Piezography: Talk me into/out of it

[SergeyT]

There are 3 issues with inkjet printing which keep coming back to bite. Since I set up my printer for Piezography a few years ago, things may have improved but I wouldn't know since the topic requires regular investigation.

1) Linearization/calibration
2) Image permanence
3) Non-standard lighting

1) If we knew a really good way of linearization using standard OEM inks and printer drivers... I have not seen prints from HP printers that have their own built-in profiling sensors. Perhaps they have solved the issue, even with grayscale. Anybody know ?

That is already implemented from HP Z3100 and on
Printer linearizes each of 11 ink channel on demand by printing and then automatically measuring a special built-in color chart. It is called Color Calibration in their menu. It is recommended to perform that calibration with each new roll of paper for consistency of results. It also provides consistency of results on the same paper between different machines.
Color Calibration (Ink channel linearization) is a routine that is different from paper profiling.

2) The most permanent inkjet images I'm aware of are made with pure carbon pigments, but carbon has a warm color that doesn't suit all images. Besides, inkjet papers fade and degrade. It's been a while since I've studied the Aardenburg Imaging test results. There's probably a good reason why people use Digital Negatives to make prints with Pt/Pd and other more permanent "alternative" processes. I have made some but many of my photos look pretty lame when printed that way.

How long do we want our images to last ?
There are OBA free cotton rag papers out there.

3) Images appear differently depending on the color and brightness of the lighting. Galleries don't follow standards as far as I know. Bright light probably brings out the depth of an image, but it hastens the degradation.

Isn't that true for any type of image?


There are 2 more issues with ink-jet prints on papers with glossy surfaces:

* Bronzing
* Gloss differential

Both are more or less solved in HP Z printers by using the 12th totally transparent ink called Gloss Enhancer. Printer/Driver allows to specify and fine-tune the max amount of that transparent ink depending on the kind of paper. Once the max amount (or limit) is determined and set, the driver intelligently applies the Gloss Enhancer in accordance with the amount of other inks density sprayed to the surface, making the resulting gloss of the entire print surface look uniform. Also helps to make the printed area look evenly glossy with the non-printed area (borders) of the paper surface