Digital BW, The Print

Peter,

as one whose main body of work is prints from 3200 bw  35mm film (Delta or 
TMZ), I have had no problems with grain and the piezo plug in with  the 
1160/old piezo inks.  However, I've seen profile mismatches with the 
1280/WT-PiezoTones using the old profiles.  That's another story - since 
ConeTech no longer supports the product or makes profiles for their inks, you 
have to search by trial and error to see if something fits your paper of choice.

I suspect, then, that there is a profile mismatch somewhere in your workflow. 
Perhaps when you scan you scan for a different gamma or  tone curve or for a 
monitor preview that requires funny adjustments of the image to print properly. 
Too many factors to get into. Just wanted to point out that you should consider 
the other stages in the workflow before you conclude that it's the grain.

Also: adding noise to a gray scale hardly approximates a scan of a grainy neg 
or proves anything about the grain in and of itself being the problem.

Antonis








> If it is the grain that disturbs the piezo driver interpretation of density
> then this would explain why some people reported problems with 
posterization
> and bad skin tones and others did not mention it at all although the product
> is long enough in the market (btw: who tested fading before launching
> PiezoTone?? Should have been noticed before as well.).
> 
> Any comments?
> 
> Peter Baumbach
> Fine Art Photography Munich