Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Shilesh Jani"
<shilesh.jani@s...> wrote:
> Those who have been following the "more to the story" threads may 
> know that it was originally from an experiment posted on the 
> Piezography website (see message 21633 for the link).  The posted 
> images were of great interest to the Epson driver user like me (on a 
> 1280), and I did my own experiment.  But the the images on the Piezo 
> site continue to bug me.
> 
> The experiment I did was a major-eye opener.  Cone says: "Curiously, 
> the darkest position (cyan) is used to print the lightest tones and 
> yellow position is used to underprint the black ink which is the 
> predominant ink in the midtones and darker."  Whether, it is a 6 
> color printer I used or a 4 color printer that Cone used in his
post, 
> the Epson driver DOES NOT use only cyan ink in the highlights. 
> Rather, it seems to use ALL color inks (makes sense). 

If you are printing color inks to make a B&W image, perhaps it does.
It does *not* make sense when printing B&W quad tone inks, at least it
doesn't make sense to me. That's why I personally am worried about
ImagePrint 5.0.

> How do I know 
> that about Cone's 4 color printer?  Well, look at the Cone images: 
> The only place where you see pure cyan ink is the 100% to ~ 70%  of 
> the Piezo print. What you see there in the Piezo print IS the true 
> cyan color of that printer, as alluded to by Cone.  But that is NOT 
> the color (density or hue) you see in ANY part of the Epson driver 
> print!  So other inks are being used, and I am guessing all inks are 
> being used.  What does that mean?  Does the fact that the Epson 
> driver uses more inks than the Piezo driver for any given tone make
a 
> difference in the final output? 

I think it does. I think using more ink than is necessary to produce a
tone is detrimental to the look of the print. It's certainly
detrimental to my wallet.

> That is the question.  Will one of 
> these drivers produce smoother gradients?  Less textured dither?
> 

Yes. IMHO, the Piezography driver (plugin and stand alone RIP) is the
best RIP on the market, and it makes the best prints on the market,
expecially when used with the Piezotone inks. The transitions are
extraordinarily smooth, and the highlights are as dotless as Mr. Cone
says they are, at least to my eyes.

> More to come, as I do more experiemnts....
> 

By all means, do experiments. "Why guess when you can know?" Run some
prints through Piezography software and see for yourself. In the end,
the only person who has to be convinced is the artist who is printing.

> Best wishes
> 
> Shilesh
> May your gradients be smooth