Passing of an Ink Icon: PiezoTone 2002 – 2012

PiezoTones are being discontinued effective March 2012. What ink remaining in inventory will be the last of its kind. The inks affected are PiezoTone WN, PiezoTone CS, PiezoTone, ST, Museum Black, Portfolio Black. We notified all current PiezoTone customers (who have purchased in the last two years) that PiezoTone is now discontinued. There is only a small amount of ink remaining and we believe PiezoTone customers may be able to sustain this ink habit for a year or two, but we believe that they should migrate to Piezography K7 which is an active and still developing ink system. Note:...Read more

Piezography Master Photography System

Piezography MPS (Master Printmaking System) for the Epson 3800 / 3880 is also available for the Epson 2880, 4800, 4880, 7800, 7880, 9800, and 9880 This is the latest incarnation of the Piezography system by the Master Printer Jon Cone of Cone Editions Press. Piezography inks and software are sold exclusively in the USA by InkjetMall, and are formulated by Vermont PhotoInkjet, LLC of Topsham, Vermont. The Piezography MPS system for the Epson 3800 / 3880 printer comprises nine Piezography inks which are a direct replacement to the Epson Ultrachrome ink set. There are seven shades of Piezography...Read more

QuadTone RIP

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...Read more

Piezography Glossy

Piezography Glossy – the mere existence of the concept implies that Piezography is matte. And historically, Piezography has been only matte. Piezography Glossy is a rare beast right now. It’s the newest incarnation of the black & white inkjet systems Jon Cone has been developing since 1994. Mostly, printing customers have been coming to Vermont to work with Jon Cone in his studio – to check it out – relate to it in terms of their own work, and to test their own belief system in traditional look photography. Piezography Glossy ( we call it Piezography MPS in...Read more

Warm Neutral K7/K6 inks

When I first began selling PiezographyBW systems – the inks came only in one flavor (Piezography BW WarmNeutral). My second generation ink (PiezoTone Warm Neutral) was a vastly superior formulation that could be used in all modern Epson printers. It had superior longevity as well as print head performance. It also had the “look” that I preferred. It was developed with my close friend who is also my chemist. Warm Neutral prints are like the original Coca Cola!  Why it took me so long to reformulate a K7 version – I simply do not know…  Yet it is probably the...Read more

Selenium K7/K6 inks

This is one of my favorite ink sets. My teacher at Ohio University was Arnold Gassan. Arnold wrote one of the definitive text books on the history of Photography. His text books are still highly sought after: A Chronology of Photography; a Critical Survey of the History of Photography as a Medium of Art The Color Print Book: A Survey of Contemporary Color Photographic Print Making Methods for the Creative Photographer Handbook for Contemporary Photography Arnold taught me most of what I know as a darkroom printer. He encouraged me to study the chemistry of photography. Although his tutelage...Read more

Carbon K7/K6 inks (formerly Sepia K7/K6)

This ink has the odd distinction of being the most lightfast ink ever tested at the Aardenburg Image Archives. That is to say, that at the length of exposure it has received, it is the only ink set designed for black & white that is by far outpacing the HP, Canon and Epson inks that have multiple shades of gray in them. It is even far outpacing any other ink set. I did not design this ink to be many magnitudes more permanent than Canon, Epson and HP inks. The secret of this ink, is pure carbon expertly ground to tiny tolerances and encased in a micro-encapsulation of acrylic co-polymer....Read more

Neutral K7/K6 inks

This ink set was designed to be achromatic to the human visual system when printed on a very specific color of white paper. The paper we designed it on is Hahnemuhle Photo Rag.  Innova Photo Smooth Cotton White also has this same tone of white. When viewed under a full spectrum 5000k light source (this is the color of white that a standard human sees as neutral), a photograph on these two papers will appear to be neutral. Because the inks are neutral, they will pick up the tone of any paper white and shift in that direction. The inks therefore can be made to appear warm on warmer papers and...Read more

Special Edition inks

  Soft proof: Special Edition on JonCone Studio Type 2 This is a brand new Piezography product. It is a unique ink set specially blended by Jon Cone for split-tones that displays crisp neutral highlights which meld into selenium which melds into Carbon shadows with a clear black. This is the most beautiful ink set Piezography has ever released to the public. “The most beautiful print color since Agfa Brovira, perfect screen match, tack sharp, deep and detailed shadows… Spectacular product.” Craig Wallace Dale www.craigdale.com This ink set was influenced heavily...Read more

Piezography K7 system

Piezography K7 is the latest generation of product and is a sharp contrast in quality and longevity when compared to EPSON K3 printers and their Advanced Black option. While EPSON has just recently introduced printers with seven and eight inks, they have only introduced three black shades of ink. Piezography which first introduced 4 shades of black ink in 2000, introduces seven shades of black for these printers. Piezography takes advantage of the seven inkjet heads in EPSON printers to produce significantly higher quality monochromatic prints, than can EPSON with only three shades of black...Read more