What is Piezography?

Piezography is a brand of monochromatic inks and software that produce what is unarguably the absolute highest-standard in black and white printing. It was first introduced as a Trademarked brand in 2000 and has gone through successive improvements and changes over the years. It is a process that is constantly exceeding the capabilities of the printers on which it is implemented. Piezography is developed by Jon Cone in the village of East Topsham, Vermont, USA who first introduced monochromatic inkjet printing at PhotoPlus Expo in NYC in 1998. His monochromatic inkjet systems were initially designed for IRIS Graphics printers in 1993.

But, Piezography is more than just changing out the color inks in your EPSON printer and replacing it with Piezography shades of carbon black ink. You also need a special software to make the effect work. Piezography is inks and software working in harmony. Jon Cone develops a profiling application with which he produces K6 and K7 profiles for QuadTone RIP. This combination is to date the highest quality implementation of the Piezography system - yet it is amazingly affordable. QuadTone RIP is only $50 and includes the Piezography profiles at no additional charge. For large format printers, StudioPrint by ErgoSoft includes a Piezography ink profiler. A new Piezography RIP being developed by a new company is being planned for release at Photokina in Cologne in September, 2008.

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 ink.

Because Piezography uses seven shades of black ink with which to produce the highest quality monochromatic photograph, Piezography can reproduce the image in a much higher quality by moving the printer dots of ink significantly closer together than can EPSON. Piezography provides a set of ink curve sets for the QuadTone RIP driver that directs the EPSON printer to print each shade of Piezography black at a significantly higher dithering frequency. The best way to represent this is to put the two systems to a test which illustrates this concept and reveals the strengths and weaknesses between the two systems.

We produced a design of text in 1pt size. While this type size is nearly too small to read, it does represent the level of detail that most photographers would like to believe an inkjet printer can resolve. While an EPSON K3 printer still can not resolve this level of detail, Piezography can by controlling the printer through its K7 profiles and the QuadTone RIP driver.

What this test shows besides EPSON inability to resolve fine detail is that the EPSON Advanced Black and White Printer driver uses dots of magenta, cyan and yellow ink in printing black and white photographs. This is significant because color inks do not decay and fade at the same rate, and black and white prints made with the EPSON Advanced Black and White driver will be subject to color shifting over time as the magenta, cyan and yellow dots of ink begin to fade. Because EPSON ink is not "neutral" it is necessary to introduce color inks in order to create the illusion of "neutral". It is conceivable that in the future EPSON K3 black and white prints will have faded to the lowest common denominator of its three shade black ink set. These black inks are "greenish" in nature, and green is not a desirable tone in which a photographer's historical recognition should be perceived in the future. It also allows for a very misleading "interpretation" of longevity results designed around using only EPSON black inks. Very few photographers will be happy with the "tone" and "color" of using only EPSON black inks, and will necessarily introduce color inks using the EPSON ABW driver.

Alternatively, Piezography offers ink sets which are pure monochromatic tones. There is a set of seven shades available in Neutral, Sepia and Selenium. 4 shade sets are available in Warm Neutral, Sepia and Selenium. The ink sets can actually be intermixed by those seeking custom solutions. With the K6 and K7 profile system for QuadTone RIP, users can mix any combination of inks as long as they keep the shades in the proper order.

While an EPSON K3 print "looks good", it is not a substitute for a fine black and white darkroom print. Piezography K7 inks also take carbon inkjet printmaking to a further extreme. EPSON K3 inks according to their MSDS sheets contain varying amounts of dye. Piezography only uses 100% pure carbon pigment, and does so to offer the greatest historical longevity. Piezography inks are engineered to withstand fading and color changing at a specification that is below human perception. It is a remarkable standard to attain, but Piezography is designed by a photographer and printmaker who has been making fine prints for photographers and artists since 1980.

In comparison to EPSON's best attempt at black and white (K3), Piezography K7 resolves much higher detail and definition, produces a much smoother tonal scale, and prints with significantly better highlight and shadow detail. If the quality of your black and white works deserves the absolute best quality reproduction, then your work deserves Piezography K7 because it significantly exceeds the capabilities of EPSON K3 inks.

There is one other factor that may contribute to a photographer's decision to employ pure carbon printing over EPSON Ultrachrome inks. The longevity factor for many is overwhelmingly important. EPSON uses a longevity method of rating describing how long before a print has faded more than 33%. TO most photographers, a 100 year EPSON rating seems wonderful. But the reality of density fade is that nearly all humans can detect fade at only 5%. The rating system used by EPSON of >33% is woefully inadequate for photographers who do not wish that their prints become so horribly faded that nearly 1/3 density loss is achieved. Piezography inks by contrast to Ultrachrome, are designed to fade less than 5%. They will not fade to 33%. Piezography inks is the only product on the market which can withstand fading, so that a historical longevity is achieved. The color and density of a Piezography print can be preserved so that the photographer's vision is also preserved.

You can see an actual fade test data result of competing monochromatic inks in comparison to Epson Ultrachrome inks by clicking here.

You can read about our different ink choices by clicking here.