Digital BW, The Print

Robert,

I found them to be a great improvement over the original Piezo inks. I much
prefer the hue. No green cast and, very important, I am not seeing any
unpleasant metamerism. I think it looks good under all light sources. I am
very pleased with the prints I have made with it.

I got started late but have seen no clogging issues at all. I used a CIS on
a 1280 and it was up and printing with only 3 nozzle cleaning cycles.
Perfect nozzle checks since. This is similar to my experiences with the MIS
inks. Long term I would expect some minor clogging. After all, I get
clogging on my 1270 with Epson dye inks from time to time. Just part of
inkjet printing in general.

The color tone of the prints is very similar to MIS-VM with the warm curve
applied and to the 50/50 MIS-FS Standard/FS Neutral blend I loaded into
carts. Both of these do warm up with time though, so if the new Piezo is
more stable, it will be the ink set of choice in this hue range.

The blacks are very good indeed. I measured a Dmax of 1.7+ on EAM and 1.8+
on Photo Rag.

If I have any complaint, it is one that I see in all the ink sets. They are
too monochrome and are lacking in chromatic variation in comparison to
traditional photographic methods. I am waiting for the set that offers cool
highlights, red warm mid-tones and a hint of eggplant in the deep shadows.
But then I have peculiar tastes. <G>

Conetech has taken a major step in the right direction correcting the major
problems of clog and green cast while improving the blacks, adding a new hue
to the inks available for use with Piezo software, and giving a price
reduction. Basically they have listened to the customers and responded well.
If you go to their order page you will also see that a "selenium" and cool
neutral sets are to be available in July. With the warm and cool neutral
sets available you will have the option to mix your own hue. Very exciting
stuff! By August there will be 5 different ink sets available for the Piezo
driver. Good times for the users.

There is still a large price gap between the Piezo inks and the MIS inks. I
think this is fine. They both fill a market niche and I think that there is
room for both. Not everyone can afford or needs a Hasseblad to make great
photos. For myself, given the overall cost of digital printing, the cost
difference is not a deciding factor but I am very glad that lower priced
inks are available for people with a limited budget and especially for young
people who want to get started in grayscale printing.

It should be strongly noted that Conetech says these new inks are not
compatible with the old inks and they cannot be mixed. So if you are running
a CIS you will need to replace the cartridge portion of the system and
completely clean out your tubing. I used the new Piezo inks in a 1280 I had
previously been using with MIS-FS. In between the two inks I ran a couple of
purge pages with Epson carts. I don't know if this is necessary or not.

I am going to assume at this point that the new inks are not compatible with
the MIS inks either. However, the improved black of these new Piezo inks
would lead me to want to try replacing the black in my MIS-VM system with
the Piezo black or any of the MIS ink sets for that matter. I am also
wondering what I would get by hand loading cartridges with new Piezo in some
positions and MIS-FS Neutral others to get more of a range of hues in the
print from warm shades to cool highlights.

In total, the introduction of these new inks from Piezo is very, very
welcome and my congratulations to Conetech on their great new product. Good
work guys!

Martin Wesley
http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html



----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Morrison" <rmorrison@...>
To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 6:21 PM
Subject: [Digital BW] Piezotones--Let the reports begin


> Ok beta testers...I know you are out there...what does everyone think?
>
> http://www.piezography.com/piezography-piezotone.html
>
> Robert
>