Digital BW, The Print

Perhaps in light of the fact that many BW printers have learned that the
Piezo driver offers little distinct advantage (other than paper profiles)
over the free Epson driver, and his inks offer little advantage over the
vastly less expensive MIS inks, Cone has decided to move on to the next
thing.

Jon was never the one to stay up at night writing code, or donning the lab
coat and formulating inks, he'd contract that.

He's also now selling Generations inks, in addition to color piezo. So it
seems he's becoming more of a reseller. He can tag his name onto something
and give it a quality endorsement, and perhaps leave the nagging product
support to the manufacturer, and simplify his life.

Who knows...

Todd


> Quentin
> 
> I agree. I've got a demo copy of Imageprint on which Piezo is based. I don't
> know whether Jon Cone will have enhanced this for Piezo2 but there is
> certainly, IMHO, no quantum leap in quality with the base product. Printing
> the Proof of Piezography test image does show a smooth tonal ramp but then so
> does Piezo. The dither pattern looks as good as each other. Surprisingly the
> 100% black on EAM using Piezo measures 1.63 on my densitometer compared to
> 1.58 on ImagePrint. There is increased separation on the blacks with
> ImagePrint thereafter with 90% reading 1.40 on Piezo and 1.32 on ImagePrint. I
> always seem to be in a bit of a minority as I like the existing shadow
> separation in Piezo and never felt that it needed expanding.
> 
> Strangely the Imageprint vertical resolution test lines show a strange
> horizontal banding but otherwise are comparable.
> 
> Of course the ImagePrint evaluation software prints DEMO all over the image so
> it is difficult to make a comparision on an actual image. There doesn't seem
> to be an EAM profile so both were printed with the Cone Matte profile.
> 
> If you want a copy of the print let me know
> 
> Adrian Joyner
> Clevedon
> United Kingdom
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: qdfb 
> To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 3:38 PM
> Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Piezo2 vs ImagePrint RIPS? Mike K.?
> 
> 
> Julian,
> 
> My last message got lost in cyberspace...This duplicates it...
> 
> Nij of Mwords kindly showed me a print made on a 7000 using the new
> Piezo2 RIP this morning, and let's just say that so far as I am
> concerned, the jury is out at the moment on whether Piezo2 print
> quality matches Pro24 / PiezoB&W.  This is (if you'll excuse the pun)
> still a grey area...
> 
> Print quality is what ultimately matters most to me, and I would want
> to see more examples before moving to the new RIP.
> 
> As to more general comparisons with Imageprint 4, it is pretty
> obvious looking at the interface that Piezo2 is based on Imageprint
> 4.  For more general info, all you can do at the moment is check out
> the Piezo2 details at
> http://www.piezography.com/piezography2.html
> and the pages linked from there, or you could try emailing Jon (good
> luck!)
> --
> Quentin
>