This is my first post as I am just getting serious with B&W printing and expect to start on piezography once I have got my head around QTR. I have an old, extremely low usage, R2400 which I have successfully resurrected. I want to be able to print both matte and glossy and am wondering if the 2400 is a good place to start. If I can use it, it will save me the cost of an R3000 but I don’t want to start with the 2400 only to find that I should have done something else.
My apologies if this is a dumb question. I’m on a steep learning curve at the moment.
Yes, if your R2400 is in good working condition, than that would be a great printer to get started on. You can either use Piezography K7 including shades 1-7, with GO in the LLK channel for gloss printing, and switch out the black/shade 1 inks depending if you’re printing matte or gloss, OR you can set it up with our new Piezography 2 system and use P2 curves to be able to print matte and gloss with one printer (without switching ink/carts). There are many more pre-made curves available for the original K7 setup, but the P2 system is very convenient for printing both matte and gloss. The R2400 and R3000 use the same curves, so output should be very close if not identical from the two machines (differences would be due to mechanical differences in the two printers).
Please let me know if you have further questions, or there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards~ Dana
Thanks for your reply. When I go to the product page for the R2400, I only get K7 as a choice. I’m quite happy to swap carts. but is there a difference between P2 and K7? As I understand it, I can’t make my own profiles for piezography printing so profiles are important for me. I use a number of papers, both glossy and matte. Is its possible to see a list of what is available for both K7 and P2. I also use Ilford Gold Fibre Silk for colour work but haven’t seen it mentioned here. Is it not a recommended paper for piezography?
My apologies for the load of questions, as I said I’m finding lots of questions.
Piezography 2 hasn’t been “officially released”, though we do have some customers set up and happily printing with P2, and we’ve been using P2 exclusively in our fine art print studio, Cone Editions Press, for over a year. For P2, you will need to get and install Piezography ink shades in order as per the chart on this page, and use “P2” specific curves (which are available for download from the same page): http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/content.php?165-Piezography-2-Matte-and-Gloss-for-K3-printer-models
We have limited curve libraries for P2, specific to Piezography ink tones. If you want to print on a paper that we don’t provide a pre-made curve for, you can try using a curve for a similar paper to see if it provides good results, but the best results will be obtained by having a custom P2 curve made.
Please let me know if you have further questions, or there’s anything else I can help you with.
Best regards~ Dana
You will need to download QuadTone RIP weather you’re using K7 or P2. P2 curves are available by download on the page listed in my last post, and K7 curves are included in the QTR download.
One more thing- the print quality and tonal range of K7 vs P2 is equal, due to the way we linearize curves, so one isn’t better than the other in regards to print quality, but P2 is convenient to print matte + gloss with one printer, without changing inks/carts. It’s not such a big deal to change carts in a desktop printer, such as the R2400, but is a hassle to change inks on a pro model printer with internal ink lines and dampers.
Thanks Dana, it looks like K7 is the way to go on the 2400. I use HPR, Innova Smooth Cotton and Fibaprint Matte and there are curves for them already. As for gloss, I use HPR Baryta and Ilford GFS which would need new profiles. Do you have any experience with using either of these papers with piezography? I’d hate to start off and then find that there is another paper that gives much better results. I have a good stock of IGFS and really like it for colour.
On a complete tangent, do you offer simple Air mail? The freight prices are eye watering unless I buy a load of stuff. It makes buying a bottle of piezo flush alone very expensive.
We have curves for Epson Exhibition Fiber, Epson Lustre, FotoSpeed Platinum Gloss, Hahnemuhle Baryta FB, Hahnemuhle PhotoRag Baryta, Harmon Gloss Baryta Warm, Harman Glass FB Al, Ilford Gold Fiber Silk, Ilford Smooth Gloss, JonCone Studio Type5 and others. We are partial to JonCone Studio Type 5 because we believe the surface is more “believable” than others. However, surface decoration is a personal choice and most users select a baryta because they like the surface of it. I am not drawn to GFS because to me it looks like the paper that comes out of those kiosks and I don’t like my photographs having a surface texture. But GFS is super popular! Better by meaning prints sharp or something like that - we equalize those things via the curves for the most part. I think Type 5 and EEF are the best to my eye. So those would be my choices.
We do offer US Postal right on the website to AUS. You can write to Sales directly and they can give you some pricing!
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