Digital BW, The Print

I've been bugging Jon about Eclipse for just under a year when I first saw
what a double printed black looks like on this paper...really, really black
(didn't have densitometer at the time but it was definitely darker (and
still defined) than the Hahnemuhle blacks).  I even sent him a double
printed sample, a coated print...everything I could think of to convince
him...no luck...about 2 months ago he said he would revisit it.  It took a
year of Robert Rex and 6 months of me bugging Jon to get Museo done...so
maybe we will still see a Eclipse profile.

Personally, I'm not sure whether a Piezo profile would fix the poor blacks
you can get with Eclipse. I think you need more ink flow control than the
piezo driver provides...the kind of control that IP has when they make
recipes for ink...to open the flood gates and really get enough ink to the
paper.

Robert


IOn 7/17/02 11:11 PM, "Martin Wesley" <mwesley250@...> wrote:

> Steadman,
> 
> Well I certainly agree and maybe if we keep bugging Jon it will happen.
> Eclipse seems to take the PiezoTone inks better than the original Piezo inks
> so perhaps a profile will not be as difficult.
> 
> Martin
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steadman Uhlich" <steadmanuhlich@...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 10:34 PM
> Subject: RE: [Digital BW] Revised Selenium PiezoTones Review
> 
> 
> To Robert and Martin:
> 
> I sure do wish that Jon would profile the Eclipse for the new inks.  I
> really like Eclipse...very nice paper.
> 
> Steadman
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert G. Morrison [mailto:rmorrison@...]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 6:31 PM
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Revised Selenium PiezoTones Review
> 
> 
> Double thanks to Martin, I also appreciated your review...it was great to
> hear the comments of a veteran silver printer...which I am not.  I'm glad
> to
> hear that I wasn't the only person that liked the ink set.  I'm really
> looking forward to trying it with Eclipse.  I'm getting a piezotone dmax
> of
> 1.65 with eclipse with IP.  It comes up to about 2 when coated.  The
> uncoated dmax is significantly duller than eam or photorag though.  I
> think
> that the Selenium tones on Eclipse then coated might be the closest thing
> we
> will get to a fiber based silver print...but we will have to see how much
> the coatings change the tonality of the inks. The whole process  is a fair
> bit of work...but not nearly as much work as actually making a silver
> print
> with a difficult image!
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
> On 7/17/02 3:07 PM, "Steadman Uhlich" <steadmanuhlich@...> wrote:
> 
>> Hey Martin,
>> 
>> Thanks for taking the time to post such a long and detailed review.  As
>> always, I appreciate your experience and your sharing of your opinions
> and
>> testing results with us.  The Selenium PiezoTones sound pretty "cool"
> (that
>> being a neat, nice, different, pick your own adjective...) (wINK).
>> 
>> Oh...and this is not to slight Robert Morrison, who's testing of the
> inks
>> and papers is also appreciated too.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Steadman
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Martin Wesley [mailto:mwesley250@...]
>> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 1:58 PM
>> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
>> Subject: [Digital BW] Revised Selenium PiezoTones Review
>> 
>> 
>> Due to a typo and a mistake regarding Dmax in my initial post, I am
>> reposting this information to clear up any misunderstandings (and
> correct
>> my
>> grammar. <G>).
>> 
>> Revised Selenium PiezoTones Review (Cross posted)
>> 
>> I received sample bottles of ConeTech's new selenium hue PiezoTone ink
>> about
>> three weeks ago for Beta testing and have been using them steadily with
> a
>> CIS in an Epson 1280 for the past two weeks.
>> 
>> As far as my own personal tastes go, this is the best grayscale ink set
> I
>> have seen and I prefer it to anything else I have tried. The hue and the
>> chromatic complexity of the prints I have been making over the past few
>> days
>> is indeed right in the range that we commonly associate with selenium
>> toned
>> silver fiber prints. They have slightly cool highlights and a touch of
>> magenta in the midtones and shadows. I have toned silver prints on
> Ilford,
>> Kodak and Oriental hanging on my living room wall and, while the
> Selenium
>> PT
>> prints are not an exact match to any of them, they fit right in. Only
>> their
>> matte surface gives them away as not being air dried silver fiber and
>> mixed
>> with matte surface silver fiber would be undetectable as inkjet.
>> 
>> I would not call the Selenium PT inks "neutral" and probably would not
>> like
>> them so much if they were. The standard selenium toned silver fiber
> print
>> that we tend to think of as neutral is in fact not neutral at all. The
>> nature of the specific emulsion, the color of the paper base and the
>> manner
>> in which the toning was done results in a print that is subtly varies in
>> hue
>> as well as tone. This variation that I call chromatic complexity is what
>> makes silver prints so wonderful and so alive. Even book publishers know
>> that a true monotone does not adequately represent a photograph and
>> quality
>> books are done using 2 to 4 inks of different hue to simulate what is
>> happening in a silver print.
>> 
>> My primary paper is Hahnemuhle Photo Rag and the Selenium PT works
>> beautifully with this paper. I think the tone on EAM may be a bit better
>> though. This is my standard proofing paper but the difference in tone
> may
>> pull me back in that direction although Photo Rag is probably more
>> archival,
>> has a nicer texture and brighter white, there seems to be less warming
> on
>> the EAM and the initial hue is just a bit more pleasing.
>> 
>> I also tried prints on Hahnemühle German Etching and William Turner,
> Crane
>> Museo, Legion Photo Matte and Eclipse Satine. The finished look of the
>> print
>> varies a great deal with the paper you use and this is good news since
> it
>> means you can get a lot of different looks just by switching paper. The
>> very
>> white Legion Photo Matte and Eclipse Satine (Jon can we please, please
>> have
>> a paper profile for Eclipse!?!?) show more blue and greater variation in
>> hue
>> overall. The neutral paper base lets all the complex tones in the inks
>> show
>> through. The Legion Photo Matte is too bright for my taste but the
> Eclipse
>> looks very interesting. It seems to do much better with the Selenium PT
>> than
>> it did with the original Piezo inks. I tried the Orwell profile but it
> was
>> not quite right in the lower tones. On the German Etching and Wil.
> Turner
>> the prints were excellent but the cream-colored paper base cancels out a
>> good deal of the coolness in the highlights giving a more neutral look.
>> Museo is very pleasant with this ink set. Some of the coolness is lost
> but
>> it still a very nice alternative to Photo Rag and EAM.
>> 
>> The Dmax of the Selenium PT is identical to the Warm Neutral. Which is
> to
>> say very high. On EAM I recorded values in the 1.71 range and on Photo
> Rag
>> at 1.80. These were taken from wedges printed using the Piezo driver.
> The
>> Photo Rag density is getting very close to silver print Dmax. So close
>> that
>> the difference does not jump out at you like it does when the inkjet
> print
>> Dmax is down at 1.6. Since it appears that the black of the Selenium PT
> is
>> the same as the Warm-Neutral it should be possible to obtain even higher
>> Dmax values using other drivers. With the Warm-Neutral I was getting
> Dmax
>> values in the 1.88 to 1.90 range and values of 1.94 have been reported.
>> 
>> Regarding fading I have no data and I don't know how it will compare to
>> other ink sets. Jon has said it is undergoing RIT testing and did well
> on
>> in-house Xenon fade testing. I do notice some warming. It takes about 12
>> to
>> 24 hours for the prints to "settle" and achieve Dmax and initial color.
>> This
>> is similar to what I saw with the WN-PT. The change is not very large
> and
>> you can accurately assess your prints out of the printer reasonably well
>> once they are dry. After a few days the Photo Rag prints did show some
>> visible warm shifting but it seems slight and not objectionable. The EAM
>> showed much less warm shifting. This is pretty much in keeping with the
>> other ink sets I have tried.
>> 
>> Metamerism seems very slight and not at all unpleasant. In tungsten and
>> halogen light the prints are warmer as you would expect and the magenta
>> predominates a bit. In fluorescent, daylight and mixed tungsten/daylight
>> the
>> prints are more neutral. Looks great under all light sources that I
> tried.
>> 
>> Like the WN-PiezoTones I experienced no clogging problems or green
> casts.
>> The CIS started right up immediately after vacuum loading and 4 nozzle
>> cleanings, and has passed every nozzle check since.
>> 
>> At this point my favorite inks for use with the Piezo driver are
>> Selenium-PiezoTone, Warm Neutral-PiezoTone, MIS-FS and MIS-FS Neutral in
>> that order. For me and my own tastes, I think the PiezoTones are the
>> better
>> way to go. I especially recommend the Selenium-PT to people who are
>> transitioning from traditional silver fiber printing to inkjet. While
> you
>> will still need to get used to the matte surface of the papers, you will
>> not
>> have to go through a big hue adjustment.
>> 
>> All in all the Selenium-PiezoTone inks represent a really stunning
>> addition
>> to what is available for inkjet printing. With the reduced price of the
>> Piezo driver and these new inks, I strongly suggest you give them a try.
>> We
>> each have our own likes and preferences but I will be very surprised if
>> this
>> does not become a top contender for the most popular ink set.
>> 
>> Martin Wesley
>> 
>> http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html
>>