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When Epson released their ABW system, we produced a test that would help show one of the significant differences between using six or seven shades of Piezography black ink in comparison to using only the three shades of Epson ABW. Epson enhances the perception of their black & white inkjet printing by adding dots of cyan, magenta and yellow ink to the three blacks. But, this does not increase the ability of three blacks to resolve resolution and detail.
We created a file of incredible resolution – the text of Alice in Wonderland reduced to 1pt size would replicate a high resolution...
On customizing Piezography.
Piezography has a number of variations that make a near infinitude of possibilities when all of the ink/paper variations are considered. Piezography pigment is so finely milled that the tone of a paper has an enormous affect on the final “hue” of Piezography ink.
For example, Piezography Neutral ink does not appear “neutral” on all papers. It was designed to appear achromatic (with equal amounts of red, green, blue) to human eyes when viewed under 5000k on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper. The tone of Photo Rag is similar to other sheets such as...
Background
There are two RIPs which support Piezography inks. The ErgoSoft StudioPrint RIP (SPR) is expensive and very full-featured. It has enormous flexibility at a high cost. The other, QuadTone RIP (QTR) is inexpensive ($50) and because we produce the media linearizations for it with our own Piezography software – the output quality is actually higher. We use both products in our studio. We run QTR to produce all single ink set prints including our glossy prints. We use SPR to blend between two or more ink sets.
QuadTone RIP by Roy Harrington is based upon open-source code and we...
Take a look at the following graphic to find your calibration score. What is the lowest number that you can just barely see?
1 – 9 Fantastic! Great job! You’re calibrated to print.
10 – 15 Good job – your calibration allows you to see some shadow detail, not all.
16 – 19 Better than most but you’re missing the very dark shadow details you are capable of adjusting if you could see them.
20-30 Not so good I am afraid…
31+ Poor. You’re missing the entire range of shadow detail which is what allows Piezography...
You can check the quality of your own linearization with a tool that I have provided in the form of an Excel spreadsheet called “Linearization_Checker.xls”. This spreadsheet has a form for entering in the measurements of a 21 step density chart that has values from 0 to 100% ink in 5% increments. You can enter either Luminosity values (L of Lab) or Density values if your instrument is a densitometer. After entering in the values, a chart is generated that shows the IDEAL linearization and your current linearization....
Piezography K7 (K6) is a system of seven (or six) shaded monochromatic inks and matching media “profiles,” that when used correctly produce a perfect black & white ink density linearization on a specific media on a specified printer. Piezography K7 (K6) uses a special profile that I make that is compatible with the QuadTone RIP (QTR). However, it is not a traditional QTR profile that can be made with QTR. As such, it can not be edited nor can it be used as a base for making additional QTR profiles. A traditional QTR profile is a set of adjustment points for curves that can be...
Introduction
Piezography K7 is intended as a synergistic relationship between seven shades of carbon black ink and a special Piezography curve for the QuadTone RIP (QTR) software. The Piezography designed curve has the uncanny ability to map the entire 8-bit grayscale space (256 gray levels) onto a media. Piezography provided many of these media curves at no charge as part of the installation of (QTR) software. Additional curves are available by purchasing custom profiling services from Piezography. Alternatively, a user can perfect their printer’s linearization by using this premium...
So if a photographer can not calibrate their display to print, or refuses to… why would a photographer refuse to calibrate to print? The reason I hear the most, is that they do not like the look of the display. The next reason is that they like their image better when its super contrasty. So what happens is that they see fantastic blacks and then complain that the resultant Piezography prints are “too light”. Yet Piezography is capable of making fantastic blacks. In fact, the best strength of Piezography is its ability to render endless detail in the shadows. Some...
Lets take a look at what happens when a display is calibrated too bright. Many photographer like to look at their images as if they were looking at them on a light box. They often calibrate so that the dark point is about 0 L and the white point is about 100 L. In fact, a lot of well-meaning experts will actually convince them to do so. But most well-meaning experts are not printmakers and do not regularly calibrate their displays to match prints. Experts in printing convince photographers to calibrate their displays for print when printing, and calibrate their displays for other purposes...
Standard K7 profiles are made to differentiate between 256 gray levels from RGB value 0 (black) to RGB value 255 (white). Therefore, displays should be calibrated to print specs of an approximate contrast ratio of 275%, with black point near .34 cd/m2 and a white point near 90 cd/m2. These Luminance values are not very dark, nor very bright and are intended to make the display imitate ink on paper. In fact, the appearance of a properly calibrated display can be quite unusual when the user realizes that their uncalibrated display has a native contrast ratio often as bright as 875%. And...
I get a lot of questions asking what is the state of the art in Piezography. In other words, what produces the absolute best Piezography results?
As unbelievable as it seems, Piezography K7 and K6 curves for the $50 shareware QuadTone RIP produce a better result than the profiles produced in StudioPrint RIP which is the only professional RIP to directly support Piezography inks and costs as much as $2,300. We wrote the profiler that is used to produce the curves for our inks in QuadTone RIP.
For printer platforms, the Epson 4880, 7880 and 9880 are the best performing Piezography printers to...
Piezography resolution in comparison to Epson ABW
Posted by Jon Cone
on Mar 9th, 2010 |
no responses
When Epson released their ABW system, we produced a test that would help show one of the significant differences between using six or seven shades of Piezography black ink in comparison to using only the three shades of Epson ABW. Epson enhances the perception of their black & white inkjet printing by adding dots of cyan, magenta and yellow ink to the three blacks. But, this does not increase the ability of three blacks to resolve resolution and detail.
We created a file of incredible resolution – the text of Alice in Wonderland reduced to 1pt size would replicate a high resolution...
On customizing Piezography
Posted by Jon Cone
on Mar 1st, 2010 |
no responses
On customizing Piezography.
Piezography has a number of variations that make a near infinitude of possibilities when all of the ink/paper variations are considered. Piezography pigment is so finely milled that the tone of a paper has an enormous affect on the final “hue” of Piezography ink.
For example, Piezography Neutral ink does not appear “neutral” on all papers. It was designed to appear achromatic (with equal amounts of red, green, blue) to human eyes when viewed under 5000k on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper. The tone of Photo Rag is similar to other sheets such as...
QuadTone RIP
Posted by Jon Cone
on Dec 22nd, 2009 |
Comments Off
Background
There are two RIPs which support Piezography inks. The ErgoSoft StudioPrint RIP (SPR) is expensive and very full-featured. It has enormous flexibility at a high cost. The other, QuadTone RIP (QTR) is inexpensive ($50) and because we produce the media linearizations for it with our own Piezography software – the output quality is actually higher. We use both products in our studio. We run QTR to produce all single ink set prints including our glossy prints. We use SPR to blend between two or more ink sets.
QuadTone RIP by Roy Harrington is based upon open-source code and we...
Calibration! Do I need it?
Posted by Jon Cone
on Jan 21st, 2009 |
3 responses
Take a look at the following graphic to find your calibration score. What is the lowest number that you can just barely see?
1 – 9 Fantastic! Great job! You’re calibrated to print.
10 – 15 Good job – your calibration allows you to see some shadow detail, not all.
16 – 19 Better than most but you’re missing the very dark shadow details you are capable of adjusting if you could see them.
20-30 Not so good I am afraid…
31+ Poor. You’re missing the entire range of shadow detail which is what allows Piezography...
Checking your linearization
Posted by Jon Cone
on Jan 21st, 2009 |
no responses
You can check the quality of your own linearization with a tool that I have provided in the form of an Excel spreadsheet called “Linearization_Checker.xls”. This spreadsheet has a form for entering in the measurements of a 21 step density chart that has values from 0 to 100% ink in 5% increments. You can enter either Luminosity values (L of Lab) or Density values if your instrument is a densitometer. After entering in the values, a chart is generated that shows the IDEAL linearization and your current linearization....
Piezography Profiles
Posted by Jon Cone
on Jan 21st, 2009 |
no responses
Piezography K7 (K6) is a system of seven (or six) shaded monochromatic inks and matching media “profiles,” that when used correctly produce a perfect black & white ink density linearization on a specific media on a specified printer. Piezography K7 (K6) uses a special profile that I make that is compatible with the QuadTone RIP (QTR). However, it is not a traditional QTR profile that can be made with QTR. As such, it can not be edited nor can it be used as a base for making additional QTR profiles. A traditional QTR profile is a set of adjustment points for curves that can be...
A Calibration Primer
Posted by Jon Cone
on Jan 21st, 2009 |
no responses
Introduction
Piezography K7 is intended as a synergistic relationship between seven shades of carbon black ink and a special Piezography curve for the QuadTone RIP (QTR) software. The Piezography designed curve has the uncanny ability to map the entire 8-bit grayscale space (256 gray levels) onto a media. Piezography provided many of these media curves at no charge as part of the installation of (QTR) software. Additional curves are available by purchasing custom profiling services from Piezography. Alternatively, a user can perfect their printer’s linearization by using this premium...
Pre-Visualization Strategies for Piezography part 3
Posted by Jon Cone
on Jan 21st, 2009 |
no responses
So if a photographer can not calibrate their display to print, or refuses to… why would a photographer refuse to calibrate to print? The reason I hear the most, is that they do not like the look of the display. The next reason is that they like their image better when its super contrasty. So what happens is that they see fantastic blacks and then complain that the resultant Piezography prints are “too light”. Yet Piezography is capable of making fantastic blacks. In fact, the best strength of Piezography is its ability to render endless detail in the shadows. Some...
Pre-Visualization Strategies for Piezography part 2
Posted by Jon Cone
on Jan 21st, 2009 |
no responses
Lets take a look at what happens when a display is calibrated too bright. Many photographer like to look at their images as if they were looking at them on a light box. They often calibrate so that the dark point is about 0 L and the white point is about 100 L. In fact, a lot of well-meaning experts will actually convince them to do so. But most well-meaning experts are not printmakers and do not regularly calibrate their displays to match prints. Experts in printing convince photographers to calibrate their displays for print when printing, and calibrate their displays for other purposes...
Pre-Visualization Strategies for Piezography intro
Posted by Jon Cone
on Jan 21st, 2009 |
no responses
Standard K7 profiles are made to differentiate between 256 gray levels from RGB value 0 (black) to RGB value 255 (white). Therefore, displays should be calibrated to print specs of an approximate contrast ratio of 275%, with black point near .34 cd/m2 and a white point near 90 cd/m2. These Luminance values are not very dark, nor very bright and are intended to make the display imitate ink on paper. In fact, the appearance of a properly calibrated display can be quite unusual when the user realizes that their uncalibrated display has a native contrast ratio often as bright as 875%. And...
The state of the art
Posted by Jon Cone
on Dec 27th, 2008 |
no responses
I get a lot of questions asking what is the state of the art in Piezography. In other words, what produces the absolute best Piezography results?
As unbelievable as it seems, Piezography K7 and K6 curves for the $50 shareware QuadTone RIP produce a better result than the profiles produced in StudioPrint RIP which is the only professional RIP to directly support Piezography inks and costs as much as $2,300. We wrote the profiler that is used to produce the curves for our inks in QuadTone RIP.
For printer platforms, the Epson 4880, 7880 and 9880 are the best performing Piezography printers to...
Scanning workflow
Posted by Jon Cone
on Dec 27th, 2008 |
no responses
Because K7 is designed to separate the gray values between 0 and 255, you should calibrate your imaging techniques to a dMin of 255 and dMax of 0. As elementary as this sounds, many users mostly automate the use of their scanners and cameras, and their Photoshop workflows without regard to controlling the process.
Turn off scanner automation in the software that you use to run your scanner.
Some of the options in Preferences as an example, will automatically perform a type of “levels” to make the lightest pixel a white point, and the darkest pixel a black point. While this might...