Nij, I have just completed 2 months of testing and working with Paul Roark to develop curves for the MIS Variables on the 7000 (PC). I believe you are right when you say that there is a great amount of flexibility with this system. I just wanted to give you me opinions now that I have had a substantial amount of time to work with and compare the two systems. 1. The dreaded DOT. With the development of the Roark Curves, the MIS Variables are in fact DOT free for the most part. Paul has solved the problem of the Epson diver intermixing the darker inks in the lighter zones. With the correct setting, this system will print a continuous tone image. The PiezoBW24 RIP is completely dot free and exhibits a tight dither reminiscent of Iris prints. This is a result of the Pixel Professor program that is incorporated into the RIP. Advantage: Piezography 2. Cost There is no doubt that the Cone Piezography system is costly. The Piezo BW24Pro RIP for the 7000 costs in excess of $2,100. The replacement ink cartridges cost $450 per set. No provision has been made for the availability of bulk inks. The MIS inks cost approximately 1/5 of Piezo inks. Advantage: MIS Variable Tone Inks 3. Sharpness This one may be subjective and image dependent, but I have found that the Piezograhy BW24Pro RIP produces sharper prints than the MIS/Epson driver prints. The detail in small areas such as people eyes, fingers, cloth texture, etc. appear to be more defined and real looking with the Piezo RIP. Advantage: Piezography 4. Tonal Range There is no question that the Piezo produces deeper blacks. This may be an artificial illusion based upon the shadow compression that Cone does with his higher densities on the curve. None the less, prints appear to have deeper richer blacks. The MIS inks produce greater shadow detail as a result of the linear curves that Paul Roark is writing. This is a personal choice, but if you look at a fine silver print you will find that great master printers do not rely on very contrasty prints. They have a smooth deep tonal range. Advantage: Draw 5. Ease of Use "What you see is what you get" has a lot to be said for it. Being able to scan and load a grayscale image, manipulate it, and print on a calibrated system without having to convert to RGB and load a colorization curve is a significant advantage. I found that with the Piezo BW24Pro system, my success rate with getting a final print is much higher than with the MIS Variable tone system. Granted, that as time goes on, I will become more skilled with the MIS inks and hopefully my success rate will increase. But the WYSIWYG ability of the Piezo system is a joy to use. Advantage: Piezography 6. Customer Support Jon Cone and Bill Burgh have been a pleasure to deal with. They are deeply concerned with the success of their customers and have been responsive for the most part. On occasion, questions or telephone calls would go unanswered due to huge business demands. As their system becomes more widely accepted, I would hope that their customer service would become a bit more responsive. I must say that Shelby has been a pleasure to work with when Bill and Jon are off doing what they do. MIS's Bob Zeis is second to none. Bob responds to Emails, shows concern and is very helpful. He is honestly concerned and will go that extra mile to help you if he can. He responds to mistakes with an unparallel sense of urgency. Advantage: Draw 7. Banding Issues There are definite banding issues with the Piezography software. Whether these are the fault of scans, printer quality or the Piezography software, they are real and become a serious impediment until the end user can solve the issues that cause the banding. In 2 months of testing, I did not experience any banding problems with the MIS Variable/Epson driver system. Advantage: MIS Variables 8. Clogging Piezography inks do clog. Many users report regular clogging problems. I have not experienced significant clogging with the Piezo inks. What I do have is a sludge that builds up on the capping station inside the printer. This sludge must be removed regularly or it will get on the print head and smear a perfectly good print. I have had no clogging problems with the MIS Variable Inks. Advantage: MIS Variables 9. Hayes Syndrome A number of users have experienced what has become known as the Hayes syndrome with the Piezography inks. Personally I have not. This syndrome results is a loss of print density over time. Eventually prints are printed flat with an overall green tone and a severe lack of density in the blacks. Intensive cleaning of the printer heads is required. In all fairness, I believe that this syndrome occurs more frequently on the 1160 than any other printer. I have mot heard of it happening with the 7000 nor have I experienced it. Advantage: Inconclusive 10. Profiles Piezography is dependant upon the paper profiles that Cone provides. They are somewhat flexible. Recently Cone has released a whole bunch of new profiles. One of which will work with almost every paper on the market. With the MIS system, you must re-write curves or use transfer function in the Epson printer driver to tailor your curves to your paper. Advantage: Piezography : Non conclusive So in conclusion, booth system provide the tools that photographers and printers need to produce expressive fine prints. The choice is yours and like any other x vs. y brand discussion or debate, most probably one system may provide advantages for one person and the other will provide advantages for another. Try both and make an informed decision as to what works for you. Regards, Michael J. Kravit, AIA Architect/Photographer www.kravit.net/photography ================================================================= With respect to the comaprision I made to Nij in my last post I feel it only fair to say that after using both systems for 2 months I have decided to use the Piezography BW24Pro RIP as my primary system of choice. This is for two primary reasons. 1. The WYSIWYG advantage 2. I like the "platinum like" feel that I get with Piezo. 3. The perceived or real sharpness advantage of the Piezo RIP over the Epson driver. As I stated, both are great systems, but my time is limited. I want to spend more time shooting and less time experimenting. Mike Michael J. Kravit Architect/Photographer =========================================================== Martin/Antonis: Mike Kravit's post is a great one and should be uploaded to some Files/Bookmark section. It's a great, objective summary for people who are looking to choose. In addition, I'd add these things too: * If you are on a 7000, one major difference is that Piezo is PC only. If you have a Mac, you much also factor into it a purchase and learning curve of running a PC computer to run the printer. Not a small detail at all... * I have had a tough time keeping the lines full on my MIS CFS. I have NOT had much success getting emails returned from MIS. * I too have seen what appears to be not a great black from the MIS hextones. But, with time, I think someone could learn to manipulate Paul's curves on their own. But it's certainly NOT plug n' play, like Piezo seems to be. -Mark Tucker, http://marktucker.com ================================================================ Mike, Nicely put and a good summary of the current state of affairs between the two ink systems. My experiences with Piezo on the 1200 and the MIS VM on the 1280 are very similar. Mine differ only in the Dmax, which I find to be dead equal between the two as far as my eyeballs can tell, and while I see the sharpness difference under magnification, I do not see it at normal viewing distances but I am working with small prints. I would also like to suggest that it may be possible to use the same techniques as described in the Piezo manual to get WYSIWYG with the MIS VM. Print out at 21 step wedge using a particular VM curve and then match the on screen view to the step wedge using a custom Dot Gain Curve in Color Settings. Save this as a custom "Color Settings." Work with these setting to edit in grayscale then convert the file to a Gray Gamma 2.2 prior to the conversion to sRGB prior to printing. Not elegant perhaps workable. With a macro this could be simplified. Thanks, Martin