Piezography Pro

[Calzone]

I am blown away by the results last night, and I remain inspired because so many possibilities just opened up. For contact printing if I limit myself to say 8x10 I could easily make silver wet prints without a vacuum frame. How cool is it to digitally proof your wet print? How cool is it to use digital post processing to make and develop the perfect negative for contact printing? Limited editions anyone?

I printed five 8 1/2x11's of a Monochrom night shot at 800 ISO 1/30 second using a Nikon 35/1.8 LTM wide open. The scene was a Central Park South crowd playing Pokeman Go in an outdoor public hot spot soon after the game got released. What makes the shot so remarkable is that everyone in this crowd shot seems fully immersed and so unaware at the same time.

So this was my first test: I took a tiff file that I had previously printed with K7 and explored what Piezography Pro could do. The first thing I discovered is that in the new updated paper profile library were three profiles for Jon Cone Type 5: cool, neutral, and warm.

I printed each curve separately to visualize the color gamut. In comparing the cool and neutral as they were drying, at first I was disappointed because they appeared too similar, but as they dried the difference became more pronounced, and I liked both. The warm profile I felt was too strong and the shadows were kinda brown.

Anyways it takes a while for the ink to dry, and one should allow for a full day of drying because using a hot air gun to speed up the drying I think does not give the best results, but I could already observe the blackest blacks I have ever seen. This morning I looked at the prints again: a wider dynamic range, smooth, highly detailed, and one has to believe optimized for making digital negatives for contact printing. Wow.

So the forth print I loaded in all three curves into my "Print Tool:" Cool; Neutral; and Warm. So now instead of printing with one curve, I'm printing with three, and I can adjust levels for highlights, mids and shadows separately.

The fourth print I made with the mids set up with equal portions of cool, neutral and warm, but I skewed the highlights to cool and the shadows to warm to create the most exaggerated effect of warm shadows and cool highlight split tone. The resulting print was a lot like my first bout with K7 where I blended my warm neutral 50% with Selenium at 50% exactly in the middle at Shade 4. This first iteration had too much warmth to my liking, so I ended up mixing in 25% selenium in my shade 3 to tone down the warmth further.

In the fifth print I toned down the warm curve shadows 25% and boosted the Selenium shadows from zero to 25%. The Neutral curve I kept flat at zero. The resulting print is a very close match to my K7 splitone.

So a 8 1/2x11 printed at 2880 DPI unidirectional takes 7 minutes. I see fine detail that favorably indicates resolution high enough to make contact prints of astounding quality, although prints bigger than 8x10 will likely require a vacuum frame for best results. For you guys that want to wet print small (8x10) this is for you.

BTW I kinda took advantage of Digital Silver Imaging a few years back. They had an offer that if one pre-paid $500.00 one got $1K worth of printing. I loaded up the truck and purchased $2.5K worth of printing. DSI makes silver wet prints using a laser as a light source. Anyways this was the state of the art 2-3 years ago. I had a handful of 24x36 inch fiber prints made printed on 30x40 paper that cost close to $500.00 each made from my best files made with my Monochrom.

So even though DSI uses a laser as a light source on big prints one can see a softness that gets projected via enlargement on the edges. This is the same one can see on traditional wet prints on big enlargements. Contact printing like a large format shooter is a workaround this limitation.

Anyways from my experience of printing large with Piezography K7 that the resolution kinda scales up, and depending on how perfect your image capture was that generally the larger one prints the more detail is revealed. In other words IQ and dynamic range seems to expand on the print the bigger it gets. I think I would need a 44 inch printer to get fuzzy, and then even that big it might not happen with the right clean low noise file.

Now we are talking in terms of doing what Salgado did with Genesis. Now it seems we do not need the best lab in Paris.

Anyways these are my preliminary findings. BTW I did compare print the dry number 5 PP print to a 17x24 (14x21 image size) K7 print this morning. Understand that the 1/30 shutter speed limited the IQ, and the lens was a retro lens shot wide open at night, but the tonality seemed the same and displayed the same smoothness and precision. Hard to compare resolution at this point, because clearly the smaller print is better.

Next test is print print number 5 bigger. Likely tonight. Understand that any comparision is limited by the use of older K7 curves, and that the entire curve library has been updated. To make a fair challenge I would have to make a new K7 print with the new K7 curve. Any judgement of PP to K7 should be reserved untill the new K7 curve is printed for a real comparision. Also know there was mention of a one-pass K7 as the next project. Hmmm...

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Last night I printed a 10x15 image size on 13x17 and a 12x18 image size on 13x17 both on Jon Cone Type 5. The image used the split tone settings from print number 5 mentioned above that toned down the warmth.

So here is the good, the bad, and the ugly. I used this image of outdoor hot spot Pokeman Go players due to it's high contrast, dark shadows and abundant levels of blacks. The file was not optimal due to 800 ISO on a Monochrom, 1/30 second shutter speed, and shooting an old single coated retro lens wide open (35/1.8 Nikkor in LTM).

I already knew from my 13x19.5 image size K7 print that it crossed over to where image size allowed IQ to suffer, but it seemed the Gold-E-lox size was the 10x15 image size, but the larger print did exhibit and reveal more detail than the smaller prints. The image only softened up as it was enlarged to the 12x18 size as certain fine details added details of their own.

Overall the 10x15 is a superb print that exploits the splitone well. I found that when looking at the 8 1/2 x11's that different levels of detail got revealed depending on my splitone, and it is observable that there is a clear advantage to being able to control the split because the ideal tone allowed more detail to be revealed.

On the 12x18 last night I saw a trace amount of "pizzawheeling" in a section of sky. This printing artifact is due to the paper transport of my 3880. It seems that when lots of ink is laid down, in this case a pure black sky, the surface of the print can get disturbed/damaged. The amount was slight, and perhaps only a trained eye would of noticed.

Know that as a print dries that the effect of this printing artifact goes away. The possible workaround would be to moderate the black slightly by moving the black endpoint on the curve ever so slightly or perhaps the slightest lowering of contrast. Sometimes as the print dries the artifact disappears totally, but sometimes it is visible as a trace amount that is greatly diminished. Always most visible on a wet print.

In the morning it was gone, but I knew it was there, and to me it bothers me, even though under glass it would be hidden. Know that my 7800 uses a vacuum for paper transport and it has a superior paper transport that leaves no artifact.

On the larger prints what becomes visible is this girl's light polo shirt that is alternating thin horizontal black and white strips. Because she is such a small part of the image her shirt represents telling fine detail. The shirt scales up in both large prints with a highlight and even midtone in the creases. I did not see any bleeding that might be an artifact of high contrast areas where black and white dominate. I am looking at closely an area the size of my thumbnail.

Note that Pizzawheeling generally is a problem that is limited to large expansive areas of black. Also know that Pizzawheeling can be paper dependent. In this regard the Canson papers I tend to favor might be a problem because with K7 this paper requires a lot of ink, but I like the depth displayed in the prints.

In the shadows another detail is revealed in this landscape shot: a one liter bottle of water standing upright in a marked crosswalk that has been abandoned. As a bright highlight it is well rendered and it definately draws in the eye as a point of interest.

The crowd is gathered around a large base of a gold statue of a man mounted on a horse flanked by a woman angel. The level of fine detail and smoothness of tone on this monument adds lots of pop to the 10x15 print. The rendering is very 3-D due to the detail and tonality. Anyways this is what the advantage of splitone is about.

In comparing and looking back at the 8.5x11 prints number 4 and 5, the shift in tone is rather subtle, but the amount of added fine detail is not subtle at all. As another example in the distance are the edges of leaves on trees that get enough detail to reveal their edge. The slight amount of captured light that comes out in the rendering makes a big difference.

I made two more test prints (8 1/2x11) of yet another tiff I printed in K7. In this particular image there were levels of difficulty because I was shooting close and wide open with a 28 Cron under dusky conditions. The lighting was high contrast and to compound the difficulties my subjects were three black men.

The place was on Broadway near the now closed Leica Gallery, and the men were Louis Mendez, Jamal Shabatz, and Anthony Lero. Louis and Anthony sported crown graphics and 1940's fashion standing out against Jamal's Nikon DSLR.

With my K7 splitone I was not happy with the tonality, but I will see how the big prints will look tonight. Basically I toned down the warmth. Already I can see that Anthony who is the main subject is more accentuated due to the added detail that I was able to tease out.

So where do I stand? It seems like the speed of one pass glossy is a great advantage. Printing a 13x19 sheet takes 16 minutes at 2880 dpi unidirectional, compared to 6 minutes 8 1/2x11. It seems that 8 1/2x11 is a very useful size for testing and documenting printing, and I expect that I will do a lot of 13x19 1/2 prints on 17x23 1/2 paper. It seems the 3880 is well suited for the job and will be a workhorse.

It is pretty easy to make a few prints each night. The 8 1/2x11's are great tools for editing a book or exhibition, and secondarily they provide a reference making larger prints on the 7800. I still need a color printer.

As you can deduce from my writing is that when you scale up everything changes. The only slightly larger large print crossed the line where it laid down even more ink for that expanded tonality that gets expanded on larger prints. Perhaps in this regard one pass glossy has some limit, and perhaps the two or sometime three pass might be required for true large format printing with true pro level printers.

It seems outlined by the work with Piezography Pro that I will further tailor my K7 splitone by toning down the warmth further. Know that with the K7 long tails on the curves that there might be an outstanding advantage to 7 shades of black, especially in large-large prints due to the overlapping of curves that blends smoothness. Understand that the bigger one prints the amount of ink consumed seems to be non linear. In other words if you double the print area my feeling is that you use a lot more than double the amount of ink.

As far as digital negatives go it becomes evident to me that the added detail I see, even in the 8 1/2x11's means that the splitoning of PP is useful to optimize negatives. The same small detail on digital prints can be revealed on the digital negative that in turn would get transfered to the analog silver wet print.

Cal

POSTSCRIPT: To be clear I want to mention that to start with making Digital Negatives the 3880 is great, and I do think Piezography Pro offers a level of control that is an asset in creating negatives, but ultimately I would love to have a second large format printer dedicated to Piezography Pro that has the capabilities of 24 inch rolls and wider. I feel that 17 inch wide capacity is not big enough to fully exploit Piezography.

K7 for exhibition printing I think at this point has not yet been surplanted, but there still remains further testing...

 

[Calzone]

I printed a 10x15 of my three black photographers on Broadway. It seems that 8 1/2x11 is my test print size and 10x15 on 13x19 is my work print size. 13x19.5 on 17x23 1/2 is my exhibition print size, and from there is my jumbo prints that get printed on my 7800.

I printed 4 test prints of a tiff I printed in the past. Since I use print tool any file I exported to my "Print Tool" gets archived automatically, and I have little thumbnails to help with my filing system on my Mac Book Pro. This image was difficult to print, and I was not happy with the end results with K7. Too bad because it is an interesting image, but it did not print well.

There is a white dog that kinda is the main subject that might be part Pug and part French Bulldog. He sits in a slouchy manner basking in the sun in a storefront in the Old City section of Montreal. The plate glass windows layer reflections, one of them is me shooting my Monochrom with a chrome 90 Macro Elmar.

No matter what I did in post this image kinda looked flat and I was not able to extract the image that was so rich and compelling in my VF'er on that bright summer day. The light was late morning and it cut a strong diagonal of highlight with deep shadows. I choose this image because of the deep natural contrast. This image also involves so many reflections and distortions that it is layered like a dream.

I decided to set the highlights at 100% cool, and the shadows at 100% neutral to add spacial depth and only the mids were blended curves. My first image was too warm. I am glad I made this test print because I wanted to see that warmth in my reflection because in the real world I am brown skinned, and this initial print would be my reference to guide me though my changes.

The effect of separate highlights, mids, and shadows was well suited for this image. The cool highlights were dramatic, and the moderately different neutral shadows complemented the highlights. I already could tell this will become a great print. Know that the top of the head of the white dog has blown highlights, but in this shot it is not a bad thing, and it added an exclaimation point to the bright light in a good way.

The next test print moderated the warmth in the mids. I found the first print to have an exaggerated warmth, and in a way I found in the second print that the bonus warmth masked detail in the first version. The second test print was much better, revealing more detail, tonality, and creating more depth.

By the third test print the amount of depth presented I would deem holographic. The flat images/reflections all of the sudden had depth presented via more dynamic range of tone. The reflection of a parked car displayed more highlight making it become more detailed and included, perhaps in a heightened manner, to be more in the foreground instead of just being a distraction or ghost image. The detail, the rendering, and the spacial effects were all being enhanced. and the small print displayed more pop than the bigger prints I attempted before using K7.

The fourth print was another step in drilling down the warmth. Last night I really liked the added contrast. The highlights seemed more vivid, so I decided to make an advanced work print (10x15 on 13x19) without the usual overnight drying.

Last night the difference between the 8 1/2x11 (number 4) and the same image just printed bigger was striking. First off more detail, but also a broader contrast. In this print the size of the print has a mucho huge impact.

In the morning when I evaluated all the now dried prints I discovered that my work print might of gone a bit too far, and that I will likely print a version 3 tonight. It seems version 3 offers the most information as far as tonality in the highlights and shadows. The tile floor and small throw rug display more tonality than version 4. Anyways I think it is valuable to have both prints.

I made a cut sheet of Jon Cone Type 5 off of a roll to print a 17 inch wide print. I'm thinking that this dreamy image will be a good candidate to see how the print scales up. I put this cut sheet in a box of prints to flatten. Know that small prints are kinda compressed in both detail and dynamic range. I would encourage anyone to just get a floor standing pro printer. I strongly feel otherwise you kinda are only doing 55 mph on the Autoban.

So now I have mucho remorse. I deleted a lot of landscape shots that were relections off of car windows. I did a lot of shooting trying to get a grip on this photography that presented technical difficulties. Printing these images so they would not appear flat and compressed proved to be too dificult, and I was discouraged, but now I understand what was missing to add back all that depth, tonality and detail. Oh-well.

So now I can see how PP might likely displace my K7. I already have a new set of 350-400 ml carts.

An experiment I hope to do is have one of my buddies print two color prints for me. I can use my K7 printer driver and use it to print the Gloss Chroma Optimizer from PP over a color print to see and learn if it works like the Gloss Overcoat. The only bad thing that can happen is I ruin a print. Oh-well.

If the above experiment works I can then upgrade PP to my 7800 and set up my 3880 as my color printer. This would be ideal.

So it seems another limitation of PP is that once a file is loaded into "Print Tool" there is no soft proofing. The work around is making a small print (8 1/2x11) which at my level is not cost prohibited, but know that even small costs add up.

There is a company that makes desktop lamps, Ott Lite, that uses special bulbs that create D5000 (daylight). Know that I evaluate my prints under both Daylight (D5000) and tungstun to represent real world lighting conditions. Of course this is in a darkened room.

I checked my ink levels last night. The refillable carts get reset automatically each time I turn on my printer, so opening the cover and visually checking is required. Last night the 80 ml carts were half empty. Granted that likely 1/3rd of that 80 ml was utilized during my initial fill, but realize I only made a few prints that really were not big, and you can see that the tonality comes from laying down a lot more ink than Epson OEM. With the 3880 and heavy printing I was having to reload my carts every other week.

Printing gets mighty expensive, and if you don't print a lot expect clogging and maintenance problems. Know that I humidify my apartment so my print heads do not dry out. 50% humidity I try to maintain.

It seems like posting will require getting a flatbed scanner. Perhaps in January. I generally don't post because I do not think a display is the best way to exhibit my work. Anyways I am considering it. Maybe an Epson 850 to scan prints.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

SMUG Disclaimer: I just want to make it clear that when I say get a floor standing large format printer it is because I shoot a Monochrom. Perhaps the only camera better for Piezography digital capture is the M-246 with its lower noise and bigger files. As soon as I got my 7800 the 3880 went into storage and was loaded with Piezoflush.

Understand that IMHO the Monochrom and M-246 really have the IQ of about 645 film. Pretty easy to get medium format quality, and I might dare say elements even of large format contact printing. Anyways it really is that good (meaning the cameras).

Anyways just because I want to exploit the IQ does not mean you have to.

YMMV.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

I apologize for all the lengthy text, but it is for good reason. By now the only people following this thread are people who are considering PP or K7 or digital negative. The detailed descriptions will be very valuable if one has the 18 prints I have assembled into a folio. Basically I have only had PP online for a week, every day I have printed, except for yesterday when I reloaded all my carts. Unlike K7 where I mostly deplete my mids, with PP all the carts were depleted about the same amount thus far.

There are a dozen 8 1/2x11's that are simply test prints to show just all the flexibility just within the printer driver via blending three curves. All the prints were made from an old K7 tiff, except a new tiff that I recreated from the raw file that is clearly marked. Interesting to note that I also found the solidary "down and dirty" 13x17 K7 print, but before I found that K7 print I had made a new tiff from the raw file and printed a 10x15 and 13x19 using PP.

So I propose sending off a "chain-folio," a spin on the "chain-letter." I will compile a list via PM of snail-mail addresses and will pay the initial postage, my hope that eventually each person will pay the postage to forward the chain folio to the next person on my list, and in the end I might get these test prints and work prints back. I would request that in the least each participant of this Chain-Folio experiment initial or sign the back of each print with the date to add a documentary element to the experiment. Since I will have the list I can track the location readily. Also I will limit this experiment to the lower 48.

Know that I sent some prints to my/our friend Dirk in China. The packet arrived safely to the other side of the world, but the postman mashed the parcel so it could fit into a mailbox destroying the prints. I know stuff happens that is beyond my control, but I remain with faith in people's integrity. Let's see if a chain-folio can work.

I have marked the WP/NFS so I don't think these prints can be really used to hurt my body of work or my reputation or resold at any value if things don't work out, but it is a way to share my work and get it out there. No way a display can convey the detail or tonality of the prints. The prints don't lie.

BTW my 27 inch EIZO cannot display all the information on the print, and I can print more detail and tonality than what I can see on the EIZO. For those of you who have tried Piezography before it was an epiphany discovering that there was a lot more detail in the prints, and it opened up another world for me: printing what I cannot see.

Understand the 2 13x19's, 4 10x15's, and dozen 8 1/2x11's were made from raw files that utilized 650 or 800 ISO and not 320 Native ISO of my Monochrom. The lighting was either high contrast, muddy or night. The three sizes will show how Piezography scales up in detail depending on printing size. These files are somewhat limited in IQ compared to the ones that scale up into great 20x30's. Obviously these are not the best or cleanest files, and yet they become great examples.

It might be good to know that the Montreal Dog Raw File that I redid for the 10x15 and 13x19 has no exposure or contrast slider adjustment. The post processing only involved minor tweaking, the whites slider remained at zero, and any added contrast was due to just slider or a slight "S" curve.

Interesting to note how similar the K7 13x19 is to the 13x19 PP I made. Know that I only located the K7 print after I made the PP 13x19. IMHO the rendering of detail is different in comparing the prints. I can not definitively say one is better than the other, just slightly different. In some areas the K7 is better; and in other areas the PP is better.

I would recommend viewing these prints under daylight conditions and incandescent lighting. You will note that under incandescent lighting that the prints display more warmth and under D5000 the prints are more neutral. The effect of the real world on splitone is mostly generally mixed lighting.

Anyways PM with your name and address if you want to be part of this "Chain-Folio" experiment. I will send this folio off after the January 15th NYC Meet-Up where I will first share my results.

BTW it is pretty easy to imagine how a 10x15 would contact print with stunning resolution to make a silver wet print. IMHO it would look like large format that was contact printed. If I didn't have a 7800, I would be happy with just this. The prints would be stunning. All I need to do is download the digital negative profiles.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

So yesterday I took the brand new Second Avenue Subway ("Q" train) AKA B&H Express subway to B&H to buy some 13x19 Canson Platine Fibre Rag.

$108.00 for 25 sheets. Ouch.

I printed a 10x15 and then a 13x19, but I observed the dreaded "Pizza Wheels" on both prints. Know that Canson papers take big ink loads, but the depth in the prints is massive. I kinda was expecting these difficulties due to my K7 experience. In my book a perfect print should be just that, and any artifact is intolerable. Basically one easily gets spoiled by perfection. In the morning the artifacts remained, Ahhhh...

With K7 I resigned to printing Canson papers on my 7800, where the superior paper transport creates no artifact. This was due to the application of gloss overcoat required by the K7 process when printing on Canson (thirsty) papers.

So before posting my sad results I went on the PPE Forum which is a private forum that is moderated by Walker Blackwell. Know that Walker is very young, yet he ran, owned and operated a fine art printing studio, so I kinda have a semi-private mentor via this private forum. So I posted a thread and got a rapid reply.

"It pertains to dig negs but will work fine with Piezo as well," Walker wrote, and he supplied a link on how to disable the star wheels on an Epson 3880. The link is to Keith Schreiber's blog who published Walker's workaround to share with the world. 10 pages with photos I printed out.

https://jkschreiber.wordpress.com/2016/08/08how-to-disable-star-wheels-on-an-epson3880/

Anyways this is the level of support I get. Too bad for you that it is a private forum.

Also another quote from Walker, "Pro does not replicate or obsolete K7."
This was in response to a poster on a thread within this private forum. Anyways I have access to an expert, mentor, master printer.

I am learning so much, and now it becomes clear to me that having a dedicated K7 printer and a dedicated PP printer makes sense.

Also at B&H I somehow am widely known, and somehow I have a line on yet another Epson large format printer. I don't know the model yet, but I do know that it is a floor standing model without its stand, and that the heads are somewhat clogged. If it is a 7800 or 7880 this would be ideal, since I already own a complete set of carts dedicated for Piezoflush, and I also have an entire set of spare carts I initially bought for PP on my 7800.

My 7800 is kinda big, I call it the Jersey Barrier, and my fashion blogger girlfriend did not like the size of the printer when I brought it home to a 650 square foot apartment.

I'm not making fun of hill billies because I consider myself one. I say all the time that I use to be a hill billie from Queens, and that formally I was also a hill billie from Brooklyn, because now I live in Madhattan.

Also know that the expression "You know you are a hill billie when half the cars you own are not on the road or don't work." That definition definately pertains to me, and at one time I owned five cars. I'm sure my neighbors in the afluent suberbs of Long Island did not like living next to a hill billy, and in fact one neighbor asked and requested politely if I could not park my old car in front of her house (4 door blue 1960 Ford Falcon) basically because it was an eyesore. LOL.

So here is my hill billy wisdom. The best printers with the longest lifespans and print head life are the 38XX, 78XX, and 98XX series printers. These are the real work horses. They don't make them like they use to, and they made many of them. These printers are deemed user repairable, so one could do the hill billy thing and basically keep one going for decades. Also it would be wise to kinda create a used printer scrapyard if you are so inclined like me, even it involves renting Public Storage.

I also printed two 8 1/2X11's last night: one was on Canson Prestige, a baryta coated paper; and the other on Canson Baryta Photographique.
These are very bright smooth papers that have surfaces that resemble a silver wet print. The Prestige has a bit more texture that resembles very fine Italian goat leather of Prada like quality.

I had no curves for the Prestige because it is a brand new offering from Canson, and I only had the Prestige because my friend Robert Rodriguez from the Canson booth at PhotoPlusExpo gifted me a sample pack. I used the curves and settings for the Baryta Photographique for both prints. The results are a close match where one could see a difference, but no clear winner.

Years ago Robert Rodriguez and I became friends and back then I asked him about some of his work displayed at the Canson booth. In particular I wanted to know more about the Canson Platine Fibre Rag and the Canson Baryta Photographique.

Robert's response was having me handle a Platine Fibre Rag print to have me feel the weight and the 100% cotton rag, and then he revealed if you give a prospective buyer that experience of feeling the print that it promotes a sale.

On the other hand if it was a framed print Robert like the Baryta Photographique for its smoothness. This paper is mucho glossy and it reveals more detail via its smoothness. I can see why one might prefer the smoothness under glass and minimizing the scattering of light.

So now my experience of sadness last night has turned into rapture. The 3880 now is a very very valuable printer, and from the response from Walker from a posted thread I learned that it would be wise to maintain both K7 and PP.

For those who still want to purchase a 3880, last week I found on EBAY that Adorama was offering Epson refurbished 3880's for $829.00 with free shipping. Selling the $450 retail price of the OEM inkset can lower your costs further. Although not recommended I did not test my printer with color inks like it was recommended, and I gave the unused carts to a friend.

The hill billy in me wanted to buy one, even to store as a spare. I don't know how many are left currently, but last week they had six left. It seems from my data mining the only weak link in a 3880 is the switch and switching from Matte to Glossy. It seems either the switching or the valve fails. In my 3880 which I purchased new and got a $250.00 Epson rebate, I never loaded Matte Black ink, nor did I ever switch blacks.

It does seem that wide borders are a big selling point on a print, and surely borders offer a great presentation. I learned from professional framers at AI Friedman that they like 2 inch borders to float a print between a backing mat and a cut window mat. It seems the broad borders makes it easy for a print to lie flat. Because of this 13x19 is my image size and 17x22 is my paper size.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

I am very happy because I defeated the dreadful Pizza Wheel problem. It seems that by opening the front feed and tricking a switch that the pin wheels can be deactivated. The mod was advertised as non-destructive, but I ended up removing the paper guide off the front load because the suggested ramp only caused a head strike on the right edge of the print towards the tail end. I used some lightweight wire flush wire cutters and used about 2 1/2 inches of one inch masking tape to cover the wound.

I did not have a printer cleaning swab, so I improvised and used a disposable hearing protection foam plug, after I learned via probing with a chop stick that only a little force was required to activate the switch.

I also found out that the optional pushing out of the way of the hindged guides is manditory because with paper the front edge of the paper catches and begins to start folding your print. Basically the rest of the mod for digital negatives applies. There is a bit of a staircase from the front load to the regular exit tray, and I found that a subway map or anything about that thickness is required to prevent the paper from buckling towards the end of the print.

The good is: no more Pizza Wheels, you use the traditional rear single sheet loading, and you get perfect prints.

The bad: you have to permanently remove the right hand paper guide to avoid head strikes towards the end of your prints. (moot for me because in two years of ownership I never used the front feed.) Since the pinwheels are no longer used the end of the print can get skewed so rather large margins are required like 1 1/2 inches on the trailing edge.

So now a very negative limitation of the paper transport on a 3880 is gone, and it is replaced with a moot quirk because I like printing with wide margins anyway.

BTW the Canson Prestige and Canson Baryta Photographique make prints that truely look like silver wet prints. The smooth surfaces are really growing on me.

Cal

 

[Vince Lupo]

Cal, there are a number of sources (Epson included) that state that if you use the front load option, you won't have pizza wheels. I don't believe you need to go through any other process beyond simply using the front load option. I've used front loading exclusively for about two years and have never had an issue.

 

[Calzone]

Cal, there are a number of sources (Epson included) that state that if you use the front load option, you won't have pizza wheels. I don't believe you need to go through any other process beyond simply using the front load option. I've used front loading exclusively for about two years and have never had an issue.

Vince,

On some 3880's your front load suggestion does not work. Too bad on my machine it did not work.

In the link above the author had one 3880 that front loading worked, and one that didn't. Oh-well.

Anyways I really appreciated your suggestion from so long ago from another thread, but it didn't work for me.

Cal

 

[pareshpandit]

Hi,

Thanks for this thread, Cal; this is epic!

I am looking to buy an inkjet that can serve for both my printing needs in Colour as well as Black & White, and also to help with printing DN for Alt Processes. Somehow came across another thread @RFF about printers, and it was such a treat to have found my way to this thread eventually – lots of relevant info! 🙂

Now, I am in quite a soup in terms of choice out here, since only the Epson 4900 seems to be a real choice in my region (India – epson.co.in) for an archival-grade wide-gamut inkjet printer upto A3+. But I am concerned since you have time and again cited that it has serious clogging issues. The other credible choices from Epson here are L1800 , and SureColor SCP 407/607/807. I believe that none of these will be as compatible with Piezography either, and are not as good as the 4900 in terms of the OEM ink-set's gamut either. :/

All in all, think I need to go for the 4900 now. One question that I wanted to pose was: If I want to use both the OEM inks (for colour) and Piezography/PiezographyPro (for BW & DN), is it then advisable that I have two separate printers for these–since there will be too much ink loss in switching between them?

I am quite a newbie to deep-diving into such art-grade inkjet printing, so kindly do excuse my naivety. (Have long been getting things printed over the larger Epson LF Printers from a friendly lab, as needed. But I now feel the need to get into printing, to up my photography/creative skills, as well as to have a higher degree of output control.)

Many thanks in advance, for your guidance!

Best regards,
Paresh

 

[______]

The bad: you have to permanently remove the right hand paper guide to avoid head strikes towards the end of your prints. (moot for me because in two years of ownership I never used the front feed.) Since the pinwheels are no longer used the end of the print can get skewed so rather large margins are required like 1 1/2 inches on the trailing edge.

If you have 1.5" borders (or 2" borders as suggested by your framer friend), you are really limiting your print size with the 3880. Does that really make sense? 1" borders should be more than adequate.

 

[Calzone]

Hi,

Thanks for this thread, Cal; this is epic!

I am looking to buy an inkjet that can serve for both my printing needs in Colour as well as Black & White, and also to help with printing DN for Alt Processes. Somehow came across another thread @RFF about printers, and it was such a treat to have found my way to this thread eventually – lots of relevant info! 🙂

Now, I am in quite a soup in terms of choice out here, since only the Epson 4900 seems to be a real choice in my region (India – epson.co.in) for an archival-grade wide-gamut inkjet printer upto A3+. But I am concerned since you have time and again cited that it has serious clogging issues. The other credible choices from Epson here are L1800 , and SureColor SCP 407/607/807. I believe that none of these will be as compatible with Piezography either, and are not as good as the 4900 in terms of the OEM ink-set's gamut either. :/

All in all, think I need to go for the 4900 now. One question that I wanted to pose was: If I want to use both the OEM inks (for colour) and Piezography/PiezographyPro (for BW & DN), is it then advisable that I have two separate printers for these–since there will be too much ink loss in switching between them?

I am quite a newbie to deep-diving into such art-grade inkjet printing, so kindly do excuse my naivety. (Have long been getting things printed over the larger Epson LF Printers from a friendly lab, as needed. But I now feel the need to get into printing, to up my photography/creative skills, as well as to have a higher degree of output control.)

Many thanks in advance, for your guidance!

Best regards,
Paresh

Paresh,

I am flattered, but realize I am not a color printer, and any scope of knowledge I have is very-very narrowly focused. There are only two very small areas that I only have experience, and know that although I dove deep into full immersion that I only do a few things well.

I think having one printer for both color and B&W is not practical. I do know that when converting a color printer to a Piezography printer that "staining" can occur particularly in the yellow channel for some time, unless Piezoflush is used to clean out the residual inks/residue.

I assume the reverse would be true if converting B&W to color. BTW Piezoflush is not inexpensive. I buy it by the gallon which is about $300.00. Add onto that a set of carts. Know that even though I got my 7800 for only $100.00 that I ended up spending almost $500.00 to load it with Piezoflush to store it for almost half a year. I would estimate that each 7800 refilable cart is about 350-400 ml. My Jersey Barrier is a monster. The carts are oversized, and I removed the doors because they serve no purpose and because I did not want them to get trashed.

If you do get a 4900, 7900, or 9900 these printers could easily do your digital negatives and various types of Piezography without any ink changes. Clearly because of the vast amount of carts (11 I believe) the gamut is mucho wide.

I know there are many reports of clogging issues and short print head life, but there are also many reports of no issues. It does remain that the color inksets with the extra channels has great gamut, and also these extra channels allow a lot of flexibility for B&W and digital negatives without ink changes allowing a choice of capabilities.

One benefit is that Piezography Pro for the 4900 uses additional light-light cool and additional light-light warm. These additional shades are reported to make better/smoother highlights.

The X900 printers definitely are flexible and have capabilities, but if I were you you could buy two Epson 3880's that were refurbished by Epson that I mentioned in an above post and have two printers at a cost of 2x $829.00.

If you load PP into one you have digital negative and B&W one pass printing covered. In the second printer you would have your color printer and the extra $450.00 color inkset to utilize. Two 3880's will likely outlast one 4900 IMHO. I do not think you are considering the amount of money required for paper and ink.

In my first year of serious printing I spent $10K, granted that I still have some of those supplies, but add onto that I most recently (end of 2016) spent $3.1K on ink and carts alone and I need to stockpile paper... Also understand that part of last year I had both printers loaded with Piezoflush for a 6 month break from printing.

The refurbished 3880's I saw on EBAY last week and there were six available. Shipping was free but not to India. Have anyone here in the states? Friends? Family?

Anyways I know keeping and maintaining two printers is a lot. It is kinda crazy, but you sound like a serous guy like me.

Mucho more information on Jon Cone's Piezography.com as far as compatability, capability, and information overload if you want it.

Also know that when I do get yet another printer for color I hope to be able to use Cone Color Pigmented inks to keep costs low and use refillable carts.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

If you have 1.5" borders (or 2" borders as suggested by your framer friend), you are really limiting your print size with the 3880. Does that really make sense? 1" borders should be more than adequate.

F,

You are correct it is limiting print size on a 3880, but realize I also own and use a 7800 for printing larger.

Even with the 7800 there are limitations. On the 7800 one inch borders are minimum, and on some Epson printers there are rather severe margin limitations or special work arounds required.

There are things one can do and not do, and one must either compromise or except limitations. Everything is not perfect.

I think my framer friend was trying to explain best practices, but for practical reasons 2 inches allows flexibility in adding a border within the opening of the mat which can be pleasing. I think more paper under the mat might also help keep the print lay flatter. With only one inch one might limit options and flexibility.

Cal

 

[______]

11x14 on 13x19 paper leaves 1" and 2.5" boarders available. I would not want to have to step up to a 7800 just to print 11x14 (or 10x15 for full frame 35mm). I guess if you have a 7800, its a moot issue. Only so much space in my workroom.🙂

 

[vytasn]

I have an Epson P800 and the only option that does not give me pizza wheel marks with Canson Baryta is the front poster load option. I adjust the border size to accommodate this type of loading. I only notice the pizza wheel marks when I have extensive monochrome areas, otherwise I use the sheet feed.

 

[pareshpandit]

Paresh,

I am flattered, but realize I am not a color printer, and any scope of knowledge I have is very-very narrowly focused. There are only two very small areas that I only have experience, and know that although I dove deep into full immersion that I only do a few things well.

I think having one printer for both color and B&W is not practical. I do know that when converting a color printer to a Piezography printer that "staining" can occur particularly in the yellow channel for some time, unless Piezoflush is used to clean out the residual inks/residue.

I assume the reverse would be true if converting B&W to color. BTW Piezoflush is not inexpensive. I buy it by the gallon which is about $300.00. Add onto that a set of carts. Know that even though I got my 7800 for only $100.00 that I ended up spending almost $500.00 to load it with Piezoflush to store it for almost half a year. I would estimate that each 7800 refilable cart is about 350-400 ml. My Jersey Barrier is a monster. The carts are oversized, and I removed the doors because they serve no purpose and because I did not want them to get trashed.

If you do get a 4900, 7900, or 9900 these printers could easily do your digital negatives and various types of Piezography without any ink changes. Clearly because of the vast amount of carts (11 I believe) the gamut is mucho wide.

I know there are many reports of clogging issues and short print head life, but there are also many reports of no issues. It does remain that the color inksets with the extra channels has great gamut, and also these extra channels allow a lot of flexibility for B&W and digital negatives without ink changes allowing a choice of capabilities.

One benefit is that Piezography Pro for the 4900 uses additional light-light cool and additional light-light warm. These additional shades are reported to make better/smoother highlights.

The X900 printers definitely are flexible and have capabilities, but if I were you you could buy two Epson 3880's that were refurbished by Epson that I mentioned in an above post and have two printers at a cost of 2x $829.00.

If you load PP into one you have digital negative and B&W one pass printing covered. In the second printer you would have your color printer and the extra $450.00 color inkset to utilize. Two 3880's will likely outlast one 4900 IMHO. I do not think you are considering the amount of money required for paper and ink.

In my first year of serious printing I spent $10K, granted that I still have some of those supplies, but add onto that I most recently (end of 2016) spent $3.1K on ink and carts alone and I need to stockpile paper... Also understand that part of last year I had both printers loaded with Piezoflush for a 6 month break from printing.

The refurbished 3880's I saw on EBAY last week and there were six available. Shipping was free but not to India. Have anyone here in the states? Friends? Family?

Anyways I know keeping and maintaining two printers is a lot. It is kinda crazy, but you sound like a serous guy like me.

Mucho more information on Jon Cone's Piezography.com as far as compatability, capability, and information overload if you want it.

Also know that when I do get yet another printer for color I hope to be able to use Cone Color Pigmented inks to keep costs low and use refillable carts.

Cal

Hi Cal,

Many thanks for addressing my post in detail; humbly appreciate it. 🙂

Like you said, I am also not really looking at it so much for colour reproduction at the moment, as much for BW and DN, primarily! And you are right also in mentioning that I am getting ready to wholeheartedly dive into this now, in all seriousness. Why do anything any other way than the way it is supposed to be done, right!? [Especially considering the costs involved, am testing my waters and making photographer-level back-of-the-envelope-calculations to make sure that I don't end up gathering all the equipment and then not have money for ink/paper/salts/chemicals/etc...] Fingers crossed on that one! ;D

I concur with your suggestion that perhaps I should invest in two refurb/well-kept 3880s instead of a new 4900 or something. This way, I guess, I can also keep open the option of acquiring them one by one while incurring lesser costs at a time. I plan to probably start with at least one, and purchase PP (am on the wait list for updates already 😉 ) and maybe also PiezoFlush with it. This makes sense to me as I think that it is more crucial to ensure the right workflow for a BW and DN before colour. Because OEMs are focussing so much on colour, so it doesn't really leave too much to tune, comparatively. So for colour, I can still keep getting a pretty good result form my current print-lab which has 9X00s with Epson inks.

Further, for colour, on a second 3880, I can perhaps get the Cone Colour supplies, like you suggested, at a later time. On verra.

Also, when you suggested eFay, realised that I can get a printer sans-ink over eFay. There is a dual advantage to it. For one, I can immediately switch to PP; and for another, this gives a lower CIF value in case I have to get it shipped somehow from the US. Thus, lesser charge at the customs, if it comes-in by courier. [Because, tbh, even if I get it delivered to a friend/relative @ US, there is again a question of carrying it along, and waiting-out for them to make an India trip.] Thus, I am also thinking re-shippers at this moment. Not sure though.

All in all, thanks to your advise, and thoughts that have sparked form it, this is starting to sound like a much solid plan...!! 🙂

Best regards,
Paresh

 

[Calzone]

Like you said, I am also not really looking at it so much for colour reproduction at the moment, as much for BW and DN, primarily! And you are right also in mentioning that I am getting ready to wholeheartedly dive into this now, in all seriousness. Why do anything any other way than the way it is supposed to be done, right!? [Especially considering the costs involved, am testing my waters and making photographer-level back-of-the-envelope-calculations to make sure that I don't end up gathering all the equipment and then not have money for ink/paper/salts/chemicals/etc...] Fingers crossed on that one! ;D


Paresh

Paresh,

You are welcome.

Understand that 4 years ago I bought a Leica Monochrom ($8K) and for only the last two years have I been printing digitally.

Anyways it kinda pays to hold off until you really know what you want because even a 3880 can use a lot of paper and ink. A 7800 is even more thirsty and hungry.

Do you research. For those first two years when I first had my MM all I did was read and do research. I'm glad I did.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

11x14 on 13x19 paper leaves 1" and 2.5" boarders available. I would not want to have to step up to a 7800 just to print 11x14 (or 10x15 for full frame 35mm). I guess if you have a 7800, its a moot issue. Only so much space in my workroom.🙂

I came up with a solution I will call the "Faberrman Workaround" that allows me to print with small borders.

Using "Print Tool" I create a custom paper size that is half the 13x19 sheet size. In my case I set up 1 inch borders on three sides to make a print that has an 11 inch length, I have to invert the image upside down to get the placement I want on the page, and I print half the sheet. After the image is printed the sheet gets ejected. This allows me to use different/separate printer driver blended curves. Basically no hassle, but a little extra work.

It seems that the exaggerated border is only needed at the tail end of the print, so I leave a rather big tail that is half the sheet, I let the first print dry and then print on the unused side of the sheet to print two prints on one 13x19.

I have not done it yet but I don't see why I couldn't reduce the borders further and print say two 8x12's on one sheet of 13x19. I printed about ten prints like this on Canson Platine Fibre Rag instead of watching the Golden Globe Awards with my gal. I likely could reduce the borders to 1/4 inch if I wanted to, but it would be two prints to one sheet.

Cal

 

[______]

I print small full frame 35mm silver gelatin prints at 6.25 x 9.375 on 8x10 paper (about 6.5x enlargement). That gives me .875" and .315" borders. I over mat with a 6x9 opening which gives me an even 2.5" mat border all the way around in an 11x14 frame. I don't have any problems with the prints not staying flat under the mat. It may sound stingy, but 11x14 paper cost double what 8x10 paper cost, so borders are expensive. If I were selling my prints for $1000 a pop, then I would do it differently. My prints are not going to end up in a museum so I don't worry about what a curator will be saying under his breath as he mounts a retrospective. Some people like to have the white border of the print show inside the mat, so my dimensions wouldn't work for them. I do it the old fashion way. You have more flexibility with digital prints because the paper comes in the 8.5x11 size. I won't bore you with the details of my larger size prints.

 

[Calzone]

So I have used PP enough to express some opinion. The blacks are profound and are likely the blackest black I have ever seen, so much so that the contrast can be heavy, and on some optimized tiffs for K7 contrast has to be lowered. The net effect of PP is not only a darker black, but more contrast.

I can see why K7 is not obsolete: it is just different, but PP wins as far as wider dynamic range, a darker black, and convenience. To print a half sheet of 13x19 it takes only 8 minutes at 2880 DPI and unidirectional.

K7 seems to use a heavier dose of Gloss Overcoat, and in use one uses mostly mid tones, very little black, and only a little of the light tones. In K7 the overlapping of curves for each ink is broader, and there are more inks, but I do not see any difference in the highlights between a K7 print to a PP when comparing 13x19's. It will likely take a much larger print to see any difference in the highlights, but in the shadows PP is mucho deeper. In use PP inks seem to all go down and get consumed at the same rate.

I would believe that K7 will likely control the mid domain with more shades and longer "tails" that overlap on the curves, but it will take 20x30's maybe to see the difference.

That is the problem with Piezography. Small prints are kinda high contrast, and a lot of detail is not revealed until the image is printed big. When printed big (bigger than 13x19) that's when the tonal range really expands and the midrange opens up in a profound way.

I can already see that my small prints are somewhat compressed in both tone and detail, but the contrast is punchy and striking.

I am finding that using the "Faberryman Workaround" to be easy to use and convenient and fast. I made my custom paper profile the perfect size so that I can center an image with an exactly 11 inch width to have a 1 inch border on all four sides. There remains about a half inch gap, a no man's land of sorts, that divides and separates the two prints. I did this intentionally because my 3880, Canson Platine Fibre Rag, and PP are ideal to create pages to create an workbook of prints that I can bind individual pages of 100% rag paper into a book. I can write the curve settings on the back of the prints with file number and other useful information.

Saturday was a frustrating day of mucho headstrikes and wasting of paper. It seems that the ink load is kinda severe so there may be a size limitation to a 3880. It seems as print size gets scaled up so does the ink load, but not in a linear manner. Raising the platine to wide and even wider did not prevent headstrikes with Jon Cone Type 5 because the paper buckles and bows like a banana.

Anyways it seems the PP loves smoother baryta papers. The Baryta Photographic which is $1.27 a sheet in 8 1/2x11 with NYC sales tax is my cheap paper (celulose), and it is a very bright paper. The Canson Presige is brighter still, but costly. I think the Canson Platine Fibre Rag is a great paper, slightly textured, but still smooth. Being a 100% rag paper, it has that feel in the hands. The Prestige is a blend of cotton and cellulose and somehow costs more than the Platine.

So 3880 for making books I am finding to be the inspiration. I hope to scale everything up one day to the 7800 and 24 inch roll paper to make a "table book" using all cotton rag paper. Anyways an impressive way to show your work, but still not too big to handle.

BTW the small prints already "speak." They look great, and because of the Gloss Chroma Overcoat they are durable and can be handled. Basically I can drool on my prints and cause no damage. LOL.

Cal