Digital Negatives with PDN+Piezography K7

[joncone@cone-editions.com]

David,

I am not trying to be an ink salesman and sell you something, but we make 8.5x11 negs for $63.92 on the online service. Right now we have the 1.20 to 2.0 DR inkset installed in our neg printer. If I had the 3.0 installed, you could upload the test file of your choice and order it and choose your shipping option.

But, when the new 2.50DR is done, I will make you a free target and you can just pay the FedEx to have it delivered to NZ.

It is a good idea about sample step wedges. We do sell small $5 sample prints of all the various Piezography ink sets on 4x6 paper. Film strips is a good idea - especially the PDN 101.

The online printing service is more of a direct sample making system because the customer uploads their particular image and can try their own work in any ink/paper combination up to 24x36 inches.

If you're curious that's here. And I hope you don't think that now I am officially a printmaking salesman. I know...I know....probably will never let you forget that.

lol

regards,

Jon

I am ok with the log 3 curve. Sandys curves print with 3% Ammonium Dichromate. I can use a different % Dichromate to print with different contrast. I dont want anything special, all I want to see is if I can make the standard curve work. If I cant then I will truncate it as you recommend.
Having thought about it a little, the PDN 101 step tablet would be ideal, it has those little squares at the corners which are useful for understanding the relief you can achieve as well as the resolution. I have converted mine to a tiff. I can then compare my curve with yours. Mine is dodgy so there is no risk for you there. It is important to me that I pay something reasonable for it, I am not after free stuff.

You are free to decline too, but it seems that it would be a good idea for you to offer wedges printed with your curve and inkset, just as you offer sample prints.

[David Karp]

Of course, Ilford are film salespeople, and Keith Canham is a camera salesman, and Jim at MPEX sells a lot of different kinds of photo stuff, photographers who sell their work are photo salespeople . . . . We don't hold that against them.

If there was nothing to sell, we would not have any cameras or film or paper or anything to work with.

Jon, I hope you sell a lot of ink.

[mdm]

I am shure he will. There is no denying that is what he is here to do. $63 plus shipping for a step wedge is steep, I am thinking about it.

[joncone@cone-editions.com]

David,

Please don't think about it anymore. If I have to keep taking s*** from you for being here, at least I can choose to take back my offer to print you a free 101PDN target, and choose to not take any of your money. I wish peace on you, but I'm not going to work for you.

Jon

I am shure he will. There is no denying that is what he is here to do. $63 plus shipping for a step wedge is steep, I am thinking about it.

[Bruce Watson]

There is no denying that is what he is here to do.

Actually, there is. I deny it.

Jon Cone is a lot of things, but first and foremost he's a passionate print maker, generous with his knowledge. He's primarily here to help people improve their print making.

[Peter J. De Smidt]

Actually, there is. I deny it.

I agree. Mr. Cone has spent a lot of time on various forums sharing his knowledge, and he's been very generous with offers to make special curves....for very little money. It's ridiculous to keep implying that he's really all about the money.

[sanking]

I agree. Mr. Cone has spent a lot of time on various forums sharing his knowledge, and he's been very generous with offers to make special curves....for very little money. It's ridiculous to keep implying that he's really all about the money.

I started this thread to make sure people knew about Jon Cone's work in creating Piezography curves for the K7 ink set, in large measure because he has been so generous with me in sharing information, offering to make profiles for my printer, and hell, he even sent me some "free" ink to see if one of his existing profiles would work with my printer.

And all those profiles you get for the K7 Piezography ink for inkjet prints are free. They come with QTR and to use them all you have to do is replace the Epson inks in your Epson printer with a Cone K7 set. Kind of a no brainer since you wind up saving a whole lot of money if you compare the cost of K7 and Epson inks. And these are really good inks, BTW.

Jon Cone is clearly a very important asset to the photographic community and we are fortunate to have him join us here and help to carry on this dialog about a method for making digitial negatives that offers great promise for optimizing the quality of our prints, both with silver gelatin and with some alternative processes.

If you did not know what I thought about this before, you do now.

Sandy King

[mdm]

Please dont take offence. I do not mean to hurt you in any way. You probably make more nice prints in a day than I will ever make in my lifetime. There is danger in just accepting what well known people say like sheep. Perhaps that is my problem, I just cant let some things go by. Your inks and curves are carefully made and they can stand up to whatever is thrown at them and you deserve a great deal of respect for sticking to your guns.

I apologise.

I will do what I am going to do. Dont worry about me and your offer. Life is too short.

(Sorry I have been sleeping through all this.)

[John Z.]

Jon,
I use the PDN system currently, and have been carefully learning a new digital negative system over the past year. My goal is to make contact prints with Lodima paper, which I now have started doing that with an Epson 3800 Pro printer and Photoshop CS5.
I do not have a lot of experience with Quad driver profiles and the like, but look forward to any curves you generate for the 3800 printer. When the profiles are available, I will gladly purchase your inkset and try it out; this is really very exciting work.

Cheers,

John