Issue with piezography inks and print tools

InkjetMall Customer Support Color Management & Printmaking Workflow
1

Hi,
We are having a lot of issues with Piezography since at least April.
Lightroom version 13.4 doesn’t work anymore with quadtone rip. The presets doesn’t stays, curves doesn’t work, and when starting a print it never goes on.
We use Quad tone 2.8.0.0, Curve 2.8.2 and Print Tool version 2.3.4.

With Print Tool we had to modify all the classic configuration to get blacks and not a grey print :
Print color management and not any more print tool managed
Adobe RGB doesn’t work also, we had to modify files in Srgb and modify to 8 bits because 16 bits doesn’t work fine.
We stay in color matching > quadtone rip.

It’s been harder and harder to work in Piezography for our clients because of a non regular quality of prints and non regular update of the softwares.
If we could have a feedback about all these issues. It’s been 2 weeks that we have been doing tests to find something reasonable.
Thanks,
David from Lebolabo print lab in Bordeaux-France

2

Apple has not permitted non-color managed printing with Piezography for several years and printing from Adobe directly is now challenged and not recommended. PrintTool is the appropriate solution.

We do not support any curve making with Curve; and we do not use it ourselves; and so we can not give you any advise about producing your own solutions. We provide an extensive library of Piezography produced curves and can support your use of our products when you use our library or you produce your own curves with Piezography Professional Editions Toolkit.

It is hard to provide answers of your issues if you are using Curve to produce your own and I am understanding from your posting that you are.

If you are - have you tried to use the Piezography workflow that is in our documentation? Or are you instead using QuadTone RIP documentation/workflow?

Kindest regards,

Jon

3

Hi Jon,
Perhaps I’ve been not enough precise.
We are using your curves since 2019 : Hahnemuhle, Canson , Awagami Pro-AJIP.
We have been working with always the same process with Lightroom but it’s not working anymore.
In Print Tool we have to be in 8 bits Srgb and Print color management .
If we try in 16 bits and Adobe RGB with Print Tool Managed the darks are grey ( blacks are bland ).
We did a lot of tests this last month. We notice that every year we have ink and technical issues… It’s beginning to be difficult to work since when a client has a serie and we have to produce the same serie 1 year later, it’s impossible to get the same work using the same configurations.
Thanks Jon for your feedback.
David

4

Hi David,

Ok I understand better.

Our workflow has not changed in the past 5-10 years… perhaps even longer. Therefore, no update to your OS or to any Adobe Product in this time changes the characteristics of the output as long as you have followed our workflow.

I do not know how often you purchase inks, or if you are printing every day or every week. If for example, you only print once or twice in two weeks time, this would not be very healthy for the ink system. While it will not produce clogging issues, etc… the ink is made of pigment - and pigment allowed to sit unused in a printer will begin to settle. This may be difficult to detect with color printing because there are some 23 million colors to look at. With Piezography there are only 256 shades, and the inks must be in prime condition always or you will begin to notice. Printing a 256 step target will indicate whether there is a smooth transition from dMax to dMin or there are places where the patches begin looking like one another in clusters… (an indication of stale ink).

IF in your case, you are not printing daily nor even weekly several meters of material… then before undertaking a project you should remove the ink carts and shake gently for 5-10 seconds - and then run the INITIAL FILL (or three Power Cleans) to recharge the printer with freshly shaken ink.

In this way, what you print with a fresh system two years ago will match today - provided you use the exact same workflow.

I think in your case - having to change workflow is not because of any updates…(as long as you follow our manual). So it is strong possibility of stake inks or workflow.

  1. I recommend to refreshen the inks by shaking and then INIT FILL (read instructions on our site about INIT FILL before you begin)…

  2. Then I recommend printing a test image saved in Gamma 2.20 or Adobe RGB 1998 using the standard curves setup you use with No Color Management. This is the Classic method.

  3. Then reprint the same image, however selecting Print Tool Managed and select the Piezography Matte ICC if printing on matte paper, or the Piezography Gloss ICC is printing on non-matte, use the exact same standard curves setup you use - and look at the difference between No Color Management (very linear) and Print Tool Managed with a Piezography ICC (much more contrasty especially towards the darks.)

You will have printed with freshened inks using the two different Piezography workflows. You can compare which you prefer to use. Naturally I assume you are not making any advanced adjustments in QuadTone RIP (as those are incompatible with .quad files).

In general, on a large format printer EPSON recommends discarding their own ink after 6 months use (due to staling of the inks). But, you can instead shake the carts once a week. But you can not leave ink inside the ink lines unused for weeks… running a nozzle check every day does nothing to help… You should have fresh ink inside your ink lines at least every 2-4 weeks. Any printer with long ink lines will allow the ink to settle and it is immediately noticeable when printing Piezography. The Pro printers were never intended for intermittent use. They were designed to go through a set of cartridges in about 6 months. You will know your own ink usage and you can better judge if you are a heavy, moderate, or light printer. If towards the light - you should re-freshen prior to a project. We think INITIAL FILL is the safer mechanism to do that than Power Cleans because it only uses suction.

Further to this - very light ink usage will injure the black ink selector switch by gumming it up - so if you are not printing several meters of material a week in matte and several meters in photo black - you should also regularly exercise the black ink mode change back and forth (unless you never intend to use the other black mode.)

I hope this helps…

It may be you are always printing with fresh inks and using our recommended workflow but you have some mystery issue with QuadTone RIP and its ability to render our curves - in which case a reinstall usually and immediately fixes. You can always reinstall QuadTone RIP (if you are a heavy to moderate printer.) As it is known to self corrupt.

Kind regards,

Jon