Get me started in piezography

[Darin Boville]

O.K., I just ordered a new Epson 3880 and will be dedicating my old 3800 to Piezography. However, I'm still bewildered as to how to get going. The Piezography web site is unorganized and confusing and there don't seem to be *any* piezography videos on YouTube other than old "how to fill cartridges" videos. Weird.

Here are the points that I'm *still* not clear on...

I understand I need empty/chipped cartridges for the Piezography inks. But do I really need flush liquid and separate flush carts if I won't be switching the 3800 back to color? Won't a full cleaning or two remove the color ink from the lines? Or should I flush them after each printing session to avoid clogs? Second question--are these carts available from any other reliable source--or can I make them from empty Epson 3800 carts?

Inks and paper--which to get? I know that the inks are warmer or colder, etc and I know that this varies by paper--some papers interacting in surprising ways. Fine. But is there a chart or other way to estimate the result with popular papers? I see all sort of posts of various forums about this paper or that but no organized list. Any suggestions of what to use if I currently like the color of Epson inks on Ilford Gold Silk? Is my best bet going with a matte paper?

What is up with the carbon ink? Is there a downside compared to their earlier inks--the web site text is unclear.

--Darin

[Lenny Eiger]

Darin,
If you have never put color ink in the printer, and you don't intend to, then you don't need the flush carts. That is, unless you want to leave it for a month or two while you go on vacation (I wish I could do that).

Better paper is better, by a long shot. Top papers are Hahnemuhle PhotoRag and Canson and Kozo. That's just to name a few, in the matte range. There are plenty others in the glossy arena, which I tend to ignore, I'm not particularly interested...

As to the ink color, talk to them. They have a set of examples they can send, the same image printed in all the sets. Choose the one which you like and go with it..

There is a difference to the earlier inks, I wouldn't call it a downside. They are different colors. There are many upsides, however, there is little clogging in comparison to the early days. If you wanted to mix and max different inks to cool down the shadows or warm them up,. for example, you could do that. However, you have to clean enough to get rid of the ink in the lines and it can be expensive.

I really like mat papers. I can't imagine printing on anything else. Come on over and visit , if you are around... I have plenty of examples of most of the inskets...

Lenny

[joncone@cone-editions.com]

Darin,

If I was you I would read the NEW Piezography Manual which can be found in the Tech Support section of the Piezography website. It's 72 pages and very comprehensive. It also covers Piezography Digital Negatives now. Piezography has a very specific Gamma 2.20 workflow that is not compatible with how others use QTR. So that is critical. Do NOT follow the QTR manual or you will not get the benefits of the Piezography curves. They are designed in a totally different way than the curves that people design themselves. We use our own profiling system rather than the QTR Tools.

You can choose NOT to flush your printer. You can for example - flush the printer with the Piezography inks. It will take a minimum of three POWER CLEANS to bring the inks to the print heads. The Yellow position has a lot of staining power. You may see some yellow in your Piezography prints but it will eventually go away - or you can simply print only through this ink channel until it is gone. Yellow OEM pigment is like that. Flushing with PiezoFlush is quicker - but in the end the decision is yours.

Once the Piezography ink is in the printer, you should not need to flush with PiezoFlush unless you need to or wish to abandon the printer for a month. IN that case - it is always wise to fill with PiezoFlush because it is an excellent and safe storage fluid.

You can buy another brand of carts but InkjetMall will not support them. Carts all look alike but definitely are not. Ours do not require OEM chips that still read partially fill. You can use completely empty OEM chips with ours. We do not have flow issues, etc..

If you would like to get a preview of results using SOftProof ICC profiles - download them from this post:

http://www.piezography.com/PiezoPres...soft-proofing/

I like fine art matte papers - but sometimes I like baryta papers. I am partial to my own papers which are Type 2 (best dmax but without any OBAs...so a natural white) and Type 5 (which has the best baryta surface...no decorative treatments or patterns).

The new K7 / K6 inks are now encapsulated pigment particles (similar to HP and Epson) - so they will rarely clog if ever. The inks are in seven shades rather than in four shades. The earlier PiezoTones did not faithfully carry the same *ab from shade to shade whereas the K7/K6 inks do.

We have free technical support at InkjetMall and you can just click on the FREE Technical Support link under Tech Support items on the website. The Piezography manual is also located on the tech site as well as all the cartridge instructions, etc...

or fill free to ask me here.

O.K., I just ordered a new Epson 3880 and will be dedicating my old 3800 to Piezography. However, I'm still bewildered as to how to get going. The Piezography web site is unorganized and confusing and there don't seem to be *any* piezography videos on YouTube other than old "how to fill cartridges" videos. Weird.

Here are the points that I'm *still* not clear on...

I understand I need empty/chipped cartridges for the Piezography inks. But do I really need flush liquid and separate flush carts if I won't be switching the 3800 back to color? Won't a full cleaning or two remove the color ink from the lines? Or should I flush them after each printing session to avoid clogs? Second question--are these carts available from any other reliable source--or can I make them from empty Epson 3800 carts?

Inks and paper--which to get? I know that the inks are warmer or colder, etc and I know that this varies by paper--some papers interacting in surprising ways. Fine. But is there a chart or other way to estimate the result with popular papers? I see all sort of posts of various forums about this paper or that but no organized list. Any suggestions of what to use if I currently like the color of Epson inks on Ilford Gold Silk? Is my best bet going with a matte paper?

What is up with the carbon ink? Is there a downside compared to their earlier inks--the web site text is unclear.

--Darin

[Darin Boville]

O.K, thanks. I think I have almost everything figured out.

Two more questions!

1) Another board member has a set of 3880 ink cats that he might sell me. I want to use them in the older 3800--looks like the Magenta will be a problem. Do you (Jon) sell single ink carts?

2) When is the next sale for Piezo inks?

--Darin

[joncone@cone-editions.com]

O.K, thanks. I think I have almost everything figured out.

Two more questions!

1) Another board member has a set of 3880 ink cats that he might sell me. I want to use them in the older 3800--looks like the Magenta will be a problem. Do you (Jon) sell single ink carts?

2) When is the next sale for Piezo inks?

--Darin

Yes we sell single carts and the VLM and VM need to be replaced with new LM and M carts to work in the 3800. All the others are common.

We have a killer Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale....

[Darin Boville]

Anyone have a profile for the 3880 printing on Canson Etching?

--Darin

[Darin Boville]

I'm a week or so into exploring the Piezography system--I thought I'd share my thoughts for others who might be looking to do the same. All comments are from the perspective if someone who has not used Piezography before...

I'm using the system on a Epson 3880, and a 27" new iMac.

In no certain order:

1) Piezography requires you to load your own ink cartridges rather than buying pre-filled ones. This is not hard to do, although the way the instructions lay it out it is simultaneously vague and needlessly complex. The basic idea is you take you rock the ink bottles back and forth a bit to make sure the ink hasn't settled in any way, open the fill hole, then (gently) jam the ink bottle nozzle into the cart fill hole and squeeze/release/squeeze until the cart is about 90% full. You can see this visually. Close the fill hole with the little rubber stopper. Then you stick a blunt tipped syringe into the exit hole on the side--the cart has a device that automatically closes the hole--the needle will open the "door" when you push it on gently. Suck out a little bit of ink. Look at the pict in the instructions to see the two chambers in the cart that should have ink in them. If not, suck out a tad more ink. Do this for all the cartridges. Done. (Note: wear old clothing. I dripped the PizoFlush fluid on a shirt--PiezoFlush has been impregnated with intense pink/red dye. Stains right away.)

2) The instructions tell you which ink to put in which cart. It is critical that you get this right. Here is the order from the instructions for matte prints. Cart name or position first, then which Piezo ink should go into it second:

MK=Shade 1
PK=PiezoFlush
LK=Shade 6
LLK=PiezoFlush
C=Shade 2
M=Shade 4
LC=Shade 3
LM=Shade 5
Y=Shade 7

I was very careful, checking everything twice, and *still* screwed this up! Part of the problem, as you can see above, is that the Shades are out of order--the are ordered by the physical position the printer but when you are filling the carts they are not *in* the printer. Since you have the carts right in front of you and can arrange them in any way you like, why not make life easy, like this:

Shade 1=MK cart
Shade 2=C cart
Shade 3=LC cart
Shade 4=M cart (or VM in the case of the 3880)
Shade 5=LM cart (or VLM in the case of the 3880)
Shade 6=LK cart
Shade 7=Y cart
PiezoFlush=PK cart (Photo Black)
PiezoFlush=LLK

So line the ink bottles up, line the carts up, and you are good to go. Saved you a lot of money and grief right there.

For glossy ink you add Gloss Black and Gloss Overprint (some sort of acrylic coating) to the PiezoFlush slots. Note that the gloss section on the instructions are labeled "For MPS Dual Matte and Gloss Printing." What the heck is "MPS"? Not mentioned anywhere in the instructions, doesn't seem to obviously to be an acronym for anything. You'll get used to it.

3) As you can see already, the written instructions for the system are not so clear, sometimes there are apparent typos, there is very little in the way of non-manufacturer user forums out there. And very wordy--lots of distracting stuff, rambling stuff. But never fear, it is much easier than it sounds! They do offer a support forum--not much luck yet getting my questions answered, although others are having better luck. They also offer fee-based "hand holding" (their term, not mine). A little grating given the disarray of the support documents but, oh well.

4) There are printer profiles for many printers and according to the Piezofolks you can also use profiles for other printers in your printer. For example, I have a 3880 but am using a profile from the Epson 7xxx series printers, as supplied by the Piezofolks. They say it is the same.

5) The system desperately needs a "quick start" document (some of what I am writing will help here). That quick start should include a "system check" section right up front after the inks are installed to make sure you are good to that point. It will save a lot of problems for beginners later on, judging by the other posts on the Piezo forum. You'll need QTR Print Tool (different from the also required QuadTone Rip (QTR)) to print (according to the Piezofolks) your images. (I haven't yet seen a difference compared to printing straight from Photoshop although the instructions warn against it.) For a quickie check go to the QTR folder "QuadToneRIP". Open the subfolder "Curve Design" and then, within that folder the "images" folder. Load the "inkseparation.tif" file. It's a few rows on pink stripes. Print this via your QTR printer (see instructions!) and you'll get rows that vary in tone by ink. Each ink is supposedly assigned to each cart. So you'll see right away that you have loaded an ink incorrectly--two rows will be the same tone (if you have the same ink in two different carts) or the progression from light to dark is screwed up (if you have switch two carts). The ink tones are out of order, of course (see above) just to make this challenging, and for a double challenge they are labeled "Ink 1," Ink 2" "Ink 3"--but that has nothing to do with ink *Shade* 1, 2 or 3--I think they are just checking if you are paying attention.

As I mentioned, I had the same ink in two carts. Thought it was a profiling/calibration issue for the longest time. Lots of wasted ink, wasted paper. Save yourself the pain--test the system after installation.

6) The "Inkjet Mall" website is a mess. It's not you, it's them. It will first load an old site, then pause for several seconds, then load a different site at a different base URL. Weird. Lots of menu items, and many submenu items. None of these are directly to the support forum. None of these are to the printer profiles or soft proof files. You have to rummage around. It can be frustrating but it is all there, somewhere.

7) I barely mentioned ink carts. I bought mine used from a LFF member. When you buy them new you may (probably) have to also buy the associated "chip resetter chip" for each cart--a set of empty carts are about $150. The resetter chip is about $10 per cart. I don't *think* the cart set comes with the resetter chip--I couldn't figure it out. And I *think* you sort of need the resetter chip. Also could never quite figure that out. I also *think* you can take these chips from your empty Epson carts and transfer them over to the new carts and save $10 a pop. Maybe.

8) Calibration. The instructions go on and on about calibration. After thinking I had a calibration problem (see above) I order the ColorMunki Display. Even after fixing my wrong ink problem I was having trouble seeing shadow detail on the screen that was appearing in the print (more on shadow detail later). So, I spent $175 on the calibration tool. Messed around with it and calibrated my screen. Kept encountering a problem where the screen calibration would reset after I switch profiles. I thought I was insane and later discovered that the "Shades" program that many people use to dim their monitor to allow better screen/print matching was causing the problem. Turned it off and now my profiles make a (lasting) difference. I can see more shadow detail. The Piezofolks recommended a bluer monitor color than I like--it is quite blue--and I'll change it to a more neutral color. But now I was able to see that missing shadow detail. $175 well spent? Maybe not. I noticed that the QTR-RGB profile that must have installed when I installed one of the QTR packages looks identical to my custom profile. So maybe just try that instead of buying another gizmo.

[...continued in next post...]

[Darin Boville]

9) OK, so *most* of the kinks are worked out--how do the first prints look?

I bought some InkJetMall paper--Type 2--and saw on my first print I had a problem. The image has a large area of pure black--zeros in the file. The print printed with a large sort of trapezoidal shaped area of very dark black and the rest of the zero area of the print slightly lighter black. Coating problems? QTR problems? Switched to Canson Edition Etching, which gave darker blacks anyway. No mystery patches.

First prints were slightly disappointing. I started thinking the whole endeavor was a waste of time. Blacks looked weak. Local contrast, weak. Midtone contrast, weak. Not something you'd see across the room but very much present. Nothing I did made it any better. Major bummer. Tossed the prints aside--I'd investigate further the next day.

The next day. They look great. Well, maybe not great but very very good. The very same prints. Turns out the ink needs time to dry, and as it drys it darkens, sort of "crisps up." Piezofolks suggest using a hair dryer but I don't care for that option. I'll just try to learn to anticipate the "dry down" effect, sort of like the old days of wet printing (except it is sort of like a contrast grade change vs anything in the highlights).

So, in summary?

Start up is tough, made needlessly tougher by confusing instructions and a spaghetti web page. But the actual set-up is quite simple--I'm not sure why they make it seem so complex.

Cost-wise, to get rolling on the 3880 costs about $650 for a basic set of 220 mil ink bottles + a large PiezoFlush (they offer a kit with 110 mil bottles but those will go quickly and are more expensive per ml). New carts will set you back another $180 with syringes and another $10 x 9 = $90 for the chips (I think). I burned up the entire Cone sample paper pack ($10) and lots of Canson Edition Etching ($80) trying to sort things out, plus an unknown amount of ink in the carts + I accidentally ruined a bottle of Shade 6 ink ($95 or so with shipping) when I accidentally put the ink mistakenly in one cart back into the wrong bottle in a moment of confusion--70 ml of Shade 5 back into the Shade 6 bottle, which had about 150 ml left in it. So I ordered a new 220 ml bottle.

So to start out you are roughly at

Basic inks/carts= $920
You'll also need a second set of carts to fill with PiezoFlush if you plan on leaving the printer idle for even a few weeks--add another $270 for the carts + chips.
$50 shareware for the Quad RIP.
Learning curve = $185 in materials+ unknown amount of ink.
Epson 3880 = $900 or so (you don't need a new printer--many cheap used ones will work just fine).

So, assuming you have a printer, you should budget around $1400 to get everything installed, tested, and up and working with the major hurdles overcome. This is the first time I've seen anyone, anywhere, attempt to break down the total cost of getting into Piezo. You are welcome. Of course, you still have most of your ink at that point--this figure is just the initial outlay cost, not what you have consumed.

As I make more prints and get accustomed to this system I'll weigh in on whether it is worth it.

--Darin

[Darin Boville]

PS: Here's how I kept sane during the past week of repeated frustrations. I kept saying the following mantra to myself: "In the old days they had to mix their own chemicals. From scratch."