Digital BW, The Print

Hello Martin,

You bring up very good points.  I am not fully up to speed with the 
Septone system, but I understand that the current ink line up is warm 
and cool.  The PiezoTone approach perhaps shows greater color depth, 
in that the shadows are not really cool or warm, rather they are the 
eggplant magenta.  I am not sure that the Septone inkset can create 
such complexity.  It would be fun to play around modifying inks to 
suit our own preference.  I am definitely considering the system for 
my own use, just as much for this new versatility as for the faster 
printing speeds of the 2200 compared to my 1280.  Q: Is the Septone 
driver for the 2200 fast?

Regards.

Shilesh

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Martin Wesley" 
<mwesley250@e...> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Tim Atherton [mailto:timatherton@t...]
> > Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 10:01 AM
> > To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [Digital BW] Septone system
> >
> >
> > So have I got this right?
> >
> > The Septone system is basically a seven ink (warm/cool) 
descendant of the
> > old Piezography system? With a driver for the Epson 2200 and a 
set of ink
> > cartridges (if you so choose) you can switch back and forth with 
between
> > Septone and say, original OEM Epson Ultrachrome colour?
> >
> Tim,
> 
> The Septone inks and software for the 2200 are made by Sundance 
Inks and R9
> Software the developers and the manufacturers of the original Piezo 
inks and
> the Piezo plugin. These are a new formula of inks that were 
corrected to
> eliminate the original problems of the original inks. I gather they 
are
> similar to the Piezotones and MIS-FN chemically. They did RIT 
testing and
> they are predicting a display life of over 100 years at 450 lux 12 
hours per
> day for what that is worth.
> 
> The Septone system includes a neutral black ink, 3 warm gray inks 
and 3 cool
> gray inks. There is no color ink used. The software is an advanced 
version
> of the Piezo/R9 plug-in which allows you to control the ratio of 
warm to
> cool gray inks in the three major tonal areas of the print. 
Shadows, mid
> tones and high lights. With sliders you can set the shadows to say 
75/25
> W/C, the mid tones 50/50 and the highlights 72/28 all in 1% 
increments!
> Mathematically that works out to 1,000,000 combinations. From the 
samples I
> have this gives you a really incredible ranges of hues that you can 
achieve
> in a print.
> 
> If you look at silver fiber prints you will find that the hue of 
the print
> varies with tone. So you have prints with say subtly cool shadows 
and warm
> highlights. I think this chromatic complexity results in a print 
that is
> much richer looking since the variation in hue allows the human eye 
to more
> easily differentiate adjacent tones. I have been using Selenium 
Piezotone
> ink because it has a good deal of this going on. The ability to 
vary this
> effect is very appealing. This is essentially the new version of 
the old
> plug-in software.
> 
> Check out their website at:
> 
> http://www.bwguys.com/
> 
> They will not appreciate me saying this but since the ink densities 
of the
> two gray sets are the same as the Piezotone and the MIS-FS ink sets 
I have
> to wonder if the software will not work with these gray inks as 
well. Say
> Warm Neutral and Selenium Piezotone grays or MIS-FS and FSN?
> 
> I also wonder if Roy could not add this ability to QuadTone RIP. 
You would
> just need more curves that only effected narrow tonal ranges.
> 
> You could certainly switch back and forth between the Septone and UC
> cartridges but from the experiences people have had in the past 
this is
> extremely wasteful of ink. If you did this on a regular basis I 
suspect that
> the cost of your ink losses might pay for a second 2200 in time.
> 
> Martin Wesley
> http://www.borderless-photos.de/guests.html