Jon Cone on the "dyestuff" issue in PiezoTone Black
2002-06-16 by antonisphoto
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From: Jon Cone <piezobw@c...> Date: Sat Jun 15, 2002 10:41 pm Subject: Re: [piezoBW] Re: New PiezoTone inks announcement and more > on 6/11/02 12:54 AM, Jon Cone wrote: > >> Todd, > > <snip> >> The inks do not use dye stuff. > > Jon > > You wrote this to me, but now on the digitalBW list it's said that you > acknowledge that the K position ink DOES contain dye. Is that true? If so= I > feel the above was disingenuous. > > Please clarify. > > Thanks, > Todd Flashner Todd, Ouch! Double ouch! Sorry to make you feel that I was disingenuous. I have not been. It is complicated without giving away the technology (the farm). The only ink position we stated that there is anything but pigment in, is the black ink position. However, these materials have not been used as a dyestuff in any other application that we know of, yet we are using them to act as a dyestuff. Whether one argues the material is or is not a dyestuff is pretty= immaterial. We did something cool and unique and advanced the technology with it. The inkset is real. It does not warm up like other inksets. It is the most stable on the market. I have always been forthcoming in stating when there is dye in my inks. I did that early on with the PiezographyBW inks. I am sorry to have stated to= you that there wasn't dyestuff in these. I can easily see why you would hav= e felt that way. However, I am surprised to see your reaction (the use of the= word disingenuous). If you want disingenuous, go test quad inks whose manufacturer and proponents state they are pure pigment and watch the warm fade. Warm fading is the dye components of a formula fading out fast while the underlying carbon (which is brownish black) holds out. TO CLARIFY: There is no doubt that something in addition to carbon black has been used in the black ink position. The dMax of that ink position is too extraordinary for there not to be. It may be dyestuff, it may not be dyestuff. Or rather it may have not been dyestuff, but being used as dyestuff it may be dyestuff now. In the other 3 gray positions, no materials other than pigment and colorles= s ink-base have been used. The 3 gray positions are not dilutions of the black position, nor are they dilutions of the darkest gray. Each has been formulated separately to creat= e a great product. Any warm fading of the black position ink will be negligible because it is printed in combination with the other gray position inks using the PiezographyBW driver. While others prefer to use RGB workflow with the EPSON driver, we believe our driver is still superior to RGB workflows at this point. The RGB workflows may or may not use more amount of black ink in the= dMax but there is still ample foundation of gray positions. It would be surprising (positive) to find out that the PiezoTone inks are being used with the Roark and Woolf curves instead of PiezographyBW software. No matter how you look at it, or dissect it, PiezoTones are the best quad inks going and are very genuine! Beware imitations!!!!! :) I hope that this answers all your questions by the way. -------------------------------- may your highlights be dotless and your tonal scale smooth, Jon Cone jon@c... Piezography(tm) software and inks http://www.piezography.com