PiezoDN QTR curve(s) status

InkjetMall Customer Support Piezography Inks & Printing
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Hi folks,

Just checking in to see if the new PiezoDN QTR curve(s) have been released yet? Are you planning on revising the piezography manual to include this new process or a separate workflow write-up? Do the new PiezoDN curve(s) utilize all K6 inks (not counting / including GO); as in how do the K6 inks behave in the UV spectrum?

Looking forward to PiezoDN!

thanks.
Michael

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Just checking in to see if the new PiezoDN QTR curve(s) have been released yet?

Not yet. We have it working internally for Palladium/PotassiumOxalate on four papers and three printer variations (1430,3880,4900,and 9900 upcoming) on Selenium K6 ink + GO. It will enable self linearization and profiling of darkroom negatives for those with a spectrophotometer. The only catch is that limiting neg density will need to be done in either photoshop (a 2 seconds worth of labor by adding a straight line curve or levels adjust) or by us directly in the .quad (for those who can send us LAB* measurements this procedure will be very inexpensive. For those who send us full targets and .quads to linearize, this will be like our normal custom profile price). Roy’s linearizer does not do density limitations inside .quads.

Are you planning on revising the piezography manual to include this new process or a separate workflow write-up?

Yes!!! This is what the hold-up is about because we want to make sure the documentation is there so we have enough time to continue R&D for other mediums instead of answering questions. It will start out as a seperat workflow write-up and gradually get into The Piezography Manual 2016 Edition once we do some revisions of that.

Do the new PiezoDN curve(s) utilize all K6 inks (not counting / including GO); as in how do the K6 inks behave in the UV spectrum?

They utilize all K6 Selenium Inks. We have reformulated the selenium inks and master-curve building over the years from their beginning (when we first started dig-neg) and we are now able to do 1-6 printing instead of using shades 2.5 and 4.5 like in the past. With printers that have more than 6 ink channels, we are building the curves with GO that prints at the same time as the negs. This hardens the negative and protects it when doing full editions. It also acts as a small static deterrent. This is such an upgrade to the negative-making process we are making GO a requirement. It utilizes only 10% or so but that still makes a huge improvement.

The amazing part about these curves and how they interact with the ink and OHP for Palladium (and soon Platinum) is that they ramp up in density quickly for the shadows and ramp down quickly from white to the lightest gray. This control of density happens because we are printing between 3 and 5 grays in these tones at either end of the ramp. This enables the 256 density separation.

Also, because the darkroom-print shadows are actually printed highlights and because those inks are variably less then what you would print on paper (for the paper printed shadow areas), the shadow details are MORE ARTICULATED in a platinum print from PiezoDN then you get from even a Piezography print. Go figure.

Cheers,
Walker

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Please note, because this process uses Grayscale ICC profiles to print with, it requires a Macintosh computer. These can be bought super cheap (used) though.

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I’m on Win and I can print with greyscale ICC profiles.

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Thanks Walker! Just read your email regarding the reorganization of all the different sites and am very excited about what you and the team back in Topsham are doing!

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I was hoping to get more explanation of this. Is this something unique to PiezoDN? Does it still use QTR? Because on Windows it’s certainly possible to use greyscale ICC profiles to print with when printing on paper using QTR, so long as you do the conversion to the ICC in another program such as PS. If PiezoDN uses QTR, why wouldn’t it be the same?

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We don’t want to force people to convert to an ICC manually until we can come up with a very good workflow and documentation for it. We may burn the ICC curve into the .quad and not require ICCs for windows too. Haven’t decided on the most elegant way. Generally the whole reason/goal for PiezoDN is to maintain “original file equilibrium” meaning no added adjustment curves or burned profiles, etc.

Basically, we are launching for mac first. If enterprising PCers want to get into it with conversions in PS they can. Until we come out with that workflow and instructions (whether manual conversion or special .quads) then we will be only outwardly supporting mac.

It’s been only 3 months since I came to IJM and we want to come out with a good product for OS X first where the workflow is natively supported. This is a VERY quicklike turnaround for a total shift in the way people can produce negatives.

-W

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The way I read what’s been written was that on Mac, you’ll do something or other in PS and then switch to another program, PT, to convert and print. I.e. much like the print on paper workflow. It’s much the same on Win, you’d do whatever you have to in PS and then switch to QTRGUI, the only difference being that in PS there’s an extra step to convert and save as for PiezoDN. But even that isn’t strictly the case if you configure QTRGui to use a “hot” folder, as printing then starts as soon as you do the extra save.

This is all speculation until we see the final release, but it just reads to me that you’re making the Win worklfow sound a lot harder than it is in practice. That’s my only point.

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We just launched the website and countdown to launch.

piezodn.inkjetmall.com

cheers all,
Walker

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Cool. Have you decided on the cost? Will the linearization tools be applicable to prints as well? Can you post the .7 point type image of Alice in Wonderland? I want to try that test, but I’m too lazy to make my own image of small text.

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It will probably be about $75.00 (maybe a little more depending on some stuff to work out next week).

This gives you permanent access to the updates.

We are going to drum-scan the .7type text but I took a crappy little iPhone macro photo of it. Here it is. (bare in mind, the text is sharp, the camera lens I used wasn’t.) Epson OEM K3 or K4 would just print dots not txt.


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Thanks. That’s a very reasonable cost for what you are offering.

Test looks really good. I was wondering about providing the original TIFF to print out on my printers (both with and without Peizography).

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I’m not at work at the moment so don’t have it. However, it’s simple enough to make a .7pt txt file in something like Illustrator, export as PDF, open in Preview and then save that as a 2880dpi image.

results will vary based on the quality and alignment of your printer-head!

best,
W

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[QUOTE=Brian_S;11076]The way I read what’s been written was that on Mac, you’ll do something or other in PS and then switch to another program, PT, to convert and print. I.e. much like the print on paper workflow. It’s much the same on Win, you’d do whatever you have to in PS and then switch to QTRGUI, the only difference being that in PS there’s an extra step to convert and save as for PiezoDN. But even that isn’t strictly the case if you configure QTRGui to use a “hot” folder, as printing then starts as soon as you do the extra save.

This is all speculation until we see the final release, but it just reads to me that you’re making the Win worklfow sound a lot harder than it is in practice. That’s my only point.[/QUOTE]

Brian_S, have you found out what works for a Win workflow? (Convert ICC)

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Ok. It’s released (for mac). Anyone who buys it and wants to walk in the PC world pre release for PC I can send a zip.

best,
Walker

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Let me say that I am not a PiezoDN user and am highly unlikely to be. And therefore I haven’t seen the workflow in detail. On OS X, when you print on paper, you have to print using Print Tool - you can’t print an untagged image or an image in Grey Gamma 2.2 direct from Photoshop to QTR, because if you try, there is some silent profile conversion that occurs. From what I have read in posts here, for PiezoDN on OS X you do convert the image to an ICC for printing, something which isn’t normally recommended for printing on paper. On OS X I’m not sure whether this profile conversion means that you can print PiezoDN direct from Photoshop to QTR, or whether you still have to use Print Tool. But either way I imagine that it would be much the same - you specify an ICC in either the PS print dialog or in Print Tool settings. This means that an ICC conversion is done on-the-fly as part of the printing process.

In Windows you can’t print direct to QTRGui, so to do an ICC conversion you simply take your image, manually convert to the ICC in Photoshop, save it as a copy, open the copy in QTRGui and print. If I’ve understood this correctly, I honesty can’t see what’s so hard about that and why there’s been all this talk of PiezoDN not working on Windows. People using Windows who have been converting to ICCs for printing (against the usual IJM advice) have been doing this for years. What Windows users won’t have is an installer program that puts all the right bits (curves and ICCs) in the right place, but I don’t regard that as all that hard either.

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You won’t have the ability to linearize the .quad directly on a PC or custom-tune it. Nor will you actually be able to make the ICC profiles used to print with (to my understanding) + a few other things that will be lacking.

Basically, if you only have a PC you are limited to the canned curves and profiles (something that isn’t always practical when making negs for a darkroom). While the canned profiles are AWESOME, we want to make it AWESOMER and let people tune their curves and calibrate themselves. That’s kinda a large part and point of PieozDN.

If you want to do a PC, I can send a zip after purchase if this is requested, but you won’t get the full functionality or support necessarily to fully use the system as it was intended.

I hope thisclarifies things a bit.

best,
Walker

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If one wishes to print on paper, with no current interest in printing digital negatives, and one wishes to use well documented, user-friendly tools for linearizing .quad curves (rather than Roy Harrington’s droplet), does IJM advise purchasing PiezoDN? Will the linearization tools be available separately from the PiezoDN package? And finally, are the linearization tools useable with a ColorMunki Photo? PiezoDN looks like a ton of work for you to put out- well done!
Wayne

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[QUOTE=walkerblackwell;11289]You won’t have the ability to linearize the .quad directly on a PC or custom-tune it. Nor will you actually be able to make the ICC profiles used to print with (to my understanding) + a few other things that will be lacking.

I hope this clarifies things a bit.[/QUOTE]

Up to a point. For printing on paper, I can linearise myself and create profiles using the QTR droplets, on either Win or OS X. Are you saying that these aren’t applicable with PiezoDN? Are there additional / different tools included with PiezoDN?

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PiezoDN utilizes the QTR-Linearize-Quad droplet in a unique way built specifically for negatives.

Soon we’ll release a tool for doing this with Piezography that is different than the way we handle measurement data with negatives. Both methods will rely on the droplet though.

best,
Walker