Digital BW, The Print

Finally got the new Piezo ICC system for my 1280. Installed easily 
(Windows) without a glitch and up and running with first print in 20 
minutes. Used Piezotone Museum Black with Selenium tone inks. Results 
are excellent. Besides excellent quality its a breeze to use with 
familiar settings in Photoshop and the Epson driver. The ability to 
have a dead-on soft proof is super and will no doubt save ink and 
paper. My color managed setup had the screen almost exactly (as much 
as transmitted light vs. reflected light will allow) matching the 
print. Dithering is better than the Piezo plug-in, buttery smooth 
with less microbanding and solarizing; in other words, its more 
forgiving of Photoshop levels and curves adjustments. I did tweak up 
my sharpen settings just a bit with the ICC system vs. the plug-in. 
The ICC system prints about twice as fast as the plug-in and doesn't 
tie up Photoshop so now you can work on another image while printing.

I have an image I use as my torture test of printer resolution. Its a 
photo taken with a Canon D1s and contains in the photo an image of a 
screened window in front of a white background. At first I thought 
the window was tinted until I printed on the Piezo plug-in when to my 
amazement I saw a criss-cross pattern of a screen mesh. I bumped up 
the magnification on my monitor to 50% and yep, there was a screen 
over the window and the window was not tinted. Needless to say I was 
impressed with the resolution of the plug-in. The question was how 
would the ICC system handle this image using the Epson driver at 
1440dpi. I'm pleased to say that the screen mesh was still clearly 
visible with the ICC system and almost identical to the plug-in (the 
plug-in may be just a tad sharper). Now this isn't a scientific test 
done with sophisticated test patterns, but resolution is certainly 
more than adequate.

The appeal of this system to me is no trial and error, no curves, 
WYSIWYG, and great inks. A couple of pointers: be sure to carefully 
follow the setup instructions and be especially careful on when in 
the flow to check on or off black pt. compensation (in Photoshop). I 
was warned of this in the Piezography3000 forum. Following the 
instrucions closely gave me a problem free positive experience with 
this fine product. Now, if Inkjet Mall would just not have to 
backorder so much ...