Piezography Pro: Your Favorite the Blending Combinations?

[JayDecker]

Receive carts and Piezo Pro inks, got’em saddled up, and printed some test images. Very impressive out of the box from the first print! After recovering from the shock and awe, immediately started diddling around with the cool/neutral/warm ink blending. Quickly drifted toward warmer prints and ended the night liking the test print with settings of H: 50C/50N, M: 50N/50W, and S: 100W, yet feel that there is more exploration to be done with blending.

Do you have any favorite blend settings that particularly like - especially invited are settings different that those mentioned above?

[Kenneth_Lee]

The color effects vary with choice of paper and matte/gloss.

You might want to make your own sample book if you plan to print with a variety of papers etc. Even with a sample book, you may find that it only functions as a starting point since ultimately many images deserve their own unique treatment.

[donbga]

Hey Jay Decker,

I’ve never liked a cool neutral print in inkjet or silver gelatin so I’ve tended to gravitate towards a slightly warm neutral but the choice of paper definitely affects the end result so I agree with Ken about creating a sample book.

I used to really like the Harman papers unfortunately those are gone. Having said that Hahnemuhle papers have gained my favor.

Test and try,

Don Bryant

[Brian_S]

i’ve raised this question previously. See these threads:

Piezography Pro Community Edition QTR Curves

In another thread I asked about updates to split-toning starter recipes (but this is the more relevant thread, which I only discovered after posting). What I said was: In the Pro inks FAQ on the IJM shop site, you say: “It is the split-toning that makes up the other 999,900 combinations. That is a daunting task and we think the Community is going to be instrumental in sharing these discoveries. Cone Editions Press is going to be sharing split-tone settings on a regular basis.” I haven’t seen …

Piezography Pro & Carbon, Special edition?

I’m reviving an old thread because I want to suggest that IJM supply some starter spit-toning recipes for people using the Pro inks and Community Edition curves. As it stands, the CE contains cool, neutral and warm curves. In the FAQ on the IJM shop site, in response to a question like this, you say “It is the split-toning that makes up the other 999,900 combinations. That is a daunting task and we think the Community is going to be instrumental in sharing these discoveries. Cone Editions Pres…

As Kenneth said, the matte/gloss question is a pretty key one. The main reason I went Pro was because the five existing K7 inksets have quite different tonings on MK and PK papers, Special Edition in particular. I wanted control over that and the ability to get similar tonings on the two paper types.

[JayDecker]

Ken and Don suggestions were helpful. Printed on all the papers that on hand and learned a few things:

1. Piezo Pro inks do look great on smooth/glossy surface papers (something not experienced with previous inks), the Baryta and Plantine papers seem to be recurring favorites.
2. While the images on matte surfaces looked great, prefer what can be on smooth/glossy surfaces with Piezo ink now and am wondering what to do with the boxes of matte velvet paper in the corner.
3. The Piezo Pro cool ink tends to be more subtle than expected and the warm ink is stronger. Most test subjects who were asked to look at the prints could not detect differences with ink blends variations , unless it was obvious, e.g., an all warm ink print v. an all cool ink print.

[walkerblackwell]

@JayDecker

1. The Piezo Pro cool ink tends to be more subtle than expected and the warm ink is stronger. Most test subjects who were asked to look at the prints could not detect differences with ink blends variations , unless it was obvious, e.g., an all warm ink print v. an all cool ink print.

This is intentional. We minimized the colorants in the cool in order to make a good neutral when blending and to make it as archival as possible.

best,
Walker

[Kenneth_Lee]

Sample book aside, in the end I settled on one paper and a narrow set of toning options: Canson Platine with neutral highlights, a fairly small amount of warm tone in the middle and low sliders, like 20 or 25%.

This paper is thick, has a slight ivory color, and with light toning reminds me of the darkroom prints I made decades ago from 4x5 film onto warm-toned Agfa paper (Portriga ?). The gloss on these images is probably thicker and less obtrusive while the black is just as deep if not deeper. It’s like Ebony and Ivory.

Moving away from matte images to this thick paper of medium gloss is really a delight: no worries over scratching or careful handling. So like you I have some boxes of paper waiting on the shelf. Since our friends here keep inventing new inks those papers will probably return.