Digital BW, The Print

Jeff-

Excellent questions. I, for one, do not think that Piezo is dead. I've been 
using the various Piezo approach since the beginning and am well aware of the 
problems. Personally, I think Cone's inks are excellent and his new ICC 
approach is a valuable step forward for printing grayscale off the OEM path. I think, 
and hope, that we'll see more developments like this. I'm not, in any way, 
defending Cone but it has been my experience that many of the printing issues 
attributed to Piezo have more to do with the printers. Many photographers are 
using consumer grade printers that have inherent issues out of the box; some of 
the these issues, like banding for example, aren't obvious when using the 
Epson dither and printer gamma bias, but are noticeable when the tonal scale is 
linearized and resolution is improved. I, for one, deeply appreciate Cone's 
continuing innovation. As I do Roy Harrington and Paul Roark, among others.

I've printing with a number of Epsons and consider the 4000 one of the best 
yet. I wish the paper feed issues were better addressed, but the printer is 
convenient to use and produces excellent prints; both with the OEM print driver 
and all the current desktop RIP's.

ImagePrint is not superior to QRT because they are essentially different 
animals. QTR is built on open source code and available as freeware. If you use 
the supplied printing curves the approach is very close to plug and play. 
ImagePrint is a feature-rich commercial application. If you want or need the 
features, and you do not want to purchase the software/hardware or tackle the 
learning curve associated with building linearized custom printing profiles yourself, 
it is also a convenient package. If you do want to "roll your own" the 
ColorBurst RIP is an excellent choice.

QTR using printing curves. ImagePrint and ColorBurst use printer profiles. 
All of them, used properly, produce excellent prints. For the price, QTR is an 
excellent entry point.

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to correspond with you on or off 
list.



Bill Kennedy
Associate Professor of Photocommunications
St. Edward's University
512/448-8680


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