piezography Selenium Glossy on Epson Exhibition Fiber

Piezography Selenium on JonCone Studio Type 5

Piezography Warm Neutral on Epson Exhibition Fiber

Piezography Warm Neutral on JonCone Studio Type 5

Mark was favoring Selenium on the colder paper, but wishing for the warmer shadows of the Warm Neutral inks . So we decided that the perfect combination might be somewhere in between, and I made my first split toned glossy prints with Mark.

I asked Dana Ceccarelli to make a 50%-50% mixture of Selenium shade 4 and Warm Neutral shade 4, and then make up a set of inks with shades 2 and 3 of Warm Neutral and shades 5, 6, and 7 of Selenium. The black shade is always common between our ink sets. In this case making glossy prints, we used Piezography MPS Black which is our version of a photo black. She filled up a set of Epson 2880 refillable carts and made a Piezography curve for me on both the Exhibition Fiber and the JonCone Studio Type 5 papers. While we were printing large format downstairs, Dana printed the same image for us on 13×19 papers on the Epson 2880 printer in our R&D lab.

Piezography SplitTone Glossy on Exhibition Fiber

Piezography SplitTone Glossy on JonCone Studio Type 5

The two papers treated the split tone differently. Probably the most satisfying for Mark was on Epson Exhibition Fiber. This had the most gelatine glow I have ever seen from my inks. This perfect combination of ink and paper – produced a light reflection that was so deep. I thought we were looking at darkroom paper to be sure. But, on the JonCone Studio Type 5, the split produced a beautiful contrast in the the 1/4 tones. The building’s concrete facade was filled with a local contrast unlike anything I have seen to date. It was so amazing. I favor warmer papers these days – not just because of a recent OBA failure that shocked me – but because when it’s all said and done and there are no side-by-side comparisons with brighter papers – the non-OBA papers really do stand on their own.

I learned a lot from Mark. He came up to learn from me…but his patience in photography convinced me to order a 85mm Canon prime to replace a zoom I had on loan from Tamaron. I already own the Zeiss Distagon 21mm for my Canon 5D-MKII. I am actually tempted to give up on zooms altogether and go back to moving my body back and forth again. This way I get to shoot through superior glass and get more exercise! My new Canon prime arrives today. One-on-one workshops are sometimes very beneficial to me.

If you’re wondering if Mark got what he needed. I think so. First of all, he needed to come up with a way to produce neutral black & whites in his Blurb books and I believe I came up with something that should work to counteract the Blurb ICC. He plans to test it on an eight page book. There were a number of other important questions I answered. Then it simply turned into a pleasurable print-fest. Mark may have come up with a split tone glossy Piezography system that he will install. But, like many, his studio is small and another printing system will take planning. I believe he is choosing between a 3880 which can print matte and glossy Piezography without switching inks, or a 7880 which he could install a matte and glossy Piezography system and use a spare 7000 to apply the Gloss Optimizer. That’s what we do in our studio. We keep the 7880s for matte and photo black options and use a 7600 dedicated to seven channels of Gloss Optimizer which allows us to quickly overcoat our glossy prints. Otherwise, one needs the nine channels of the Epson 3880 or 3800 system to do both matte and glossy printing without switching the blacks.

If you would like to see SoftProof ICCs of the ink combinations discussed here, you can download them by clicking here. Install them where you normally install printer ICC profiles and then simply use the Soft Proof function in Photoshop as illustrated below. Note that when I Soft Proof, I draw a larger white canvas around the image so I can also see the paper color produced by the SoftProof ICC. If you still do not understand what Soft Proofing is. It is the ability to preview on a calibrated display how an image will print on a particular ink/paper combination. The higher quality the display and calibration, the more accurate the Soft Proof. I use Eizo displays which are hardware calibrated!

How to Soft Proof in Photoshop

So what about Sepia inks from Piezography?

A few facts worth noting is that it is our least popular ink, yet one of the most beautiful inks for those who like their photos warm. Piezography Sepia K7 and K6 is the same pigment as found in PiezoTone CarbonSepia. This is the only unmodified carbon pigment in the Piezography line of inks. Piezography Sepia and PiezoTone CarbonSepia are the most “colorful” of the Piezography inks. Theirs is the color and the warmth of pure un-modified carbon. Of course, we grind and shape carbon pigment in a unique process, encapsulate it in a micro-layer of acrylic co-polymer, then filter it five times by osmosis process to a very narrow band distribution of particle size before formulating into seven separate shades from lightest to darkest. We drop the seventh shade in the K6 formulation. Actually, we formulated K6 first and added a seventh later. K6 was conceived for the Epson 1280 but released for the Epson 2200 as a seven shaded ink set. The PiezoTone CarbonSepia is available in three shades that have no comparable K7 shade. We offer light, medium and dark PiezoTone shades which are used with the Piezography Museum Black to form a “quad tone” set of ink. Incidentally, Piezography Shade 1 black is an encapsulated version of Museum Black and is interchangeable with it.

Even though I do not necessarily stress about longevity nor make a big deal in advertising it much, I decided to spend 5 days in my studio in a non-stop Piezography Sepia printfest to see what this ink is all about. I normally print Selenium and Warm Neutral for my own photography. In fact, I haven’t really printed much of my work in Sepia. When I did, I was not necessarily drawn to it. I supposed I just missed the Agfa Portriga days when I studied photography at Ohio University. We were using Ilford papers and making selenium toning baths. Perhaps the 1970s was more about the cold of selenium than the warmth associated with the preceding era. But, many of the “old school” photographers that I chat with lament the loss of Agfa Portriga and Agfa Brovira. I never knew them really. And yet the last great Piezography product is a recreation of it. Piezography Warm Neutral Glossy on JonCone Studio Type 5 paper is a dead ringer for a smooth version of Agfa Portriga…but that’s another blog entry.

Sepia is definitely worth a second look to Piezography fans of the Neutral, Selenium, Warm Neutral and Special Edition ink sets. And for those who have used my PiezoTone CarbonSepia quad inks – Sepia K7 is a seven shaded encapsulated version of the same pigment that would allow a user to upgrade from a six or seven ink printer to an eight ink printer such as the 3880, 4880, 7880 or 9880.

Initially, I thought that Sepia might be overpowering. I supposed that the “warmth” would become dominant. So, I decided to rid my studio of all prints I made with the other ink tones and to give Sepia a real chance. I concentrated solely on Sepia printing. At first, I concentrated as I usually do in printing a group of photographs to do some visual “editing” after the first proofing. Fighting the warmth, I began printing on papers that would not add to the warmth, and might actually subtract from it. I tried the Premier Alise paper and the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Bright. But, these papers are not necessarily dMax champions and the “life” of the ink was not showing through. These papers were sepia antidotes. All they permitted was getting me through the first “cut” of a 30 print portfolio; reducing it to 12 favorites.

Over the next few days I began to experiment with papers. I knew that I had to really embrace the warmth of carbon. This time I tried the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag which is my “development” standard white on which I define the color specifications of my inks, and create the initial ink curves architecture. Sepia was warm and beautiful on this sheet and the black was deep. It was the first time that I actually began to get drawn in to the warmth. I felt I could begin to warm up to the use of the inks now. I shifted to Canson Rag Photographique which slightly colded the Sepia into a browner tone. It didn’t nullify it, and I think it may be worth returning to one day. But, I wanted real warmth.  I produce my own paper that is OBA-free and has a “natural” white appearance called JonCone Studio Type 2 paper. On the fourth day when I began to really develop out each image – I began printing on my Type 2 paper. For the first time probably, I really saw what Piezography Sepia inks can do.

In fact, allowing the warmth of the inks permitted me to backtrack in my edited versions. I actually reverted back to original files to see what the ink brought out in them.

What I mean is that the prints had finally acquired a “life” on their own. The qualities of the ink were really self-evident when I warmed the paper base. Printing warm inks on colder papers is not the way to go (for me) because it creates a conflict in the perception of long tone. But when allowed to be warm from highlight to shadow, the tonal range suddenly expanded. It expanded in ways I have never seen before in Piezography.

Type 2 while similar in white tone to Photo Rag, has a coating that is just slightly superior, and really compliments the Sepia inks. Type 2 paper could actually support the inks, compliment the inks, rather than contrast to the inks. It made me edit differently. It’s difficult to say how exactly other than that I began to see things in the work I did not prior to switching to the warmer sheet. I found I had less work to do in order to get the full tone out of the print. I spent less time trying to work the shadows. And when I did work the shadows, the dMax had a better meaning. I found however, that I could let the tone curve drop where it did even if it did not necessarily include pure black pixels. Now, I am overly proud to say that the most beautiful results and best dMax are coming from my JonCone Studio Type 2 paper (which also just happens to be an OBA free paper).

So, Piezography Sepia actually turns out to be drop-dead-beautiful-to-die-for, etc…if printed on the right paper. And to know that any photo I print with it on non-OBA papers has the chance to far outlive any other process made today (or at any time in the history of photography) is very, very cool. I don’t know if I will ever make a photograph that someone would want to preserve until the end of time, but I do know that many of my ink customers are capable of doing that. I design Piezography systems for its superior quality over the OEM, or really as a system of its own standards…but longevity this good might be something to consider for those who have not taken a real look at Sepia inks.

I produced two portfolios with Sepia inks that I am incredibly happy about. The warmth of the ink and the depth of the black fully supports my intent. I’ve gone from being a photographer with Selenium tendencies to one with a Sepia prejudice. And weirdly, the longevity thing seems to matter all of a sudden to me. Worse, it makes me think that I need to really be definite about what I print now. I almost feel that I must produce prints which are worthy of standing such a long test of time. I can’t say that Piezography Sepia will make you a better photographer, but it will serve and preserve your photographs in ways that the other Piezography inks can not. Certainly, it deserves a spot in the Piezography arsenal. If you’re a desktop printer you can easily adapt an extra set of refillable carts with Sepia to compliment your other choice in Piezography ink. Large format printers can’t easily swap cartridge sets without incurring ink waste (but it’s doable).

We can suppose that we should not expect less from pure, unmodified carbon pigment when comparing it to the OEM’s black & white ink jet systems that use color pigments in combination with black pigments. Epson invests millions of dollars annually in ink research and technology. Piezography Sepia inks were developed by a small Vermont based boutique-ink company that specializes in environmentally safe ink jet practices. It’s an amazing accomplishment really. While we can not yet build better color ink systems than Epson, Canon and HP’s huge R&D departments, we can quietly build a significantly better black & white system. Actually, I’ve been doing this since 2002 when I first introduced the PiezoTone Carbon Sepia pigments.

In 2005, we began to encapsulate the carbon pigment particle to completely eliminate head clogging due to agglomeration. And when Epson released three blacks, we divide carbon black into six shades to increase the image fidelity to a much further standard than did Epson. A year later we added a seventh shade because we found that we could raise the bar to a level that would remain unchallenged for years to come. Still, Piezography Sepia is not our best selling ink. The trend perhaps is not necessarily to warm inks.

I am very proud of the results being achieved by one of my concoctions. Piezography Sepia inks are scoring a nearly perfect result with a deltaE change less than a third of that of the Epson ABW comparison. Using the latest i*metric light stability testing technology developed by Mark McCormick-Goodhart of Aardenburg Archives & Imaging the results between these two inks are beginning to contrast sharply. Epson ABW is now in a predictable downward spiral while Piezography Sepia remains quite stable.

All things being the same (similar paper, similar amount of illumination, similar color tone in the starting ink sample), this direct comparison between Piezography Sepia and Epson K3 ABW (sepia toned) shows how a small third-party ink company from Vermont can produce both a superior quality ink and an imaging idea that exceeds the capabilities of the original equipment manufacturer (otherwise known as the OEM).

In brief, Piezography Sepia inks in 70 megalux of exposure have scored 99.9% (near perfect!) in color retention and 97.5% in density retention while Epson ABW sepia tone have scored 96.6% and 96.4% respectively. An “average scores above 90% generally indicates excellent retention of original quality, 80% good, 70% fair, etc”. But, the Epson ABW inks have been dropping nearly a full point with every 10 megalux of exposure. While the test is ongoing until a useful endpoint is reached, the Aardenburg methodology takes measurements and publishes results the equivalent of every 10 megalux of exposure.

Piezography Sepia K6 and K7 inks are pure 100% carbon. Unlike Epson ABW which mixes color and black ink, Piezography Sepia uses six or seven shades of 100% pure carbon and produces a very stable photographic print. For those who use the StudioPrint RIP, we still make a four shade version of the ink called PiezoTone CarbonSepia. Both versions of this ink appear to be bullet proof at Aardenburg, even considering how light the dilutions are in the set with more shades.

You can actually download the reports yourself and gain a tremendous amount of knowledge yourself by becoming a subscribing member of the Aardenburg Imaging and Archives. it is only $25.00 for an annual subscription and countless tests of inks and media are in progress already.

The reports include “I* metric scores that compare the color and tonal relationships of the light exposed samples to the color and tonal relationships existing in the original print prior to light exposure.

But first, before we get on to the exciting stuff (Light stability testing) a little read about Piezography Sepia inks is here…

Piezography® versions of Agfa Brovira and Portriga!

Absolutely yes.

Many of our customers have been lamenting the loss of Agfa Portriga and Brovira paper and chemistry. They were extremely popular fine black and white darkroom papers that had a unique warmth. I tend to think of Portriga (and even some versions of Brovira) as having an “azo greenish” warmth. But, Agfa Brovira was often selenium bathed to bring out a purply gray tone. I am offering my own paper in combination with two different Piezography Glossy ink systems that produce either the warmth or the coldness of these two extremes.

Piezography Warm Neutral Glossy on JonCone Studio Type 5 paper produces that warm Agfa Portriga look with a perfect air-dried glossy quality. This paper has a very smooth even gelatin appearance. While I do not offer contrast grades of the paper, you can control contrast to your liking in Photoshop. You’ll think you’re back in the darkroom.

Piezography Selenium Glossy on JonCone Studio Type 5 paper produces that neutrally cold version on the warm tone Brovira paper that many Agfa printers miss.

Each of these kits work with QuadTone RIP. For the glossy options we are offering free K7 custom curves for your choice of paper. But even though JonCone Studio Type 5 paper works great with Epson and HP and even Canon inks – it was designed to compliment these two glossy compatible Piezography ink sets. It brings out the best in the system. It’s the same paper I have been using in my own studio.

Piezography Glossy is simply a perfect replication of darkroom air-dried glossy printing. If you’ve been making Epson ABW prints, you may have noticed that ABW paper and ink gloss is not equalized and there is a great deal of bronzing and metamerism evident. Piezography Glossy eliminates all that – plus it produces higher resolution, better shadow and highlight detail, smoother tonal transitions, and much greater depth to the actual ink surface. We offer 4 additional shades of ink than does Epson ABW and print significantly more ink from the midtones to the highlights, and from the midtones to dMax. Piezography Glossy is the higher standard.

We’re driving down the cost of ownership and increasing the ecological responsibilities of our customers.

Please email me directly with questions and comments.

Thanks and best regards,

Jon Cone

President

InkjetMall ]]> http://www.piezography.com/PiezoPress/blog/piezography-agfa-brovira-and-portriga/feed/ 0 http://www.piezography.com/PiezoPress/blog/chris-calohans-bay-high-school-bw-photo-class/ http://www.piezography.com/PiezoPress/blog/chris-calohans-bay-high-school-bw-photo-class/#comments Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:54:48 +0000 Jon Cone http://www.piezography.com/PiezoPress/?p=1163 Bay High school is located in Panama City, FL…most people know of us as the Spring Break capital of the world, which while it is true, hardly indemnifies us. It is a burden we carry for a few months each spring and shed as quickly as possible.

My name is Chris Calohan and I teach the soon to become ancient art of black and white photography. My students shoot pinhole, Holgas, 35mm, 4X5, 2 ¼, and digital (mostly, Nikon D40’s). They process all their own film and print in a traditional darkroom environment. The darkroom is nicely equipped with a variety of enlargers, 22 in all. Most of my students are a part of an advanced academic program called, “A.I.C.E.” which is the acronym for Advanced International Certificate of Education, and is a Cambridge based international educational centre. While grades certainly are an important part of these student’s lives, what really makes them stand apart from their peers is their intense desire to learn. This desire certainly makes my day pleasurable.

Several years ago, I became entranced with some of the lost photographic arts, now affectionately called, “alternative” and introduced many of these techniques to my students, starting with cyanotype and working my way from salt to albumen. Last summer, I was fortunate enough to attend Christopher James Alternative Processes workshop in Santa Fe and came home with additional skills to teach my students (or, as they would say, more knowledge to punish them with), and as the readers can see, they took to these processes like ducks to water…and yes, they still squirmed their fair share. The two most popular processes were salt and albumen, though palladium and gum were close seconds. We still do a goodly bit of cyanotype and recently have begun a dip into Tim Rudman’s world of Lith Printing.

This summer I am returning to Santa Fe and will get some instruction in wet plate collodion and carbon printing. With all the tools available, and the products being put out by my students, it is still a struggle to convince the powers to be, that the costs outweigh the end results. Each year now for the last ten, I’ve managed to make a strong argument, even in this failing economy. While I was at the Santa Fe workshop, I was fortunate enough to have Christopher James share his Piezography prints with the class and I knew then, this was another great alternative process, though admittedly at the time, I didn’t have clue one as to the power of this kind of printing.

As an educator, especially one in an art field that is losing hard ground every year, having the alternative processes available and having the expertise of Christopher James readily available, the chemistry from Bostick-Sullivan and the Photo Formulary, has dramatically changed how I am able to present the photographic arts to my students in addition to the more traditional darkroom methodologies. Four years ago, I added the digital dimension as another method of teaching the photographic arts, though will tell everyone, I did it kicking and screaming all the way. Most of my reluctance came because short of some very expensive printers/inks, showing my student’s work with the same clarity as came from the darkroom simply wasn’t there. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t a fine art print, shot zone, and printed on a nice Ilford paper. It was but a mere imitation.

When I returned from the workshop, I used some of my program money to purchase an Epson 1400 and Jon Cone’s Piezography Special Edition ink set but didn’t put it into place until about midway through the first term. I was still being the consummate darkroom guy and my digital class didn’t start until mid-October, and…well, I liked James’ stuff, but still wasn’t totally convinced.

That has all changed now. Though having a somewhat shaky start with a balking printer which just didn’t want to cooperate, with a new printer in place, Piezography printing has changed my entire outlook on digital photography and digital output. Through this remarkable technology, my students are now able to really show the scope of their work in the black and white photographic arts. All the works shown are from students who first put a film camera in their hands either in August of 2009 or January of 2010.

I have attached some of my students’ works in hopes your readers can see what a remarkable difference Piezography printing makes in their presentation output. Because I am working with high school students and on a fairly tight budget, I use a variety of papers ranging from the JonCone Studio Type 2 paper to InkPress papers, both cold and warm tone. For special presentations, I allow my students to print on the 188 Hahnemuhle Photo Rag or the Jon Cone 310 though it is a major operation getting heavy paper through the print gate of an Epson 1400. Next year, I plan on a better Epson printer. I will date myself, but have to tell everyone, “I’m stoked!”

Chris Calohan
Bay High School
1200 Harrison Ave
Panama City, FL 32401

Photo One/Two by Jennifer Grubbs (senior, first term student) is from her AICE exam study prompt called, “Bodyworks.” 12-shot series, her interpretation.

Photo Three/Four by Candace Smith, (junior, second term) is from the AICE exam prompt exerpt – “A coat hangs on the back of a chair, an umbrella leans against the chair in which a hat sits in the seat and a pair of shoes sits beneath the chair.” All three components had to be in every shot – 12 in all, 4 digital and 8 film.

Photo Five by Jase Ledman, (junior, second term) is from the AICE exam prompt, “Relaxation.” What makes this shot exceptional is the boy is sitting on sand that is as white as a new snowfall. Jase used good reflective fill lighting and compensated nicely for the reflective qualities of the sun.

Photos Six by Steven Swartz (junior, second term) “Relaxation” prompt.

Photo Seven by Hamzeh Alsalhi, (junior, first term),” Relaxation” prompt.

Photo Eight/Nine by Muriah Kirkland, (advanced student) is from a series entitled the Body and all done using alternative processes. The first is a palladium print and the second salt.

And actually this is how most inkjet printing is done. Dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black are printed adjacent to each other and the eye mixes them together to reproduce many different hues. Now, much of black and white printing is created with dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots of inks such as found with Epson’s ABW. Recently, I have come to learn that many photographers are now using black ink only in QTR software colored to their preferred tone with dots of cyan, magenta and yellow in order to assimilate tone. I’ve never found printing primary colors in order to tone black ink very satisfying.

George Seurat, The Seine and la Grande Jatte - Springtime, 1888.

But then there is the theory of the economy of color and I think of the great American painter George Inness, who at the end of the 19th century, influenced by the mysticism of Emanuel Swedberg, painted the atmosphere of the Hudson River Valley. With a “soup” of color restricted to that which he was seeing, he was able to capture its murky light. Instead of reds, and blues and greens, he made neutrals and browns and warm and cool glazes of transparency in a style which became known as Tonalism. Though Inness handled paint like an abstract expressionist, it was the quality of the light that he painted that allowed the brain of the viewer to sense a deeper mysticism and mood within his painting. And this is how Piezography ink works, by restricting the pigment to a single pigment such as the warmth of carbon, or several closely related pigments mixed with carbon.

George Inness, Sunset on the Passaic, 1891.

A lot of well meaning, but mis-informed inkjet “experts” have opined that Piezography ink is simply a blend of cyan, magenta yellow, and black inks and therefore no different than Epson ABW. But, these “experts” opine about things which they simply do not know, or perhaps they attempt to group Piezography inks with low-tech and lesser quality third-party inks which these experts are more familiar with. Yes, some of the Piezography inks are blended, but not with magenta, cyan and yellow. To the contrary, the pigments that are available to Piezography are modified carbons – some warmer and other cooler, but related to the tone which the ink intends to produce. An economy of color in which the resultant light of a Piezography print has depth and mood that cannot be realized by blending magenta, cyan and yellow with carbon. And can’t be reproduced by printing dots of cyan, magenta and yellow ink adjacent to carbon.

Two different theories of capturing light with pigment. Two different effects.Two different Georges.

For background to this, a long time Piezography printmaker whom I believe to be one of its absolute best practitioners, Tyler Boley, had been measuring the paper white point and the dMax and 50% gray of PiezoTone ink patches when printed on a variety of new papers.  He posted his measurements and observations on the Digital BW, The Print users list. I believe his observations concerning the papers were revealing of the source of some of these new sheets, because Piezography ink leaves a sort of investigative fingerprint in how uniquely it reacts to a particular coating on paper (coating/paper). Specifically, Piezography ink prints with a different color tone when a particular paper is used.

The long time Piezographer had sleuthed that Epson had obviously re-badged some new grades of papers! The discussion however, dissolved into a befuddled mystery of why a monochromatic ink system would change color from substrate to substrate. It was for me a duh! moment, and I wanted to reply that it was not a mystery at all and the answer had to do with light (the very substance of photography). But, clearly this users list was not a monochromatic ink crowd any longer. They were not going to get “it”, because they are not using monochromatic ink systems that interact with papers in the same way that Piezography inks do.

The Digital BW, The Print is now mostly comprised of users of color ink sets that have two or three shades of black. These ink sets are either in the form of a warm/cool color scheme (like the system illustrated below made by MIS) or have cyan, magenta, yellow inks (made by Epson, HP, Canon). These users actually produce black & white prints that are comprised of colorizing agents. In other words, they can make one ink set appear warmer or cooler by adjusting the color component inks when they are printed through software. While the printer may contain an ink set of up to seven and eight ink positions, they are using only two black shades (usually) or three (occasionally) for actual grayscale tonal division, while the other inks are color and employed to create the final tone (color) of the print.

MIS UltraTone color inks for black & white printing.

Piezography K7 was purposely designed to act in the opposite way. It derives its color from the paper rather than color ink. When Epson developed a printer with more than six inkjet heads (2200, 4000, 7600, 9600) the suppliers of monochromatic ink systems that had four gradations of black ink, split in two opposite directions. The only company that took advantage of dividing a grayscale into more shades of ink was Piezography – namely because Piezography always strives for the highest possible image fidelity. The other ink companies at the time, and there were many (Lyson, MediaStreet, MIS, Sundance), developed ink sets that were similar to Epson’s multi-toning ABW inks. They reduced the amount of black shades of ink and added color positions. Epson initially offered two black shades, but eventually offered three black shades in combination with two cyans, two magentas, and a yellow ink.

The new 3rd party multi-toning inks (just like Epson ABW) gave the convenience or flexibility of making any color of gray, but did so (and still do so) at the expense of image fidelity in comparison to four or more shades of black ink. Where it might be argued that the new fine droplet print heads permit a quality from three shades of black that is as good as the old four shades of black, seven shades is substantially better today than three. Five shades is better. Six becomes sublime. Seven is perfection!

In effect, all of these new systems that use two or three shades of black ink are sophisticated color printing systems used to make black & white prints, rather than true monochromatic ink systems. And, these systems are only able to divide a grayscale image into two or three partitions rather than seven like Piezography. While they are easy to profile, they lack the ability to render high resolution, smoothness of tone, and highlight and shadow detail in the way that the Piezography ink set can. It only takes a simple math equation to match the ability of a dot matrix dither to 256 gray levels. Three shades of black is not enough, and the color inks only give the illusion of smoothness by filling in the space between dots.

However, I’m not making judgement on the use of color toners to produce black & white prints. I actually developed a complex 11 ink system that comprised several color inks in order to produce the Ashes and Snow prints for photographer Gregory Colbert. I consider these prints to be some of the best work that I have ever produced. There were three color agents and eight shades of black in the final ink set which I named “tokyo”. There was actually a 12th ink that was a duplicate black used in conjunction with the first, by heating the paper to 50c. The “tokyo” ink set combined an unprecedented tonal fidelity with the flexibility of controlling three split tones. The mathematics and software involved in designing the 12 ink curves was as mind-boggling as it was challenging. But, rather than use color inks to produce black & white prints, I believe I used black & white inks to produce color prints. Colbert had been making color transfer prints before I was contracted to produce his last three exhibitions. For my part, I actually started with drum scans of 35mm b&w negatives and ended up with richly colored “monochromatic” styled images.

I am mostly opining about the art of using paper to influence the monochromatic print. It is a dying darkroom art from yesteryear, that is still common to Piezographers, but lost now on those using color inks to make black & white prints. Perhaps, I should digress a little and quantify the difference between a seven ink multi-toning ink system like MIS UT7 (one of the most current) and the seven shaded Piezography K7 monochromatic ink system on an identical printer – the Epson 2200. It’s easy to understand by looking at the amount of inks used to divide a grayscale image. The same difference will occur on the ink sets when used in the latest generation of printers.

In the following illustration is the MIS UT7 curve for producing a sepia black & white image on Premier Fine Art paper using the MIS UT7 inks with the QuadTone RIP software. Notice that only the yellow and black ink positions are used. The black ink only must carry the entire range of grayscale while a warm colorant is used for color tone.

MIS UT-7 ink curve for Sepia on Premiere Rag.

In the following QuadTone RIP Piezography curve which is used with Piezography Sepia K7 inks for Hahnemuhle Photo Rag , seven separate shades of black ink are used in all of the printer’s ink positions to divide the grayscale image.

Piezography K7 curve for Sepia K7 inks on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag.

…too be continued, when I get to the point of what I was trying to explain about inks and paper observations in part two.

Anyways, on the Digital BW, The Print two hypothesis were made in an attempt to explain the phenomena of how a particular new coating can change an ink from one tone to another – and that is what left me scratching my head in disbelief. The hypothesis were complex and rich and interesting, but way off the mark. One was that it is the amount of bleed in the paper that allows one of the pigments of a monochrome ink to dominate the others and was supported by a theory related to dropping ink on a paper towel which will cause different pigments to absorb at different rates. The other was an invisible new chemical reaction from pigment bonding to coating must be occuring which produces a new color.

The very fact that these two hypothesis even existed made me realize that there really are two camps to black & white printmaking. One is made up of monochromatic printmakers who use monochromatic inks, and the other is made up of color printmakers who use color inks. Put in another way, one is made up of Piezography users, and the other is now made up of all the rest. It strengthened my idea for the need of a Piezography Archive. If my process is meant to preserve photographic values in a world gone digital, then it itself is not the beginning of the new age of color photography that now encompasses black & white prints. Piezography perhaps, is the final evolution of traditional black & white photography

So why do monochromatic inks change colors from one coating/paper to another?

It is easy to explain by describing how Piezography inks have been designed purposely to take advantage of coating/paper. When Neutral K7 was first introduced in 2005, it was marketed as an ink that could reproduce from cool neutral to sepia depending upon which paper stock was used. Many of the papers of that time are no longer manufactured. But some of the more recent offerings are creating tone possibilities we never imagined. The phenomena that perplexes the color ink user is simply an interaction between the light reflection/absorption qualities of both the monochromatic pigment and the coating/paper, and how humans observe color from light.

Piezography pigments are now ground so small and coated with a clear polyester treatment, that they can no longer be considered “opaque”. While they are not transparent, they are small enough and with unusual properties that light is absorbed both by the ink and by the coating/paper and reflected back through the ink to the eyes of the observer. The observer sees a different color depending upon the absorption and reflection of the coating/paper via the ink.

In developing Neutral K7 as an achromatic ink (having neither more red, nor blue, nor green), I had to decide on one paper stock on which to produce this phenomena of neutral. I chose Hahnemuhle Photo Rag because at the time it was the most widely sold paper to my ink users base. It was smooth and had a slightly warm white cast. When Neutral K7 was released, the product would print perfectly neutral on this paper when viewed by a standard observer under 5000k illumination. Certainly those with some amount of color blindness, or those comparing it under differing white lights might see another tone of gray.

It is no secret that paper manufacturers must add some amount of OBA (optical brightener agents) and pigment to their paper slurry in order to realize a specific “white” and sell a consistent product even as their raw materials of cotton and sulfites varies from month to month and season to season. On top of these final sheets is an inkjet receptor coating that permits an inkjet printer to be used. The coating is the most critical part, in that it must control ink spread, promote ink absorption, and produces a delicate balance of sharpness, durability and smoothness. The final color tone of the sheet is made by the coating which also employs OBAs or/and pigments in order to meet the white spec of the paper manufacturer. The coating/paper itself therefore is one of the most vital components of an ink system that depends upon a paper for its final tone.

Piezography Neutral K7 increased the fidelity of a grayscale image by dividing it into seven partitions. We went from four shades of carbon based black ink to seven shades. We were able to realize more fidelity in the print than even a specialty Eizo monitor can display. We have higher fidelity than silver or palladium. And we can far exceed the vision of the manufacturer of the printers we take over with our inks and profiling system. But in order to do this with aplomb, a new pigment treatment was emphasized to be sensitive to coating/paper when we made the new generation of ink, so that it also had the flexibility of color change without sacrificing fidelity. Although in its sixth year of production, Piezography K7 remains one of the most sophisticated inks ever developed for inkjet printing:

• K7 pigment is sourced from the highest quality producers of pigment in Switzerland and Germany.
• It is remanufactured using a nano-technology that was originally developed for producing the coatings used in JPL’s Hubble telescope. Attention is placed not only on reducing particle size, but also on both the shape and facet reflection of the particle so that the quality of light that is absorbed and reflected by the pigment is carefully controlled.
• The pigment is filtered to a very narrow band of particle size distribution to minimize any possibility of metamerism and to increase the perception of depth in the final ink layer.
• Each pigment particle is physically surrounded in a polyester encapsulation to eliminate static charges to prevent clogging, and to absorb UV light.
• Finally, each of the seven shades is individually formulated in order to restrict the *a*b to a very narrow range so that the final product does not modulate in color from light to dark and becomes extremely sensitive to the underlying coating/paper tone.

We found that we could imitate all of the PiezoTone ink sets with the new Neutral K7 ink by carefully selecting the paper stock. It was a nifty system to be sure at the time. Probably, like PiezographyBW ICC it was simply too far ahead of its time to be fully understood by a wide audience. I released another K7 ink set that was equally sensitive to paper stock, but offered a further range to warmth that was missing from the Neutral K7 possibilities. In order to shift Neutral K7 to Sepia (which was very popular), a very, very warm sheet of paper had to be selected, and our customers said they preferred to print Sepia onto much cooler paper. Sepia K7 was introduced. Eventually, I would release additional K7 ink sets (Selenium, Special Edition, Warm Neutral); each sensitive to final color tone when printed on varying sheets of paper.

One more part should get my point out. I want to talk about polyester encapsulation as a key component of the observation of Piezography ink color change on different coating/paper. …to be continued in part 3.

Anyways, the phenomena has nothing to do with the chemical bonding or ink spread that the color ink users were hypothesizing. Encapsulation actually prevents the pigment molecules from interacting with the coating molecules. Also, we’ve been observing the effects of ink bleed on a series of non-standardized batches of Hahnemuhle Photo Rag since 2007. There have been dozens and dozens of coating issues on HPR that have caused our K7 inks to bleed slightly or heavily. In fact, HPR is so notorious for batch to batch QC that we introduced custom K7 profiling in order to eliminate the bleed on sub-standard batches and facilitate its die-hard users who refused to find an alternative paper. We have been able to measure the *a*b of these test targets and fully appreciate that ink spread does not impact final color tone to any significant degree. While ink spreading on an absorbent paper towel will reveal individual pigment components as described on the users list, it does not stand as a reasonable conjecture as to why light being absorbed and reflected back through pigment to the observer changes from coating/paper to coating/paper.

If the users of color toning ink systems were to go back to the traditional methods of quad black printing (oh boy…here it comes…) – they would unlock the myriad potential for subtleties that paper choice gives to Piezography K7 users. The argument today is that Epson ABW is good enough. But, the reality is that even as far back as 2000 a black ink only print was argued as “good enough” until it was placed side-by-side with a PiezographyBW print. Many of the Digital BW, The Print users are often printing with black ink only and a color toner – and thinking it’s “good enough”. They have no comparison to K7 to realize that its totally not “good enough” unless their standards are not as high as traditional photography has been.

Electron Microscope image of a tick.

For the last two days at Cone Editions Press, we have been printing with a scientist who images with an electron-microscope and who had been using Epson ABW to make prints. We were printing an exhibition of prints that have been made in collaboration with a photographer. The electron-microscope images 256 indexed values of gray. It differentiates between 256 levels of gray, but they can not see this on their displays, nor have they been able to reveal these gray separations using Epson ABW (which is arguably more sensitive than MIS UT-7 systems). Piezography K7 is revealing to the scientist information which she has been able to measure and quantify, knows that it exists theoretically, but has not been able to visualize it. This is the sensitivity in K7 that is permitted by dividing a grayscale image into seven shades of linearized black ink.

The prints we are producing for her, are some of the most beautiful and subtle gray transitions I have ever witnessed. They are akin to the 30,000 pixel wide rendering we reproduced for JPL’s Hubble experimental ultra wide-field panoramic capture of 2007 (a whole story in itself). We chose an ink set and paper combination in order to realize the electron-microscope project in a beautiful aesthetic. We are printing with Piezography Warm Neutral K7 inks on Premier Alise Bright White paper. The final tone produced by this combination is reminiscent of the “bromide” greenish cast of traditional darkroom paper of the 60s. I chose this combination because I imagine the electron-microscope as a remnant of science-fiction lore and I wanted a final tone that had a historical context. The dMax of this paper is 1.63 (like Hahnemuhle Photo Rag) which is very dark by matte paper standards. The white is very similar to HPR, but the graytone produced is more pleasing and the detail is crisper while still remaining smooth. (By the way, this particular electron-microscope is only three years old and hardly the lore of science fiction.)

Could I have made this same tone using Epson ABW? I could have found a tone that was near matching, but not exact. Could I have made this same tone with MIS UT-7? That would have been considerably more challenging to accomplish because of the software system it requires, but some tone near would be probable. However, there would have been two elements missing in the final prints if I had used either of those ink systems. First of all, neither MIS nor EPSON can realize the separation of detail and smoothness of grayscale the Piezography K7 can accomplish with seven shades of ink. Second, and aesthetically important, is that these color ink systems simply do not reflect back light with the same depth and quality as Piezography ink does. The actual color tone would not have been the same visually – by human perception. Perhaps in Lab values, but not in how we perceive a black & white photograph.

Would anyone notice that? Well, that question begs another; whether anyone can still notice an original Ansel Adams or Edward Weston silver or palladium print for its subjective beauty as a medium as well as its subject matter? That may always become an increasingly narrower distribution of the population – perhaps as narrow as the distribution band of pigment particle size in Piezography K7 inks.