Digital BW, The Print

Antonis suggested I post my updated views on comparisons I have 
undertaken recently of B&W output from an Epson 7000 run by 
Piezography Pro (the so called R9 software), with Selenium Tone inks, 
and an Epson 7600, matte black ink, run by ImagePrint 5.  Finally, 
I'll comment briefly on the 7000 / Selenium run by ImagePrint 5.

I deliberately use the word "views", not "findings" because this is 
not a scientific experiment.  It is, inevitably, in large part 
subjective. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

If Antonis thinks it useful, I may add the images I used for this 
test to the files section of the list so you can see what I am 
talking about below.

One image, the church image, has a lot of information in the 95-99% 
range, but hardly any at 100%.  It is a good test of shadow detail.  
The other image, from  the Olympic stadium in Barcelona, is sharp but 
a bit grainy, with some deep shadows and blown out highlights.  Both 
are 360 dpi.  Prints were made on Photo Rag 308gsm

Chruch Print - Piezo

I have some issues with Piezo / Selenium inks.  There is some subtle 
microbanding I cannot shift.  Others have reported this on the two 
piezo lists, and it seems to be a problem associated with the change 
from the old "Sundance" inks to the new PiezoTone inks.  This has 
been a driver behind my personal search for a viable alternative.

I continue to be amazed at how well Piezo seperates tones in the 95-
100% region.  I'd argue it looks almost too open.  There seems to 
have been some contrast loss with the new inks, but they exhibit 
incredible tonality.  There is no sootiness, and you can see in to 
the shadows. 

There are no visible dots under an 8x loup, but if you *really* look 
closely, you can just see the "tartan" weave pattern.  Frankly, this 
is irrelevant, as the surface texture of Photo Rag is more obvious at 
this magnification.  If only the microbanding would shift, this would 
be one near perfect print.

Chruch Print - ImagePrint / 7600

The original shot was taken on a Bronica GS 1 6x7 camera, Agfa APX 
25, developed in Rodinal, 

I used a profile kindly supplied by John Pannozzo this week 
specifically for Photo Rag and Matte ink.  Print made at 1440, 8-pass.

The first point to make is that we are looking at a totally neutral 
B&W print.  There are no croosover effects - no way to tell this was 
not made with a quadtone inkset.  Metamerism is also almost 
bansihed.  This, I am told, is because ImagePrint does not use the 
yellow ink.  Whatever, it works :-)

It is immediately noticeable that there is more contrast in this 
print.  It also looks slightly sharper, possibly a result of the 
greater contrast, but I wonder also if the way ink is laid down is a 
factor, or whether the smaller dot size / resolution improvement with 
the 7600 is in evidence.  

There are no dots visible to the naked eye. Under an 8x loup, you can 
just make out the individual colour dyes laid down by the 7600 in 
lighter tone areas.  Not the slightest chance you'd see this without 
a powerful loup - the print looks totally dotless - and even with a 
loup, the dots are far from obvious.  They are a little more obvious 
under the loup if you chose 4 instead of 8 pass at 1440. 

The shadows are well seperated with ImagePrint, but not quite as much 
shadow info is visible at around the 96-98% mark as with Piezo.  it 
is a matter of taste which is "better".  I do think, however, that it 
is more obvious where the matte black in kicks in.  I might 
experiment with ink limiting as I think this would improve matters.

Nij Rheam and I have speculated whether the ImagePrint Gamma 2.2 
prints just a tad too dark.

Stadium Print - Piezo

A more contrasty subject, shot on a Mamiya 7II with Agfa 100 and 
developed in Rodinal for a high acutance negative.  Piezo seems to 
have smoother the film grain somehow.  Print looks good: similar 
comments to the Church image.

Stadium Print - ImagePrint

I used the tint picker with this, set at 1,1 to max out on the blue.  
However, because it prints slightly warm on Photo Rag, the print is 
just pleasingly slightly cool.

Imageprint faithfully renders the grain.  I'm not sure if Piezo has 
some smoothing trick built in to the software, but something odd is 
going on here.  I slightly prefer the ImagePrint print, even though 
the Piezo print has fractionally more shadow detail.  The extra punch 
from the Imageprint print, coupled with the tint, works for me.

The Piezo black is, though, a tad more dense than the Ultrachrome 
matte.  I tried a print with a Piezo ink profile through ImagePrint 
(using a special ImagePrint profile for the 7000) to the 7000 and the 
extra density of the Piezo Black is repeated, so it has nothing to do 
with the driver used.  The print done with ImagePrint through Piezo 
looks very similar (but with the denser black) to the ImagePrint 
print through the 7600.  It may not be quite as good.

Is there a winner?  Let me put it like this.  On the evidence of the 
prints I have so far done, ImagePrint 5 is a viable, very high 
quality alternative to Piezo Pro, with the benifit of the tint 
picker, support in new profiles from ColorByte, and no banding 
problems.  Personally, I really like the tint picker.  It imparts a 
quite subtle tone to the image.

When it works, Piezo Pro is superb, and may just have the edge in 
ultimate quality, in my view, but you are limited to the tone of the 
inkset you have chosen, and at the moment its future is unclear.

One final comment: ImagePrint prints better B&W thought the 7600, in 
my view, than through the 7000.

So - no winner, just choices.

Quentin