Cone inks, Canson paper, Epson R3000

[Calzone]

About a year ago I used a credit card to place a $250.00 deposit to view a 17x22 portfolio of Piezo prints. The image that was used was from a Lewis W. Hines negative and the prints were on various papers with various Piezo inks. Basically the real cost of seeing these prints was the cost of the shipping as my deposit was returned when I shipped back the portfolio to Cone Editions. I shared this Cone Edition portfolio with some of my friends at a NYC Meet-Up.

The good was the resolution, but I found that the inks projected a strong patina that I deemed heavy handed like toned prints. I also thought that because the image of a West Virginian coal miner who was merely just a boy was somewhat a high contrast image that was not well suited to display the tonality that is possible with piezo inks, although the prints did display an amazing amount of shadow detail. I wished that the image used had more of a long tonal scale (think midrange) instead of concentrating on mostly highlights and shadow detail.

What deeply impressed me is the resolution with the absence of dithering that I see on B&W prints made on color printers. I would say that unless you intend to print big, then the added resolution offered by piezography might not be worth the bother and cost. I will also add that included in this portfolio was a digital negative printed on overhead projection film, and the possibility of contact printing a digital negative and contact printing an image shot on a Leica Monochrom to make a silver print really entertained me.

I went to art school in the 70's, and even though I'm a slacker at heart, it does seem that Piezography would be the slacker's way of producing editions of extream fine art quality. Piezography "Method 3" with a K6 inkset allows printing both digital negatives and matt printing without any need of ink changes on an Epson 3880, and Method 3 is designed for printing on Ilford fiber paper. The only problem here is that the 3880 is only a 17 inch wide printer and ideally a 24 inch printer might be needed/required to more fully exploit the Monochrom/Piezograpghy capabilities. Basically an attempt for medium format resolution and tonality.

Thanks for the thread and the thoughful posts everyone. I'm of the opinion that the benefits of Piezograpghy (resolution and digital negative for contact printing) are not fully realized unless you are talking big prints. I see a huge advantage to be able to make wet prints from digital image capture, and major value added for the wet print in a fine art market.

Cal

 

[hlockwood]

About a year ago I used a credit card to place a $250.00 deposit to view a 17x22 portfolio of Piezo prints. The image that was used was from a Lewis W. Hines negative and the prints were on various papers with various Piezo inks. Basically the real cost of seeing these prints was the cost of the shipping as my deposit was returned when I shipped back the portfolio to Cone Editions. I shared this Cone Edition portfolio with some of my friends at a NYC Meet-Up.

The good was the resolution, but I found that the inks projected a strong patina that I deemed heavy handed like toned prints. I also thought that because the image of a West Virginian coal miner who was merely just a boy was somewhat a high contrast image that was not well suited to display the tonality that is possible with piezo inks, although the prints did display an amazing amount of shadow detail. I wished that the image used had more of a long tonal scale (think midrange) instead of concentrating on mostly highlights and shadow detail.

What deeply impressed me is the resolution with the absence of dithering that I see on B&W prints made on color printers. I would say that unless you intend to print big, then the added resolution offered by piezography might not be worth the bother and cost. I will also add that included in this portfolio was a digital negative printed on overhead projection film, and the possibility of contact printing a digital negative and contact printing an image shot on a Leica Monochrom to make a silver print really entertained me.

I went to art school in the 70's, and even though I'm a slacker at heart, it does seem that Piezography would be the slacker's way of producing editions of extream fine art quality. Piezography "Method 3" with a K6 inkset allows printing both digital negatives and matt printing without any need of ink changes on an Epson 3880, and Method 3 is designed for printing on Ilford fiber paper. The only problem here is that the 3880 is only a 17 inch wide printer and ideally a 24 inch printer might be needed/required to more fully exploit the Monochrom/Piezograpghy capabilities. Basically an attempt for medium format resolution and tonality.

Thanks for the thread and the thoughful posts everyone. I'm of the opinion that the benefits of Piezograpghy (resolution and digital negative for contact printing) are not fully realized unless you are talking big prints. I see a huge advantage to be able to make wet prints from digital image capture, and major value added for the wet print in a fine art market.

Cal

Thanks for the input, Cal. I fully intended to respond to Kirk's post, but I've been incredibly busy with personal stuff. I'll also address some of your remarks along the way.

I'm going to give Kirk some gentle pushback in my response, but I cannot possibly get to it before the weekend.

BTW Cal, are you inferring that I'm a slacker? 😱

Harry

 

[Calzone]

Thanks for the input, Cal. I fully intended to respond to Kirk's post, but I've been incredibly busy with personal stuff. I'll also address some of your remarks along the way.

I'm going to give Kirk some gentle pushback in my response, but I cannot possibly get to it before the weekend.

BTW Cal, are you inferring that I'm a slacker? 😱

Harry

Harry,

Most slackers I know are very clever people who somehow do great things with very little or the minimalist amount of effort. To the dismay of many people my lack of effort seems to annoy most people. I also seem to have a greater amount of tolerance for other people than they exhibit for my ways which does not seem to make sense to them. What I'm saying here is that I somehow inadvertantly recieve rather strong rigid responses to my mode of thinking that seems to make sense and work for me.

Harry if you are a slacker like me consider it a great compliment meaning you are clever in a great way, but you might find too that your slacker ways also annoys other people. LOL. Also know that I know you are a strong individual who can also kinda stand alone as Piezography here on this forum is not highly favored by many.

Since I'm lazy I will tell you now that my leanings are towards piezography. My skill level for digital printing is a big fat zero at this point, but I know I will be a great digital printer one day because I know I'm stubborn. I have also seen some prints from a master printer at PhotoPlusExpo last year and it seems that I like Canson Rag, but also know that I also favor their Barayta paper. I had the opportunity to ask the photographer for his preferences and he told me to use the rag if the print is to be handled unframed, but for a framed print he perfered the old school look of the barayta for the resemblance to a wet print.

I think initially I will go with a K-7 set of inks. I use to be a good wet printer decades ago, I still shoot film, and have restricted my analog photography to only image capture (making great negatives). This approach to photography has annoyed may a people who insist on seeing prints. LOL. If I change out two carts and after a flushing of those two heads that get feed the changed out carts I can then make digital negatives without needing another 3880. As you can tell because I'm a lazy slacker I really researched how far I can go with just a 3880 with Piezography using a Leica Monochrom as a "hand scanner." Also know that to contact print these digital negatives that a vacuum frame is required and a lot of studio space. Don't tell "Maggie" my girlfriend. LOL.

Understand that because I'm a lazy slacker that my analog negatives will be wet printed and not ever scanned, but then again my Monochrom images might eventually get wet printed onto Ilford silver fiber paper using Piezography generated digital negative.

Cal

 

[Bob Michaels]

Cal: we seem to live on similar streets. Far too many people these days seem to equate more complex, more expensive, and more difficult to master with being better.

But to the specifics of Piezography, I consider that to be one more expensive and complex solutions to a quite simple problem that I am quite happy with the automatic solution from the Epson ABW software.

But this is certainly a "different strokes for different folks" thing.

Most slackers I know are very clever people who somehow do great things with very little or the minimalist amount of effort. To the dismay of many people my lack of effort seems to annoy most people. I also seem to have a greater amount of tolerance for other people than they exhibit for my ways which does not seem to make sense to them. What I'm saying here is that I somehow inadvertantly recieve rather strong rigid responses to my mode of thinking that seems to make sense and work for me.
......

 

[Vince Lupo]

Cal: we seem to live on similar streets. Far too many people these days seem to equate more complex, more expensive, and more difficult to master with being better.

But to the specifics of Piezography, I consider that to be one more expensive and complex solutions to a quite simple problem that I am quite happy with the automatic solution from the Epson ABW software.

But this is certainly a "different strokes for different folks" thing.

I think I'm in the same boat as you guys -- I am still quite happy with my Epson inks prints, and like Kirk and his photographer friend, I found the differences with my prints to be minimal (I even did the same 'test' with my wife - who I consider to be fairly 'visual' - and both times she preferred the Epson version). But there are those who prefer the Piezo inks and their results, which I can also appreciate.

However, if you are going to be exhibiting these prints in a gallery situation, it's not as though you're going to have the Piezo example and the Epson example side-by-side, unless the point of the exhibition was a 'which do you prefer/which is better' exercise. Seeing only one example on the wall (of either persuasion), the average or even the 'informed' viewer would likely not know or care about the difference (and of course there not being anything on the wall to compare it to), if there was in fact a difference.

 

[Calzone]

Bob and Vince,

Much respect for your feedback and work. To me there is not a lot of difference between the OEM and Piezography to really say one is better or worse than the other, and granted Piezography has additional expenses over OEM inks, but one thing I do see using OEM inks with the standard Epson driver is the airbrush like effect that is utilized by the Epson driver to modulate tonality due to the limited amounts of blacks and greys on its pallet.

This airbrushing effect becomes more pronounced especially on large prints. I would agree with Bob's opinion expressed in another thread that there is more effort required and expense with Piezograpghy, I can't argue with fact, but if you are going to print really-really large (perhaps as large as you can) then the advantage of Piezography becomes distinguished. To me the higher resolution of edge detail becomes evident and this airbrush like effect caused by the dithering used in the Epson driver becomes evident.

Here in NYC I see a lot of shows. One at the Brooklyn Museum dispayed "War Photography" and included many iconic B&W photos that were from WWII. I was surprised and impressed by the display that included rather large prints of vintage film images that were printed rather large digitally that were placarded surprisingly as inkjet prints. The IQ was of course museum quality and I saw no dithering artifact.

At another show in Chelsea at Aperture Gallery I saw another large inkjet print that was shot with a 4x5. Again no dithering artifact and really nice shadow detail. The image was a tripod shot of a dinosaur display, long bulb exposure during museum hours, I think in a Washinton DC museum.

Realize that in my work I always admired the extream quality of large format, but I only shoot small and medium format, that I am on a fool's jouney trying to achieve large format results from smaller formats, and at this time I do not enjoy any skill in digital printing.

Cal.

 

[hlockwood]

What this thread reveals is that there is no single printing technique that will appeal to everyone.

The (printing) niche that one occupies is defined by aesthetics, economics and comfort zone. My niche is rather narrow. I shoot and print B&W only; I have no interest in color printing. The subject matter that appeals most to me is candid scenes involving people, i.e., "street" photography. And piezo printing fits into that niche rather well.

If one desires to have both color and B&W capability, piezo is obviously not the answer. But the economic reasons and hassle factor cited in some of the posts here are off the mark. Piezo printing with refillable carts and bulk ink is usually considerably less expensive than the OEM approach. (And how much ink from those expensive OEM carts do you use on test prints before you get to the final acceptable print?) Just do the math.

As for the hassle factor, well, you do have to refill the carts periodically. But it requires minimal, easily acquired skills.

As for tonal resolution, having 7 instead of 3 shades of gray ink is not just a theoretical advantage. If an image has any open areas with varying tonality, one doesn't have to pixel peep to see the difference that piezo makes. But if the scene is very busy this advantage diminishes, sometimes rather quickly.

As for print size: yes, the bigger the print, the more noticeable the impact of piezo on observable tonal resolution. I typically print to somewhat larger than 10in. x 15in., and I don't need a loop to see the advantage of having available more shades of gray.

I started this thread to express my pleasure in getting beautiful prints from the combination of R3000 printer, Canson Photo Rag paper and piezo K7 Neutral inks. It was not my intention to gain converts to piezo printing (nor to support Jon Cone's company, Inkjet Mall.)

Now, please reread the opening sentence of this post.

 

[thompsonks]

Showed the two sets of prints to the Bay Area Photographers' Collective (www.BAPC.info) at a peer review. Preference for the Canon prints was widespread, the view to the contrary being that one image looked better on matte paper. The preference was more for the Harman Gloss Baryta Warmtone paper and its tones. So stay with what you've got, or do what you enjoy. No reason to be caught up in 'Peizo envy.'

Kirk

 

[Jager]

Fascinating thread, gentlemen.

I'm a couple weeks into my own explorations of Piezography (the decision to do so arrived at independently, as I did not see this thread until just now).

Previous to making the leap, I too ordered the sample set of prints from Cone. Like Kirk, I was extremely underwhelmed. Neither the size of those prints nor the subject matter did much to convince one that Piezography had much to offer. I was frankly shocked that Jon Cone would offer such a tepid enticement to his product.

The good news for him - and for me, I suppose - is that I decided to give his inks a try in spite of that disaster of marketing.

I have an Epson 3880, and a 3800 before that. I very much like the Epson K3 inks and always thought the ABW mode produced excellent prints (I'm almost exclusively a B&W printer). I've had a number of 16x20's exhibited and never felt particularly constrained by what Epson's OEM product gave me. I'm also very impressed by the 3880 and its renowned reliability. I'm an episodic printer - I'll often go weeks or months between bouts of printing (which then tend to be intense) and have never had the clogging problems that have plagued some other Epson models. I was more than a little reluctant to make a change that might alter that.

Still, in the end it's all about the print. I figured if it were possible to achieve a higher level of quality, it was worth the cost and potential aggravation to see if Piezography might take me there.

For most of us, a side-by-side comparison between Piezography prints and OEM prints using the same source files is the quickest and cleanest path to that answer. Which is why the print exchange between Kirk and Harry was so compelling.

Alas, comparing glossy prints on the one hand with matte on the other makes that comparison very challenging! Not at all to diminish the considerable effort you both put into the exercise, but it does indeed become rather an apples and oranges kind of thing.

I had two prints in an exhibit last spring where the gallery required matte paper. I grumbled a bit, having previously proofed them (only) on glossy paper. Both images were well-served by the higher d-max, the deeper blacks, that glossy paper offered. Ultimately, it turned out fine. After many trial prints, I got matte versions that I quite liked. But only if I viewed them alone, purely on their own merits. If I viewed them side-by-side with their glossy brethren, the matte versions were inevitably diminished.

That's been my experience, generally... matte prints tend to fare poorly if directly compared to glossy.

That small trifle aside, I think the observations made here are largely on point.

When I first started shooting with my Leica Monochrom two years ago, the conclusion I quickly arrived at was that the camera brought a nuanced improvement in luminance values and tonal gradation. It wasn't earth shattering compared to my other cameras (M9, M240, D3). But it was consistently, notably there, in every shot.

It was subtlety, writ large.

After a hundred-odd prints using Piezography's K7 (the Warm Neutral inkset), on a half-dozen different papers, both matte and glossy, I'm coming to the very same conclusion. Cone's product doesn't bring a world-shattering improvement. But in comparing K7 prints to ABW prints, using the same source files and the same papers, what's there is a consistent, nuanced difference. It's not an in-your-face thing, but the Piezography prints are better.

That subtlety thing again.

Notably, some prints actually look worse with Piezography. Until you delve into them and understand what is going on. The singular thing Cone's inks introduce is this incredibly rich, long tonal scale. If you have a print that depends, instead, on deep blacks, contrast, and pop to give it its effect, you may find the initial Piezography version to be flatter than you like. What's happening is the Cone inks are giving you exactly what's in your file. If you have a pixel that is mapped to tonal values of 1 or 2 or 3, you'll actually get detail from that pixel. Only zero will give you true black.

Same thing on the highlight end. Piezography's inks will differentiate the entire tonal scale. Most other printing systems, including Epson's ABW, can't do that.

Which is to say, if you want that deep black, high contrast image, you have to edit for it with Piezography. You have to do it knowingly, not just arriving at it as a byproduct of your printer's limitations.

The flip side is that images that benefit from a long tonal range are absolutely to die for.

More downsides... I'm finding that Piezography will reveal every other weakness in your workflow. That calibrated monitor that seemed to soft-proof perfectly fine with ABW? Not so much anymore. If you can't see pretty much the entire Adobe 1998 gamut, you're flying blind. Making a print to see what's in that black-as-night shadow seems ass backwards. And it is.

Yes, you'll need that Eizo after all.

And, no, you can't print directly out of Lightroom, if you're on a Mac. Apple, intent on saving us from ourselves, has screwed up color management. You have to export out of Lightroom, make a quick trip into Photoshop to convert the color space, and then print your file from QTR's Print Tool.

Which is to say, it's not entirely painless. But the results, for me, early on in this grand adventure, speak for themselves. I like what I'm seeing. I'm glad that I took the plunge.

 

[Calzone]

Jeff,

Thanks for the thoughtful post. I have owned a 27 inch Eizo for over a month, and I'm glad that it will be used well for when I order inks from Jon Cone. I'm thinking of going split tone.

I also have a new 3880 and the Monochrom. I guess I'm trying to attempt getting the tonality of medium format if I can, and Piezography looks to be the way to get there.

Now all I need is the paper and ink.

Cal

 

[Jager]

Cal, with a Monochrom, Cone inks, and studied technique I don't think there's any question of you getting medium format tonality. That's pretty much a lock.

The question, really, is how far into the realm normally reserved for large format can you go?

I also agree with your previous suggestion that the larger in print size you go, the more telling the advantages of Piezography become. What is purely nuance at letter size becomes much more pronounced as you head northwards from 16x20.

I was down at the Platinum Print exhibit at the National Gallery of Art a couple days ago. I love looking at prints and it's especially poignant when they are a hundred years old. I came away with a deep appreciation for the great art our forbears bequeathed us, but also thankful for what modern technology allows us to do.

I'm having simply the best time exploring what Piezography can do. The delicate, rich tonality that it provides has prompted me to delve deeper into papers. Canson's Baryta Photographique for glossy/luster and Epson's Hot Press Natural for matte have been my mainstays the last couple of years. I still love those papers. Since going to Cone's inks, I've added Canson's Rag Photographique, another lovely matte paper that exhibits a subtly different kind of warmth. I like it very much and am now using it alongside HPN.

I've really fallen for two new glossy papers... Canson's Platine Rag is, despite its name, a luster-type paper with a surface similar to Baryta Photographique. But it has a cotton rag substrate and has a far more luxuriant feel. I love it! The second is Jon Cone's Studio Type 5. The Type 5, despite formally being a "glossy" paper, has a subtly textured surface not unlike many matte papers. It seems to bring to the fore the strengths of both paper types - the high d-max and rich blacks of a great glossy and the delicate tonal separation of a high-end matte. It's quickly becoming my favorite glossy paper.

The best, though... wow, I am totally blown away by Hahnemuhle's Museum Etching. A very heavy matte paper (350 GSM), mould-made, with a texture somewhere between German Etching and William Turner, it may be my favorite paper ever. It's a pain in the ass to use in my 3880 (Manual Rear Feed won't feed it so I have to use the Manual Front Feed) but the results are to die for. Rich, exquisite detail. Delicate tonal separation. And the irregular-pattern surface texture (a quality imparted by the mould process) adds just a hint of emphasis, without drawing attention to itself. Highly recommended!

I look forward to hearing of your experiences...

 

[Calzone]

Jeff,

Its been a week of having my system together and so far I've made about 35 8 1/2 by 11's. I decided to create a warm neutral/selenium split tone MPS K7 inkset where I bought extra carts to blend shades 4 and 5. Currently I mixed 50% warm neutral with 50% selenium in shade 4.

I discovered that the MPS curves differ slightly from the WN-SEL-NU curves. I find the newer MPS curve to have a brighter whitepoint due to a blacker black, while the WN-SEL-NU curve is broader in mid-tones. Depending greatly on the file the results of two prints of the same file can either vary greatly or subly, but either way there is a difference to be noticed whether small or big just by selecting either the newer or older curve. Add onto this that I can vary where the split tone transition can be placed, I have a lot of variety without ever changing papers. I bulked up on Jon Cone Type 5, and currently my matte black is filled with Piezoflush. I'll be sticking with Jon Cone Type 5 for a long time I figure, and since I'll be blending inks for my split transition I have a lot to play around with before printing bigger or trying other papers.

I'm really amazed by the level of detail. Realize that on one head to toe portrait of my girlfriend that is only an 8 1/2x11 I can see the peach fuzz on her chin. My girl is not a bearded lady BTW. LOL. The shadow detail I'm seeing is almost like an HDR shot.

As far as large format quality goes: at the PhotoPlusExpo I was offered a free print by Digital Silver Imaging. When I tried to get a free 40 inch print I was told that their offer was limited to a free 8x10, but if I wanted to see the resolution of a 40 inch print they could make a zoomed in crop of a 40 inch print as a test for resolution. I sent them a landscape file, and somehow my interpetation of a 40 inch print which meant 40 inches long to me at DSI was interpeted as a request for a 40 inch wide print: basically a 40x60.

After seeing Sabastion Salgado's Genesis exhibition at ICP I saw the limits of what could be done by one of the world's best labs in manipulating both a 645 film negative and a Canon DSLR image via 4x5 digital negatives for wet printing. Anyways I was stunned that using my Monochrom that I could do a Salgado by simply just shootingm my Monochrom at a high shutter speed using good technic.

I think my next printer will likely be a 24 inch printer... I'm also interested in making Digital Negatives for contact printing... Understand that I went to art school in the 70's and that I still shoot film, but I don't scan.

Cal

 

[Jager]

Hey Cal,

Glad to hear your Piezography explorations are working out well! I love the high fidelity of the system. It's really nice knowing that bringing to bear high-end digital or film technique on the front-end can be fully leveraged and expressed on the back end in print...

I, too, am intrigued by split-toning using Warm Neutral and Selenium ink sets. I may soon buy a full set of Selenium and another set of carts so I can contrast the ink sets, and explore some of the mixing you're doing.

When I mentioned to Jon that I was thinking of buying a second 3880 so I could run a second ink set, he mentioned that they have a new product coming out soon called Piezography Pro. His words...

The new Piezography PRO is going to be a very exciting product in the 3880. It allows installing two quad black ink sets (we recommend Carbon and Selenium) into the 3880 controlled by two sets of curves - allowing you to choose only one curve to print only Carbon or only Selenium. Or you can choose two curves and blend the two ink sets together in ratios of 1% - 100%. Or you can choose two curves and split between the two ink sets separately or concurrently in the shadows, mid tone and highlights.

These curves are characteristically Piezography with long back slopes and no visible dot is present in the print. It's a very expressive system. Blending the two inks sets covers a large range of possible tones. Blending and splitting allows millions of possible combinations. So its incredibly subtle with a range from very warm to very cold. You can even make a neutral with it as Carbon and Selenium do balance one another out... Neutral is arguable in eyes over 30 years... so it will be in the eye of the beholder... But I do recommend it if you get a second printer. You can go between WN and SEL. But the Carbon extends the range of warmth.

On the one hand I am very intrigued by the possibilities of this new system. On the other I am wondering how much of the high fidelity of K7 is lost (as the new system is basically a Quad-inkset - only one more shade of gray than Epson's own OEM inks). At this point I'm leaning towards a split-tone K7 system, a la what you're doing. It'll be interesting to watch, in any case.

The results I'm seeing at 17x22 are also making me wish for a 24-inch printer. Alas, the larger Epson's seem to have chronic clogging issues. The 3880 is the only pro model in their current lineup which seems to have largely avoided that bugaboo. I'm hoping they refresh their lineup in 2015.

Also like you I'm interested in the Digital Negative option with Piezography. I've long wanted to try Platinum/Palladium printing and that Piezo Dig Neg would serve as the perfect front-end to that process.

 

[Calzone]

Jeff,

Be aware that Carbon inks on Canson papers make for brown prints. Generally other papers do not skew the tone of the ink, but for some reason Canson papers and Carbon inks have this odd shift.

Definately explore the slight difference between MPS and WN-SEL-NU curves. The difference in the print can be almost impercievable or greatly different depending on the file.

My approach to learning Piezography is to limit myself to just Jon Cone type 5 paper to discover what I can do with just one paper. The fun will be playing where the split-tone occurs. I am currently printing with just a tad of real black. Jon Cone says that real black is kinda rare in nature, but here in NYC I would say that in my urban landscape there truely are some blacks that are man made. I only bought extra carts for shades 4 and 5. I can have my split inbetween 4 and 5 by loading WN in shade 4 and SEL in shade 5; or I can mix a 50%/50% in either shade 4 or shade 5. Add in the MPS Jon Cone Type5 curve or WN-SEL-NU Jon Cone Type 5 curve and I have a lot of diversity to master.

I don't know how to compare my split-tone to a straight inkset, but because of the "long tails" on each nozzle curve the split-tone transition is kinda smooth, and the results seen to be very 3-D. I might suggest that the highlights and upper mids somehow get more pronounced, but in a subtle good way. I think this is due to the split of warm shadows and cool highlights.

I'm sure we will be sharing more as we gain experience. I'll be only printing 8 1/2x11 for a while. I have a stash of 13x19 and 17x22 Jon Cone Type 5. Likely will have to order more paper soon.

Cal