Piezography digital negative inksets

[Robk331]

Hi,

Has anyone tried the piezography digital negative inksets? I'm primarily interested in pt/pd printing but also dabble in albumen and salt prints. I was curious to see what people thought was the best methodology to use (1 or 3).

I use QTR and have had reasonable success, but I find the process to be very time-consuming and occasionally gives me artifacts that the piezography system claims to address.

Thanks

Rob

 

[pschwart]

Since you asked ...

I bought an Epson 1400 quite a while ago to dedicate to b&w prints using 3rd-party monochrome inks. I figured I might as well try digital negatives, too. The Claria dye inks proved to be very poor UV blockers so I didn't even bother creating a QTR profile. Jon Cone has prefilled K6 Carbon cartridges for the 1400 which means one can test without spending hundreds of dollars. I finally got around to trying this. I have only done very limited testing, but here is what I have found thus far:

- Cone K6 carbon makes very fine prints on paper. As you would expect from a 100% carbon pigment ink, the
prints are very warm -- too warm for my taste, so on to testing digital negatives.
- I was able to quickly create a QTR profile that made very nice palladium prints. The tones were exceptionally
smooth.
- Because the correction curve is very mild, it is possible to achieve very fine highlight separation; I can see
gradation from 1-5%.
- I am using photo black, and it can provide dmax in excess of 4.0, so no problem there.
- The ink is much slower to dry than Epson Ultrachrome, but a hairdryer solves this problem.
- The negatives are fragile. A goat hair hake brush visibly abrades the image. The ink rubs off on a finger even
after curing for a few days, and the ink washes off Inkpress OHP. This was my also experience when I tried
MIS inks a few years ago. In contrast, Epson Ultrachrome is bulletproof on Inkpress, Arista, and Pictorico. You
can even wash those negatives and the ink will not bleed at all. I would say the Piezography negs need to live
in polypropylene bags, even when printing (which is what I do anyway).

Note that I am not using Jon's "system" for digital negatives since he doesn't have curves for the 1400. Also, I'd like to be able to make prints and negatives without swapping cartridges, since that is when my Epsons usually start clogging. What I learned from this exercise is that, as expected, the 1400 is an inexpensive solution for high quality prints and negatives as long as you replace the native Claria inks. I will probably profile for carbon so I can use the 1400 as a backup for my R1800. When my K6 carbon cartridges run out I will probably retest using Piezography Warm Neutral.

 

[Robk331]

Just thought I'd update this in case anyone is interested...

I ended up getting an Epson 2880 and the Piezography Method 3 inkset. I have to say it was ridiculously easy to get a curve for silver prints. I've also done one for pt/pd and cyanotype. In terms of ease-of-use and speed in getting actual digital negatives, this system is hands-down the winner.

I'd highly recommend piezography digital negative inks.

Rob

 

[PVia]

Rob,

Did you find the same fragility as Philip did?

Paul

 

[Robk331]

Hi Paul,

By fragility do you mean the ink rubs off? If so, no, I haven't had any problems with the negatives.

Rob

 

[pschwart]

Hi Paul,

By fragility do you mean the ink rubs off? If so, no, I haven't had any problems with the negatives.

Rob

The digital film inkset is based on the selenium ink. Are you saying this doesn't rub off, or just that it hasn't posed a significant problem? The carbon ink was definitely fragile. I have ordered some warm neutral as I want to print both prints and negatives in my 1400 and the carbon ink was too warm. Perhaps this will prove to be a bit more robust. If the selenium adheres better then color be damned, that is the ink I would want to use.

 

[Robk331]

I just pulled out a neg I made a while ago and rubbed it with my finger, no noticeable stain on my finger or smudge on the negative.

When I print them, I usually let them dry overnight so I can't really comment on whether they are fragile upon printing, but certainly after drying they are perfectly fine for me.

Rob

 

[pschwart]

I just pulled out a neg I made a while ago and rubbed it with my finger, no noticeable stain on my finger or smudge on the negative.

When I print them, I usually let them dry overnight so I can't really comment on whether they are fragile upon printing, but certainly after drying they are perfectly fine for me.

Rob

This is useful info -- it seems that the selenium ink adheres much better to OHP. If the warm neutral is no better than the carbon in this regard, then I'll have to try selenium.

 

[Zero_Equals_Infinity]

I just ordered the inks, for Method 3, and expect I will be using the 1.8 curve.

I have a couple of quick questions for anyone who has used Method 3, (Robk, I hope you are out there.) I have regular old Premium OHP, not Ultra Premium OHP, and I notice that Jon Cone indicates to use Ultra Premium OHP. I take it that is because the inkload that it can carry is higher, and the 1.8 curve that Jon provides pushed the inkload to 140% on the far right of the curve. Which film are you using, and am I going to have to put aside about 80 sheets of my Premium OHP film as useless with this inkset?

Did anyone require more density (UV 3.10 according to Jon Cone) to get dMax on the negative and pure white on the print?

Ok, that about covers it.

Thanks,

Nick.

 

[Robk331]

I've found the 1.4 curve to work fine for cyano, pt/pd and silver gelatin. As for film, I've used Arista II OHP and the regular Pictorico.Arista is cheaper than the Pictorico and I've not noticed any difference between the two brands.

Rob

 

[Zero_Equals_Infinity]

Thanks.

I have historically had a problem with the Epson K3 Ultrachrome inkset on my R3880 for getting a Dmax to obtain pure White on Pt/Pd (using Arches Platine), which is why I have opted for Jon Cone's inkset. That is why I thought that I would need to use the 1.8 curve. (Sandy King also suggested the 1.8 curve to me in an e-mail.) If I don't need that high a density to get my dMax on film and pure white on paper I will be a very happy camper. (I am using a Nuarc 26-1K as the light source on the lowest tap on the transformer to avoid fuse blowing on my 15 amp service.)

I also may tweak the closest curve from Jon Cone as they can be imported into Excel and the curves per ink range from 00 - 65536 (so it is easy to modify the curve a weebit to get closer to an exact fit.)

Thanks again,

Nick.

 

[Robk331]

What I did to control for differing conditions, etc, was to print out a 21 step tablet for each of the 5 curves (1.4 thru 1.8) onto a single sheet of OHP (passing the same sheet through the printer 5 times, obviously) and I use that as my starting point for the 3 processes I've played with so far. That way it's a pretty easy visual inspection to see which curve you want to focus on.

Rob

 

[Zero_Equals_Infinity]

Sounds good Rob.

I will do the same thing when my order arrives from Jon Cone.

Cheers,

Nick.

 

[Zero_Equals_Infinity]

Yeah, the 1.8 curve is the right curve, and now all I have to do is linearize. Compared to the Epson inkset I am noticing far fewer artifacts, and better tonal transitions. So far I am a happy convert. I will let people know how well things work when I start printing real images, and not merely by beloved step wedges.

 

[Robk331]

Great, I'm really happy with the results from this inkset too.

 

[David H]

This might deserve a whole new thread entirely, but I'm printing Pt/Pl with K3 and 3880 using QTR and getting banding type artifacts that I don't get when printing using the epson driver. The comments in this thread suggest I'm not alone in this, have other people had weird artifacts, particularly in the light tones of the print (dark areas on the neg) using QTR? The overall print is much easier to get highlight seperation with QTR than with a curve and the Epson driver, so I'm loathed to abandon the process. Anyone had success in avoiding the issue?

 

[Robk331]

This might deserve a whole new thread entirely, but I'm printing Pt/Pl with K3 and 3880 using QTR and getting banding type artifacts that I don't get when printing using the epson driver. The comments in this thread suggest I'm not alone in this, have other people had weird artifacts, particularly in the light tones of the print (dark areas on the neg) using QTR? The overall print is much easier to get highlight seperation with QTR than with a curve and the Epson driver, so I'm loathed to abandon the process. Anyone had success in avoiding the issue?

Are you using the piezography inks?