Andprayforrain
Member
Does warm (including soft warm) paper--eg, Platine Fibre Rag--warm all gray tones or only the lighter tones where more of the paper comes through?
That is, should black and darker gray be neutral regardless of the paper?
That is, should black and darker gray be neutral regardless of the paper?
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
APFR,
The effect of warmth affects all tonalities IMHO, but as you surmise less in the darker tones as you suggest as far as paper.
The reason why this is now vague to me is because I bought a house and moved and have not printed in about three years, but I used rolls of Plantine Fibre Rag, and I blended Jon Con K7 inks using Piezography.
Basically I used warm tone inks for the lighter greys, and cool tone inks for the darks. The midrange I controlled by blending.
Jon Cone inks have remarkable blacks, and know that the new Piezography Pro allows blending of the cool and warmth by blending inks in the print head. With K-7 I blended ink before loading the inks into the carts.
I mistakenly thought that my K-7 custom ink set had a better midrange, but in fact the new Piezography Pro has curves that had higher contrast. Part of the reason why is that the new Piezography Pro has the darkest dense black available, and this is where the extra contrast came from.
Pretty much I had to adjust the contrast curve when printing using Piezography Pro slightly to retrieve mids to match to my K-7.
For me it depended or depends more on the inkset. I was a heavy user and was a Beta tester for over a year of the Piezography Pro as it was being developed.
Anyways my point is that cool or warm tones can come from the inkset also.
Cal
The effect of warmth affects all tonalities IMHO, but as you surmise less in the darker tones as you suggest as far as paper.
The reason why this is now vague to me is because I bought a house and moved and have not printed in about three years, but I used rolls of Plantine Fibre Rag, and I blended Jon Con K7 inks using Piezography.
Basically I used warm tone inks for the lighter greys, and cool tone inks for the darks. The midrange I controlled by blending.
Jon Cone inks have remarkable blacks, and know that the new Piezography Pro allows blending of the cool and warmth by blending inks in the print head. With K-7 I blended ink before loading the inks into the carts.
I mistakenly thought that my K-7 custom ink set had a better midrange, but in fact the new Piezography Pro has curves that had higher contrast. Part of the reason why is that the new Piezography Pro has the darkest dense black available, and this is where the extra contrast came from.
Pretty much I had to adjust the contrast curve when printing using Piezography Pro slightly to retrieve mids to match to my K-7.
For me it depended or depends more on the inkset. I was a heavy user and was a Beta tester for over a year of the Piezography Pro as it was being developed.
Anyways my point is that cool or warm tones can come from the inkset also.
Cal
Andprayforrain
Member
Thanks, Calzone. Very interesting. I've seen Piezo results. Perfect BW, I thought.
I have a Canon Pro-1000. I've tried i1Studio profiling, with and without using the printer's built-in hardware for calibrating paper and customizing paper settings. Not good enough. I've tried Canson's profile using its paper settings. Much better, but the dark grays and shadows are still suspiciously warm, and the warmth seem uneven through the darkness levels. (Ilford's are poor; the only other brand I've tried, but only sampled, is Hahnemühle, but that was before I switched to digital, and all my negs are technically too crappy for printing.) I use OEM ink. It seems to do a better job with colour printing. I'm going to buy custom prints. If that doesn't do the trick for BW, I'll lie awake at nights dreaming of an Epson.
I have a Canon Pro-1000. I've tried i1Studio profiling, with and without using the printer's built-in hardware for calibrating paper and customizing paper settings. Not good enough. I've tried Canson's profile using its paper settings. Much better, but the dark grays and shadows are still suspiciously warm, and the warmth seem uneven through the darkness levels. (Ilford's are poor; the only other brand I've tried, but only sampled, is Hahnemühle, but that was before I switched to digital, and all my negs are technically too crappy for printing.) I use OEM ink. It seems to do a better job with colour printing. I'm going to buy custom prints. If that doesn't do the trick for BW, I'll lie awake at nights dreaming of an Epson.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
APFR,
I would recommend digging into Jon Cone’s site for a long-long time to learn about the good, the bad, and the ugly about Eason printers. Lots on free info there.
I use an Eason 7800 (24 inch floor standing printer) that I call the “Jersey Barrier.” Somehow in a NYC Meet-Up I secured this old printer that was seldom used (made less than 2K prints in a decade) for a hundred dollars.
I kinda went off the deep end and bulked up on inks and paper ($10K) with the goal to become a master printer in B&W. This then led to me being invited by Jon Cone to be a Beta tester for the Piezography Pro under development. The reason I bulked up and spent so much on supplies in one year was to take advantage of seasonal sales to save money.
The thing with Piezography is it lays down lots of ink, then compound that with exploiting the enhanced resolution and tonality it favors printing big. Pretty much people asked if I was shooting large format film and wet printing. My prints have a lot of depth, and the cool shadows suggested a wet print.
So Piezography is an expensive rabbit hole, but know that Piezography Pro is developed as a turnkey printing system that allows printing digital negatives for contact printing. How crazy is that. Pretty much I can do a “Salgado” without the best French lab in Paris. No ink changes required and pretty much what you see is what you get on your calibrated monitor.
Not sure if you want to print color, but know that using Jon Cone color inks is very cost effective because the ink is about 1/10th the price of Eason inks.
The bad and ugly is that I found the paper transport of a Epson 3880 to be a limitation, and the printer was too small to really exploit Piezography. The 3880 which I bought new I killed through heavy use. My old 7800 seemed to be one of the most durable printers ever made. I had to replace the dampers, and currently it is stored with a set of carts loaded with Piezoflush.
Piezoflush pretty much allows me to store my printer safely.
BTW my two favorite papers are Plantine Fiber Rag and Jon Cones Type 5, both warm papers.
So if you decide to go realize to really exploit Piezography it will be mucho expensive…
Cal
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Andprayforrain
Member
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
APFR,
Not sure how this fits into your work.
If you print color Jon Cone color inks can almost reduce the costs of printing to almost just the cost of the paper.
Also he runs sales a few times a year, so that would be the time to load up the truck as they say to bulk up and save mucho money.
To me Piezography Pro would be the way to go. Printing big opens up the mids and presents itself like large format.
Support was great.
Also know that it has been a few years since I bought a house and got sidetracked. My information is not up to date.
All the best…
Cal
Dogman
Mentor
My R3000 worked great for several years, giving me beautiful B&W prints. Then it decided every paper type I tried to use was the wrong type and it would no longer print. Sorta snarky, that damn thing. So I bought a nice new P700 a couple of years ago that also printed lovely B&W. My P700 stopped taking paper a few weeks ago. It's like the gate is closed and no paper will be allowed inside, even plain paper fed from the top. Even worse, it's only on the first full set of inks so it hasn't been used a lot since purchase. Nobody works on Epson around here and I'm not shipping it out for repairs, so....
I'm dreaming of a Canon Pro-1000.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
D,
That P700 crapping out kinda sucks.
My 3880 was suppose to be a workhorse, and yes I printed heavily for many years, and then one day the capping station became an exploded diagram.
I kinda got my money’s worth, but my 7800 is mighty sturdy and more user serviceable. I downloaded a service manual for free when I had a day-job. Anyways built to last and is known to have a long print head life. This printer is about 15 years old. I bought it for $100.00 when it was a decade old, but it only had made 1850 prints in the decade before I bought it.
I learned a lot from Jon Cone’s web site on how to restore and maintain Epson printers. You might glean a fix for your P700.
Cal
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
Dogman,
Might I suggest registering into Jon Cone’s site and looking into their forum. What a great support group. Cost is free.
Also free support for Epson problems.
Costs nothing.
Cal
Might I suggest registering into Jon Cone’s site and looking into their forum. What a great support group. Cost is free.
Also free support for Epson problems.
Costs nothing.
Cal
filmtwit
Desperate but not serious
If you're on the east coast, I would heavily suggest seeing if you can't take one of Jon Cone's workshops, They are well worth the time and money when using his ink
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
FT,
I live in New York, and I’m interested in his digital negative workshops.
Because I had a boring day job I learn a lot off his web site.
The problem with the pandemic though is that the workshops close out fast.
Cal
filmtwit
Desperate but not serious
So I don't know if they are still doing it, but during covid times you could book Zoom time with Walker and he can config your computer and then take you threw the steps (I think they charged by the hour). So try contacting him and ask if the service is still available or if any seats have become available for any of the workshops. Also, most of the other process's they teach take you threw the digital negative workshops (so you can stil learn it, but also make P/P prints along the way).
Oh, back to workshops themselves, they are in rural Vermont, so you'll need a car. There is a B&B down the street from them, but it's pricey, so you'll most likely be staying 15-20 drive away. Also, not a lot of places ot eat, so find a breakfast place near your stay location, lunch is provided by Jon, but for dinner we'd all end up Bradford because that also the closest place for drinks.
Calzone
Gear Whore #1
FT,
I retired two years ago, and have been so busy with my 1912 Baby-Victorian house. The big plan is to build out half of my 2-car garage into a heated “clean room” with probably a basement darkroom.
The addition of Walker to the Jon Cone team is so great, unfortunately Dana is no longer there.
I went to art school in the 70’s and worked a day job, so I know how to delay gratification, but things are moving forward.
I’m so glad I took the path of maintaining my creative integrity and did not get my work commodified or controled.
I know Jon Cone knows of me because I proofed a friends work with Piezography Pro which later got printed into exhibition prints by Cone Editions. My friend was on site initially for a week during the printing which continued after he left.
It was flattering to know that the files I manipulated were used “as is” to make exhibition prints. Through my friend I pretty much got feedback from Jon the Master Printer.
I have a car, and I kinda love Vermont. Spent a few summers vacationing in Grand Isle very near the Canadian border on Lake Champlain.
Because I have a Master’s in Journalism I was able to take in the vast amount of information on the Jon Cone site before Walker came onboard and streamlined an archive. I also had a boring day job and needed to stay awake. LOL. Back when I did my research it was basically information overload, but I managed to dig in.
I shoot with a M-Monochrom, and I don’t know if you are aware of my secret to use a modern Heliopan UV filter marked “Digital.” Seems that Heliopan filters marked “Digital” also have an IR filter included, and pretty much this cleans up the histogram and lowers clipping by removing signal that otherwise would be noise.
Then I learned that shooting with a Heliopan number 2 yellow marked “Digital” minimized post processing so that I had less digital artifacts, which allowed me to print mighty huge.
Cal
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