Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Shilesh Jani" <shilesh.jani@s...>
wrote:
> Martin,
> 
> Thank you for clarifying this issue.  I wonder why folks at
> Piezography have not caught on to this. Did you cc: Cone, or post
> this on Piezography3000 group?
> 
> Shilesh 


Shilesh,

We are aware of this. What we attempted to do was look at the total picture
rather than fixate on one position. You can see our thinking by using Paul
Roark's test data from this site of the standard warm neutral sets of
PiezoTone and MIS.

In general, all Quad Tone inks have a certain amount of fade built in to
them because they use dye or some other stuff to make up for the color of
carbon. What PiezoTone did was remove visible fade from the main tone of an
image (0-75%). The PiezoTone grays are 100% PURE PIGMENT - (no dye, no
colorants which are not pigment). MIS and SUNDANCE inks have a very high
rate of fade in the 0-75% tones in comparison to PiezoTones. Admittedly,
PiezoTone set a new bar for this. Before we move to black, follow on the
rest of the ink set:


50% Patch Comparison of PiezoTone and MIS by Paul Roark
                        PT 50%      MIS-FS 50%      MIS-FSN 50%
Optical Density         0.64        0.66            0.71
600 hours               0.63        0.54            0.59
% of fade               2%          18%             17%


The fade rate of 2% is unprecedented. By contrast the MIS Grays fade from
17% - 18%. While users here have become accustomed to 17-18% fade rates, we
worked to eliminate that. We say "accustomed" because we do not often read
complaints from users who's images are fading or turning brown, or perhaps
we do not read posts from users about MIS performance issues. And users on
this list only appear to be concerned with the black. But in any event, our
concern was holistic with what could be controlled at the time.





What we decided to do with the black position was go for a very high Optical
Density because it was not possible yet to produce a black without fade. No
one could at that time. We chose to combine a high OD which was higher than
any competing inks and a fade point which was similar to all inks on the
market.


100% Patch Comparison of PiezoTone and MIS by Paul Roark
                        PTK         MIS-FSK         MIS-FSNK
Optical Density         1.82        1.73            1.73
600 hours               1.62        1.63            1.66
% of fade               11%         6%              4%

PT-K final OD fade performance is within a small deltaE difference to MIS
blacks. In the above comparing a final point of 1.62 of PTK to 1.63 of
MIS-FSK and 1.66 of MIS-FSNK is very small - only 99% and 96%. We understand
that we have a higher starting point than anyone else. We were concerned
with overall dMax and longevity. The combination of both we believed was the
highest available at that time.

At that time it was not possible to produce a PURE 100% carbon Black without
adding some amount of non-pigment material. 6% and 4% fade rates of the MIS
inks is a result of non-pigment material fading. Ultimately all these black
inks get down to their carbon base. At the carbon base the playing field is
level. At the starting point we appear to fade more, but we are all fading
to the same point +/- small %.


Why we didn't come out with a black with similar performance to our grays is
because it was not possible. The PiezoTone grays are a unique formula from
the black position.  Why wouldn't any company want to put out black inks
with a 2% fade rate if they could???  They can't. At least not yet. Hadn't
been invented. It was not possible before because the black of carbon is not
very dark - so that is why there is mystery ingredients in the black inks
(in ours we revealed that we use metal complex molecules) - MIS says they
are 100% pigmented and pigmented implies a dispersion of pigment in
something. The something fades faster than carbon. TLC testing of MIS
reveals specifics of AZO molecules which are from dye. This is not much
mystery really. A pure carbon black would have been very pale - and too pale
to interest photographers.

In the meantime, our chemists have tried to reshape carbon in a manner to
allow for its greater density in suspension and they succeeded recently with
a new carbon pigment which will have a starting and end-point of about 1.65
(+/-). This is Museum Black.

To this we create a third product by adding some (though not as much as in
Original Black) metal complex molecules to arrive at higher OD and this will
be Portfolio Black.

Both MuseumBlack and Portfolio Black have minimal warming because of the new
carbon pigment.

There will be a new black within 6 months which will allow for starting and
ending OD well above 1.7 - and we will continue this development to reach
our goals of 2.0 and higher with acceptable fade rates.

Though our thinking may be different than others. We would like to think
that 2% overall (and not just in the blacks) is where we all should be
aiming our goals. Keeping blacks which do not fade, while an image loses
10-20% of its highlights through 3/4 tones should not be acceptable.
Although it appears to be to posters on this group. We fixed what could be
fixed at the time which was 3/4 tones to the highlights. Previous to the new
carbon pigment of Museum Black we would have had to deliver a k position of
about 1.58 in order to arrive at 2% and that is not black!

This list by the way asks very interesting questions and is very technically
minded. I have been reading back a bit and very happy to see the thorough
approach to process many participants take. Not so happy about other things
but I'm thick skinned!  ;)



--------------------------------
may your highlights be dotless
and your tonal scale smooth,


Jon Cone
jon@...
Piezography(tm) brand software and inks
http://www.piezography.com
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