Piezography: Ansel Adams and the inkjet print

I know this is a post to an old thread, but bear with me.

<p>

This past weekend, I visited a friend of mine who recently purchased

an Epson 1160/Jon Cone Piezography BW combination. Being a curiuos

person, I really wanted to know what prints would look like from

Tango drum scans of a few of my Tri-X 4x5 negs. Here is what I

learned.

<p>

After spending a few hours of selective dodging and burning in

Photoshop, and some time doing selective sharpening, I had an image

that I would feel comfortable with. Our first print of the image was

a small 8x10 print, and my first reaction to this print was "uh oh,

too much banding". However, I looked at the image and noticed a huge

dynamic range from white to black. Hmmmmm. Promising.

<p>

Since I noticed some banding, we decided to clean the heads of the

printer before we went any further.

<p>

Reprint of 8x10 size. Hmmmm. Badning non-existent. Very promising

image, indeed. This is when it hit me. My emotional reaction was

very similar to when I first saw a platinum print. Very crisp.

However, the blacks weren't deep enough for me. Maybe I am stuck on

silver prints. I dunno.

<p>

Anyway, after 30 minutes of changing our over-aggressive sparpening

in Photosop, and some more dodging and burning, we printed a 10x17

image. I really like this print. Tonal qualities are exactly what I

want. The continuous tone of the print makes me forget that it came

from an inkjet printer. Wow. I like it so much, I am getting it

framed today as a gift for my brother for Christmas.

<p>

What strikes me as a huge positive with this system, is that I do

the dodging/burning/sharpening, etc. once. Being a perfectionist, I

only have to do this one time, and then I have an image that I will

be happy with for some time.

Over the last few months I have been using both the piezography

software and inks and other inks, printing a selection of my 4x5

black and white negatives, which I have scanned using an Agfa Duoscan

HiD.<p>

I'll get to the point ; I would actively dissuade anyone from the

expense and hassle of piezography. It is very poor value for money,

the inks regularly clog the printer nozzles, the technical support

which is touted on the web site is non-existent, the tone of the

prints is an unpleasant warm brown, very far removed from the

selenium toned effect many would wish to have for their prints, and

most importantly, it is not as good quality as other, much better

value options currently on the market. In my view, the claims that

they make are vastly overstated and little more than marketing hype.

I simply do not believe their claim that they can get the Epson

printers to print at greater than 1140 dpi - or if they can, their

technical service department has never bothered to answer any of my

queries on this. Much of the ink is wasted on cleaning clogs from the

printer nozzles - incredibly frustrating!<p>

I have found my best option to be to use the Lyson quadblack cool

inkset. It does not clog and produces results which are far superior

both technically and aesthetically to piezography, IMHO. I have

absolutely no affiliation to Lyson, by the way.<p>

Through much trial and error, I have found that the best approach is

to scan a 4x5 negative either at original size at 2000 lpi (maximum

resolution), or at 150% size at 1333 lpi. Both of these scans produce

a 290 mb file. After some limited work in Photoshop, I can either

print this size, or configure a print file for a larger size while

keeping the resolution the same (i.e. interpolation). An A3 sized

print will have a print file of between 650 - 850 mb in size, which

does take about 10 - 15 minutes cpu processing time, and about 10

minutes printing time, but the quality is really excellent - close to

exhibition quality. I do feel that I have at last found a viable high

quality printing technique that I can control myself from exposure

right through to final print.<p>

I regard the money I spent on the piezography software as an

expensive mistake. Having a high quality digital printing setup can

be better achieved through other options.

Fw:

<p>

I believe that your experience with Piezography is not typical. Many

believe that it is the best, albeit not the easiest to use or least

expensive, digital printing platform for B&W. With regard to your

specific comments:

<p>

Piezography inks are not subject to the metamerism found in dye based

inks nor dye/pigment inks. Metamerism is the tendency for an ink

system to appear different under varying light conditions. For

example, Piezography prints do not change dramatically under

tungsten, fluorescent and incandescent light sources. The same cannot

be said for ink systems produced by Epson, Lyson, MIS and others.

<p>

Certain papers alter the perception of tone because of the paper

color. For example, the inks print silvery neutral on Somerset

Velvet. Using specially coated paper such as Somerset Enhanced will

cause the inks to warm moderately as well as print with greater

dynamic range. Hahnemuhle papers offer deep blacks and only slight

warming. Concorde Rag creates a warm look reminiscent of Platinum

printing.

<p>

The inks used in the Piezography system are carbon black pigment

inks. Pigment inks are much more archival than dye or dye/pigment

based inks, but they can cause clogging of the inkjets (especially if

used infrequently). And yes, Piezography inks are not quite as cold

tone as many would like. So you are correct about the clogging cold-

tone issues, but you can�t have everything if you want archival

prints. Hopefully these issues will eventually be adressed.

<p>

The Piezography system (unlike Lyson) is more than just ink, it is a

software print driver that takes over control of the Epson printer

and prints at a higher resolution. The reason that Epson doesn't do

this themselves is that, the higher the print resolution, the more

obvious are print problems (banding, herring-bone patterns, etc.)

that are caused by imprecision in the paper transport mechanism of

the printer. The Piezography system uses different print drivers for

different printers, because the highest resolution can only be used

on the printers with the best paper transport mechanism (such as the

Epson 7000). Cone estimates that about 1 in 3 Epson printers have to

be returned for exchange because they do not work well with the high

resolution Piezography system. Fortunately, Epson has a liberal

warranty policy during the first year of ownership. So, whether or

not you believe it, Piezography does print at a higher resolution.

<p>

My experience with Piezography is that they have excellent customer

support. You can examine their support options at the following web

page: http://www.piezography.com/ts/index.html

The best part of the technical support web page is the Users

Discussion List where you can ask questions and get answers from

other users as well as Cone support staff (and Cone himself). A

message archive search function is available.

<p>

Whether or not you can actually see the difference at normal viewing

distances between the Lyson inks (using a normal print driver) vs.

the Piezography inks and drivers, and whether the cost difference is

worth it, is of course something only you can answer. Some people

have experimented with the Lyson inks using the Piezography drivers

because of the cost difference in the inks. There have been some new

developments with the introduction of the PiezographyBW Pro24 system,

and other new Piezography solutions are promised in 2002.

Unfortunately, like much of the digital world, the very highest

quality solutions are not cheap, and usually become obsolete every

few years. This is not problem for digital printing labs, because

their equipment only lasts a few years anyway due to constant use,

but is problematic for the individual photographer.

<p>

Lastly, if you want to sell your Piezography software and any

remaining inks, try eBay or the Piezography Users Discussion List.

They seem to sell pretty quickly.

"I simply do not believe their claim that they can get the Epson

printers to print at greater than 1140 dpi - or if they can, their

technical service department has never bothered to answer any of my

queries on this."

<p>

That bit is pretty simple - the Epson printers print at 720 dpi. 1440

dpi = 2 passes; 2160 dpi (Peizo. driver) = 3 passes; 2880 = 4 passes.

Thats why the registration and transport system is important and the

better bilt printers are better.

"Piezography inks are not subject to the metamerism found in dye

based inks nor dye/pigment inks. Metamerism is the tendency for an

ink system to appear different under varying light conditions. For

example, Piezography prints do not change dramatically under

tungsten, fluorescent and incandescent light sources. The same cannot

be said for ink systems produced by Epson, Lyson, MIS and others.

<p>

The inks used in the Piezography system are carbon black pigment

inks. Pigment inks are much more archival than dye or dye/pigment

based

inks."

The same can be said for the MIS pigment Quadtone inks. The MIS VM

Quadtone inks also offer cooler tones and are as light fast.

Thanks, Michael and Tim, for your comments.<p>

On the printer resolution, I have never been able to get the

piezography software to make its four passes, despite multiple

different configuration attempts, and I have never received a single

reply to my various queries to Cone technical support on their web

site. Eventually I gave up.<p>

Re metamerism ; Michael's comments on the effects on different papers

are interesting, although I do think that this is a very subjective

area, where people will have different tastes and preferences. I have

mainly been using a heavy matte white textured paper (Lyson soft fine

art), on which the piezography inks do come across as very brown and

warm.<p>

I am not sure if you are still interested in pursuing this, but if

you ask a question on the Piezography Users Discussion List at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/piezography3000/

someone (either a Piezography support person or a user) will probably

answer it. Despite the group name, this is for all PiezographyBW

users, not just for Epson 3000. Also, there are frequent updates to

the Piezography software available for download from their website.

This is an extract from an e-mail I received this morning from inkjetmall;<p>

<i>

PiezographyBW was instrumental in introducing to desktop printer users a system similar to the professional systems which Cone Editions

developed for IRIS Graphics in 1996. The PiezographyBW inks were

released in Feb, 2000 and were made from carbon pigment and small

amounts of dye. Problems began to surface with this unique ink formula

which we did not immediately realize were related. The problems reached a peak in late 2001, and we were able to understand that the issues were not related to isolated customer use, nor mechanical printing problems, but were correlated and we issued technical support bulletins and began remedying users. We were not able to resolve these issues with our suppliers but nonetheless we tried to stand behind each of our customers.

As sometimes happens when technically supporting a product, it begins

to develop problems and eventually has a known set of issues. But many

users are left out of the resolution process by being too early in the

troubleshooting. Their problems and issues may have not yet become

known patterns, and they may not have received satisfactory answers and resolve. Once known problems and issues are established, users are

carefully troubleshooted through the processes to determine if they are affected and the users are easily remedied.

We have remedied many users of this original ink set, but we cannot

determine if we also alienated many others. We were able to substitute

a new ink product called PiezoTone which does not have the problems and issues of the original PiezographyBW inks. We have tried to be as

responsible as possible as a company to our customers. We also realize

that not everyone was adversely affected by these inks. We want to hear that too!</i>

<p>

At least they are now admitting that there were serious problems, as noted in some of the posts above. I certainly received no assistance whatsoever from their customer support when I had major problems, possibly because I do not live in the USA. But I am happy with my Lyson set-up, and it'll take a massive move in product quality (both inks and software) and customer support for me to want to switch. A good lesson in never believing marketing hype, or indeed endorsements without substance!