Piezography: Ansel Adams and the inkjet print

[Jonathan Brewer]

Micheal, what you say sounds good, and makes perfect sense. I agree with everything you say, but what I would have wished for and I hope anyone who is considering going digital would in fact talk to, is a guide or mentor that can steer you away from the hype, misinformation, lies, deceptive ads, companies that throw hardware and software out there without adequate support and towards the stuff that works supported by people who are willing to fix their stuff when it goes wrong with no hassles.

Digital is GREAT, WHEN it workS right! But for digital to work, everything HAS to work TOGETHER! The perception which the makers of digital hardware and software make no effort to change, is that if you're considering digital, all you have to do is buy this or that and hook it up, and you are running. The CD burner that I now swear by originally gave me serious problems. I called several times and when they realized that I was going to be a pain in the ass until they solved my problems they told me that their software didn't really work and recommended another companies software! I bought that software and didn't have another problem! You know I would have loved to have known this about this CD burner before I bought it.

Your whole system is made up of several pieces of hardware and countless software programs that have to get along with each other and when don't talk to each other you can spend days or weeks trying to fix your system, which is time you could've been spending on manipulating your images.

I don't really disagree with your thoughts about digital but I do hold the manufacturers of digital hardware and software accountable for putting out products that are not ready for the market. Whether it works or not, they shove it on the market and figure that we'll pay for the fixes(upgrades), that should have been in the original product.

You would think when it came to digital and electronics, that there would be a quest for excellence, a long term loyalty toward the product, and a commitment toward courtesy when dealing with the people who bought your product, but I find this attitude scarce in the digital world. Anybody who has anything to do with this forum who say for the sake of argument, had a camera that would quit working three to four times during the exposure of a single roll of film and the camera did this on a regular basis simply wouldn't tolerate it or an indifferent attitude from the manufacturer or dealer who sold you that piece of equipment. You'd put them straight and quick! Too many People who produce digital hardware and software don't feel the same way.

The point I'm trying to make is that digital is useful, but that are are lot of hassles and I don't believe digital is easier or faster than traditional photography when you consider the downtime involved when your scanner, or computer, or printer is on the blink.

I had to ship my system back to the manufacturer twice and for those two individual problems it took six weeks. You know what I did for those six weeks? I went out and shot with my cameras. My cameras and strobes and meters and so on, almost always work. One of my fathers cameras that I have works, and has worked for 25yrs without skipping a beat. There is NO REASON on earth that digital can't be like this!

[kthompson]

So, what happens if you lose power?? Sorry, I'm not trying to be a smart*** here....in an ideal world digital could be as you described, but one problem is in that we are really in the dark ages here....there's a bit of comfort in knowing that with a large format transparency or even a neg, or a contact print you can still get the basic info. you need without power....

[Jonathan Brewer]

An electronic camera can lose power, a mechanical camera can stop working, and I've got both. I've got 6 cameras and one of 'em stops working about once every ten years.

That idiot with the 8x10 is a lot better off than the idiot who got 'sweetalked' into buying the wrong digital hardware or software.

It's the old Richard Pryor joke over and over again. 'Are you gonna believe me or your lyin eyes'.

[Malcolm Matusky]

What is your goal? I invested heavly into digital printing, not capture, last fall and would never look back! I am a commercial photographer and being able to work on an image in PS is such a tremendous improvement over conventional darkroom work that there is no comparison. If your goal is to produce hand crafted contact prints, this is not the "work-flow" for you, but if your goal is like mine, to work professionally as an imagemaker there is no other process that enables such a variety of creative input in an image as a PS system. A digital workflow is not efficient making a "straight" print from a negative, that is not my "goal" so I am not bemoning the difference between PS and a darkroom. I have read many posts on this subject and have noticed there is alot of confusion as to what the final "goal" of the photographer is. Commercial, Fine Art, hand crafted prints??? an so on... Why make the comparison when the digital system is just another process the creative mind can use to it's own end.

[Jonathan Brewer]

If you refer to my posts, then I suggest that you reread them because you misrepresent what I had to say. I have several goals, 35mm shooting, MF shooting, and now 8x10 shooting, producing photomechanical prints, and digital capture and output.

Nobody is bemoaning anything except the shoddy workmanship, indifference, arrogance, misrepresentations, and lies that I have encountered too many times when buying digital hardware and software. It doesn't make any difference what you're goal is if you're left to pursue it with equipment that doesn't work, or works badly.

When I consider a piece of equipment whether it's digital or anything else, and I call you up about that equipment, I expect you to tell me the truth, if you don't then you've lied. You mention printing as one of your 'goals', what are you gonna do if you get a printer that doesn't print, or prints badly? You get it fixed, or replaced, and when you call about that printer you expect those people on the other end of the line to be respectful and prompt in fixing or replacing the equipment you paid good money for.

There is great digital equipment out there, but you have you head in the sand if you don't realize there is also lousy equipment out there made by people who don't care.

You have confused the issues, I've got digital among other things, and I love using it, the idea of using digital in not my complaint. You can diminish or belittle what I'm saying by implying that I'm crying about it, but whether you like what I've said or not, it's the truth. Digital being in its infancy, has to have the con men, the market hype, ridiculous claims, and people who don't take pride in workmanship, to fall by the wayside in order to grow.

Everything I've had to say, is with the poster in mind who is considering getting into to digital, and suggests reasoned choices with a mentor looking over his or her shoulder making it a much easier road than the one I followed when I got into digital. If this isn't reasonable to you, then you're on another agenda.

[Michael Chmilar]

I agree with many of Jonathan's comments, and I believe that his warnings are valid. It sounds like he has endured are great deal of frustration, and that is often the case with computers. It doesn't only happen in digital imaging, but with all hardware and software.

Frustrating problems are more likely to happen with digital imaging because more variables come into play: in addition to the basic computer and software, you also have scanners, cameras, printers, etc. With each addition, there are chances for conflicts and incompatibilities. Also, digital imaging stresses your system more than other applications, such as word processing.

So, I second Jonathan's advice to find a mentor. If that is not possible, look for classes/courses/seminars on the subject (hopefully they will not be "sales pitches"). Sales people should not be believed; manufacturers claims are inherently suspicious.

Forums such as this one are invaluable. Experienced people are answering questions, giving advice, and debate on controversial topics. I have learned a lot here. I hope I can help others.

For a personal example, I recently wanted to learn how to make high-quality color prints from my 4x5 transparencies. I am particularly interested in digital, because I want a high degree of control and I do not set up a darkroom. From this forum and other web-surfing, I discovered that many methods are available, from Iris and other inkjet processes to the LightJet.

In the end, I decided to explore the LightJet, and found that a class is taught in Santa Clara, CA (at Calypso Imaging) by Bill Atkinson and Charles Cramer, both of whom produce beautiful prints (I had seen their prints in person, already, and knew they were printed via LightJet).

After the weekend class, I am able to prepare my own prints for the LightJet. If I had not taken the class, I would probably spend many months "floundering", trying to figure out how to get good results. Fortunately, Charlie and Bill have done the hard work, and are gracious enough to teach others. (I highly recommend this class to anyone who wants to learn digital printing.)

This type of experience makes working in digital a pleasure, rather than a nightmare. (Okay, we'll still get disk crashes, system freezes, software/hardware conflicts, etc. You can minimize some of the risks by saving often, and making backups.)

As to B&W printing, I am still exploring. I have a Piezo setup, but I haven't learned to systematically make great prints with it yet. Hopefully, a greater body of experience will grow through these forums to help us all.

At the West Coast Imaging Piezography Summit, I am hoping for two things: To see examples of great prints that inspire me to make great prints, and to interact with other Piezo users to advance towards that goal.

[Paul Roark]

There is a new forum that is devoted to all methods of printing B&W from digital files. It's attracted most of the best posters for that issue from the other scattered lists. If you are interested in digital B&W, check it out.

The new forum is at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint/message

[abiggs]

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

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.

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.

Since I noticed some banding, we decided to clean the heads of the printer before we went any further.

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.

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.

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.

[fw]

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

[Michael Feldman]

Fw:

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.