Piezography printing on EPSON 4800?

[photobymike]

Is there anybody that is using Jon Cone's Piezography ink on there Epson printer?
How hard is it to convert to Piezography ink?
How much better is the prints with Piezography, than the Epson K3 system?
Is there another system for printing Monochrome on Epson wide printers 3800 4800 and bigger?
Should i buy a new printer maybe? Is there an Epson printer that works well with Piezography?... i am thinking About r2880 Epson.

This will be a big financial decision for me. So any experience will be very helpful
thanks michael


http://www.mikepic.com

[Kirk Gittings]

I've used it on a 3800 and a 7800. Gradation and sharpness is better with Piezography-though it will depend on the micro detail and tonality of a print to really notice it. Changing ink tone will be more of a hassle as you will have to try different media and or buy some different inks. Permanence is better with some Cone inks-like the pure carbon sepia ink set.

[Lenny Eiger]

Is there anybody that is using Jon Cone's Piezography ink on there Epson printer?

Yes, there are many. There is a group on yahoo called piezography3000 you may want to ask these questions at. Jon Cone also listens in and is usually very helpful.

How hard is it to convert to Piezography ink?

You clear out the color ink with some flushing cartridges and then load in the new ink. Very easy.

How much better is the prints with Piezography, than the Epson K3 system?

This is one of those questions that can start a war over here. It is my opinion that there is a substantial difference. It all depends on what you are looking for. If the differences that the b&w ink afford you are the kind of differences you want to see in your print, then its worth it. There is much more subtlety with the Cone inkset than with using color ink. Not everyone that prints in b&w is after subtlety. So, there are those that swear by it and others that think its meaningless. I've spent a fortune in ink and time developing my own mix of Cone's inks. It just depends on what you want your prints to look like...[/QUOTE]

Is there another system for printing Monochrome on Epson wide printers 3800 4800 and bigger?

Yes, MIS has another strategy. I don't like it as much. Legion used to do something as well. Cone is the one that has really done the research, and worked with everyone to make it better and better.

Should i buy a new printer maybe? Is there an Epson printer that works well with Piezography?... i am thinking About r2880 Epson.

This is a question for Cone.... or someone else on that other list... I don't have a good answer for you.

Best of luck.

Lenny

[Pete Suttner]

I'm glad someone else asked these questions, I've been thinking about converting my 3800 for a while now. A local source said K3 inks are as good for tonal gradations but that is one man's opinion. I've seen some awesome prints from Cone ink sets from a highly skilled printer. It will be interesting to follow this thread. Please more opinions!

Pete

[photobymike]

I have asked Jon a lot of questions... i would prefer peoples opinions that dont have a dollar to be made... Also despite the differences, The LF contributors are the most knowledgeable photographers on any board. There are some real expert super stars of photography here. I have learned a lot about my art from everybody that contributes.

Lenny: i am interested in any opinions.

Kirk: There is only 3 types of paper i use.... Ilford Pearl and Glossy, And Moab Entrada when i want to go thru the hassle of switching carts.... I have spent a lot time and money "learning" these papers. Any suggestions on paper?

[Kirk Gittings]

Ilford Pearl and Glossy use the glossy inks and the Entrada is mat right? Two different ink sets. The first thing you need to do is decide on mat or glossy inksets. I don't have any experience with the gloss ink set, but I have been tempted by the deeper DMax

[Peter De Smidt]

I've seen really good prints from a number of systems, including Epson K3, Piezography, MIS Eboni inksets.... They have some different qualities, but a serious worker can make very good prints with any of them, although one set might fit better with a specific printer's goals.

There are lots of things to consider, such as matte or glossy, image tone, permanence, consistency, bronzing, gloss uniformity, use of glop, ease of use, pigment settling, one or two pass, just to name a few. In addition, what's ideal in a printer with 2 pico liter drop sizes might not be what's ideal in one of the bigger printers with bigger drop sizes.

Regarding permanence, the best info is at http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/
To summarize, pure carbon inksets, such as Eboni-6 or Cone's Sepia Piezography set are the longest lasting. These are quite warm on most papers. Neutralized carbon pigments can also be very good, such as HP PK or Cone's neutralish inksets, although they aren't as long lasting has pure carbon. The more color you use to get the image tone you'd like, the more color shifts you'll have down the road, but the road might be long enough that it isn't important for you.

I've used Piezography on matte papers, and it's got a lot of good attributes. In addition, Mr. Cone is very helpful and responsive.

Paul Roark has also done a lot of work on black and white inksets. See:
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/

With both of these, you'll see people complaining about some of the inksets used years ago. It doesn't mean those issues still apply.

Glossy prints are more demanding than matte prints, since with glossy prints you have to deal with bronzing, metamerism, roller marks... Some systems will require you to spray the print with something like Print Shield, or use glop (gloss optimizer), perhaps with a second pass. If you know that you're not willing to spray or coat prints, than that rules out some options.

You could use your 4800 with funnel fill cartridges, using MIS PK for the black and dilutions of HP PK in MIS Glop for the lighter tones. This would give very neutral tones on a number of papers. YOu could include a MIS glossy LK and LLK to make the image warmer, if needed. If you prefer warmer prints, then you could use an approach using MIS PK inks and some extra dilutions. Either approach requires using QTR for the print driver. This is a fairly labor intensive approach. If you don't want to do that, strongly consider Cone's glossy inkset. It's more of a turnkey solution, but it is more limited in some ways. I believe it requires a second pass with glop, and you change image tone by changing papers.

[joncone@cone-editions.com]

I won't talk about the merits of Piezography over other systems as I believe that the results speak for themselves...and you would prefer to have the opinions of users rather than the product's developer.

But, I did want to mention that I am developing new Piezography systems which will bring matte/glossy to those 8 ink printers that can currently only print matte or only print gloss. Your 4800 would fit into that category. We will decrease the shades from 7 to 6 as an option and include both matte and photo blacks as well as the Gloss Overprint on the supported 8 ink cart position printers. The regular K7 systems will still be available of course. And we will revamp the 9 and 10 cart position printers to use two or three different Piezography ink sets so that these can be blended nearly in infinite ways using 2 or 3 curves blending in QTR. I have been using a system like this for my own work for several years and it's really quite mind boggling in terms of complicated yet subtle split tones. It's a way to make an autographic mixture without having to pour inks from the bottles into special blends.

Adding R3000, R2000, X900 (including 490), and X980s in the Fall as well. So the options will increase in terms of matte/glossy flexibility as upgrades to current users by swapping out a couple inks and using new curves, and we will have blending available on printers that use 8 - 10 ink cart positions as an option for those who do not want straight K7 systems.

I maintain a blog at http://www.piezography.com where these details will begin to emerge.

Jon Cone
Piezography
available at: InkjetMall.com

[Chuck Kimmerle]

How much better is the prints with Piezography, than the Epson K3 system?.....Is there another system for printing Monochrome on Epson wide printers 3800 4800 and bigger?

Your question as to which is better is somewhat loaded, as the method to lay down the inks is as important as the quality of the inks. For b/w prints, for example, the Epson b/w module is pretty good but, as it's not color-managed, there is a lot of trial and error to obtain acceptable results. Even then, the prints are often lacking subtle detail.

I've used the Cone inks and they are very nice, but another option to consider is a Raster Image Processor (RIP) such as QuadToneRIP (QTR) or Imageprint. Both use the standard Epson inks to create b/w prints that rival 3rd-party gray inksets such as Cone, with the added benefit of being able to print color prints, when needed.

QTR is a $50 shareware application with the ability to create custom profiles but can print only one image at a time. Imageprint is much more expensive and, aside from the inability to create home-grown custom profiles, has much more flexibility and, IMHO, produces slightly finer prints. Both RIP's however, create amazing prints. For the 17" printers, Imageprint is something like $900. Expensive, yes, but it's worth it. I chose this option rather than Cone inks not because of a quality difference, but rather because it was a better fit with how I work.

Either the Cone inks or one of the RIPs will do you well, it's just a matter of personal preference and workflow. You'll find supporters of all three, each of whom will claim their method produces the better print, but as all are excellent, you really can't go wrong.

[Peter De Smidt]

You can use rips with BW inksets from MIS and Cone. In fact, at least one of their inksets requires using QTR.

The main difference between the Epson OEM solutions and the better third party inksets is that the OEM MK, PK, LK and LLK inks aren't very neutral, with the PK at least having a greenish-yellowish tinge. This means that however you print with them, whether the Epson driver or a rip, you'll have to add other color inks to get what most think of as a pleasing image tone. On the plus side, OEM inks tend to get a very high dmax, and they have minimal gloss differential and bronzing without having to resort to clear-coating the print, whether with a spray or with glop, and they tend to have a very high consistency.

I highly recommend that the original poster get some sample prints made, maybe even having his own image printed. Inkjetmall (i.e. Mr. Cone) offers a printing service with various inksets and papers, and Mr. Roark has been willing to make sample prints for a small amount in the past. He really focuses on matte printing for his fine-art images though. With OEM inks and Epson's ABW approach, you might see if Clayton Jones would make a print for you. (http://www.cjcom.net/articles/digiprn5.htm) Mr. Cone's new glossy systems have a lot of promise, as I'm not a big fan of running a print through the printer twice, or having to set aside a second printer as an over-coating machine.