Piezography Master Photography System

Piezography MPS (Master Printmaking System) for the Epson 3800 / 3880 is also available for the Epson 2880, 4800, 4880, 7800, 7880, 9800, and 9880

This is the latest incarnation of the Piezography system by the Master Printer Jon Cone of Cone Editions Press. Piezography inks and software are sold exclusively in the USA by InkjetMall, and are formulated by Vermont PhotoInkjet, LLC of Topsham, Vermont.

The Piezography MPS system for the Epson 3800 / 3880 printer comprises nine Piezography inks which are a direct replacement to the Epson Ultrachrome ink set. There are seven shades of Piezography black ink which include two shades similar to Epson’s LK and LLK. Piezography adds two additional darker shades and two additional lighter shades dramatically increase highlight and shadow details. Additionally, Piezography includes a matte black and a photo black so that the inks can be used on the widest possible range of media. The ninth ink is the Piezography Gloss Optimizer which is used to overprint glossy prints and produces perfectly equalized gloss with absolutely no bronzing nor metamerism. In short, Piezography MPS produces perfect matte or glossy prints, both of which exceed the Epson Advanced Black & White system. Unlike the Epson ink set which must perform both color and monochromatic print operations, the Piezography MPS ink set perfects the printing of black & white prints without compromise.

Customers who are fanatical about the quality of their black & white prints will benefit by using Piezography MPS. The 3800 and 3880 printers offer 17″ wide media and can be used with economically priced inkjet papers or any of the more expensive fine art media from the major paper makers. Piezography inks are sold in refillable cartridges that permit customers to use these printers at a fraction of the cost of Epson ink while sparing the ecology the fate of one-time use carts. More than 450 million one time use carts are thrown into landfills each year in the USA alone. Piezography MPS is not only the highest standard quality product in the world, it is also an ecologically responsible product to use.

A customer replaces all of the Epson ink cartridges with the Piezography refillable ink carts – which are filled with Piezography inks from included funnels. The customer can refill the carts without removing then from the printer, and the level of ink remaining is easily seen through the translucent material. Additionally, the included resetting mechanism for the ink cart chips can be used to reset the maintenance tank. The customer simply removes the top plate from the maintenance tank, removes the material and replenishes the maintenance tank with absorbent material. There is now no longer a need to throw away the plastic maintenance tank which includes a semi-conductor chip.

Neil Selkirk, a photographer of national reputation who’s powerful and uncompromising portraiture has appeared in all the major US magazines, including the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, and Interview is a recent adopter of the Piezography MPS system. “I have never seen a D-max this dark before in digital or silver,” said Selkirk.

Currently, two MPS systems are sold and the customer chooses between Selenium MPS and Warm Neutral MPS. The difference is a pronounced selenium like toning effect in the former, and a slight bromide greenish warmth to the latter. We generalize these as an Ilford style and an Agfa style ink set. However, the inks are comprised of finely ground encapsulated pigment that will take on the cast of the paper white allowing a wide range of tone according to the paper chosen. Look at the examples below of the Selenium and the Warm Neutral ink systems.

These are actual Soft Proofs of photographer Mark Stracke’s images which include ink color and paper color.

Piezography Selenium Glossy on Epson Exhibition Fiber

Piezography Selenium Glossy on JonCone Studio Type5

Piezography Warm Neutral Glossy on Epson Exhibition Fiber

Piezography Warm Neutral Glossy on JonCone Studio Type5

Piezography MPS is used in conjunction with the QuadTone RIP, a $50 shareware written by Roy Harrington. The software is a sophisticated print driver that allows the printer to be used with up to seven shades of monochromatic ink. Piezography has included a wide array of “profiles” for most of the popular Epson and 3rd party media companies, and these are free to the customer when they download the QuadTone RIP. Additional custom profiles are available directly from InkjetMall – though QuadTone RIP includes its own profile creation tools that are compatible with the X-Rite EyeOne device. The profiles provided by InkjetMall are made with the Piezography BW profiler. InkjetMall has been providing these proprietary media profiles for nearly a decade. Further reading on Piezography BW curves is provided here.

Piezography is the brainchild of Master Printer, Jon Cone. Cone established the World’s first digital printmaking studio in Port Chester, NY in 1984 and has been at the forefront of many of the most significant advancements in digital printmaking in a career that has spanned three decades. Most recently he produced the enormous monochromatic fine art prints for Gregory Colbert’s monumental Ashes and Snow exhibitions of the Nomadic Museum, which have now been seen by more than ten million people worldwide. This customized extension of Piezography was produced in 11 inks customized for the photographer and printed on enormous sheets of handmade kozo/cotton paper weighing as much as 5kgs per sheet.

“I suppose we are a little late out the gate for glossy black & white printing, ” said Jon Cone who has been providing matte Piezography systems since 2000. “On the other hand, I’ve been able to see the perfected systems from Epson, HP and Canon who now offer competitive systems to Piezography. I have now introduced a new system that significantly raises the bar again above the standards they’ve achieved.”

Piezography MPS is in use at many studios worldwide with early adopters such as Markus Zuber of FineArtPix Studio in Aarau, Switzerland. “We have tested the most relevant printing systems on the market by the big inkjet manufacturers,” said Markus Zuber, of FineArtPix, a professional print studio and lab in Aarau, Switzerland. “Neither the OEM software nor OEM inks have ever been able to entirely resolve issues like bronzing, metamerism or gloss differential.” “Using Piezography MPS we are getting what we have dreamt of for quite a long time”, said Zuber. “We finally have the perfect combination of finest details and tonal richness optimised for both matte and glossy papers, and we are convinced that this technique gives us the best longtime stability – which has been proven recently in studies by Aardenburg Imaging.”

The Piezography MPS system is also in use at studios which are specializing in making digital negatives and positives. Paul Taylor, Director of Renaissance Press, in Ashuelot, New Hampshire is widely considered one of the best gravure and platinum printers. Taylor has been using the Piezography MPS Selenium ink set for making film positives and negatives used in the production of its copper plate photogravures and platinum prints. “The Piezography MPS Selenium ink set has the greatest durability, longest tonal range, and finest dither pattern of any of the inks I’ve tested,” said Paul Taylor. “It is remarkably suited for creating both positive and negative transparencies on film for hand applied photographic processes.” Mr. Taylor is also an instructor in both Copper Plate Photogravure and Digital Hybrid, a course, which combines digital imaging with hand, coated emulsions at The Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. “The Piezography MPS Selenium ink set has met with great success among both students and faculty at RISD,” added Mr. Taylor.

Piezography MPS is used to make digital negatives and positives at Paul Taylor's Renaissance Press in Ashuelot, New Hampshire.

Technically, the MPS system is also available for any of the eight ink position printers, provided you do a black ink change procedure according to the Epson manual – which will allow switching between Piezography MPS Black (our photo black) and Piezography K7 black (our matte black). On all of the InkjetMall web pages for Piezography Selenium K7 and Warm Neutral K7 we now feature an optional matte black position cart and ink bottle to make this easy.

For those who love split-toning – please refer to this blog entry which explains how we use some of the Warm Neutral inks in combination with some of the Selenium inks to produce a beautiful split-tone glossy print.

Like all of the Piezography inks, Piezography MPS can be operated in an Epson printer at less than half the cost of using the OEM inks, while at the same time they are an eco-friendly alternative. All of our systems are sold in user refillable cartridge systems. The average cost of the OEM ink for the Epson 3880 printer is $1.00 per ml while Piezography ink is priced from only .10¢ to .35¢ per ml.

Direct links to purchase the Piezography Selenium MPS system for the following supported printer models: 2880, 3800, 3880, 4800, 4880, 7800/9800, 7880/9880

Direct links to purchase the Piezography Warm Neutral MPS system for the following supported printer models: 2880, 3800, 3880, 4800, 4880, 7800/9800, 7880/9880

MPS is not a brand new ink line – it is the use of two of the Piezography K7 ink sets (Selenium K7 or Warm Neutral K7) in combination with both the Piezography MPS Black (our photo black) and Piezography NK7 shade 1 (our matte black) and the Piezography Gloss Optimizer. We are now producing glossy Piezography curves for support in QuadTone RIP and we can provide instructions for the use in ErgoSoft’s StudioPrint RIP.