PIEZOGRAPHY NEUTRAL INK
BY JON CONE
Neutral K7 on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag
This ink set was designed to be achromatic to the human visual system when printed on a very specific color of white paper. The paper we designed it on is Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. Innova Photo Smooth Cotton White also has this same tone of white.
When viewed under a full spectrum 5000k light source (this is the color of white that a standard human sees as neutral), a photograph on these two papers will appear to be neutral.
Because the inks are neutral, they will pick up the tone of any paper white and shift in that direction. The inks therefore can be made to appear warm on warmer papers and cool on cooler papers.
Neutral inks can appear “flatter” to the human perception system because we are not used to looking at neutral grays. There is no darkroom equivalent – yet this remains one of our most popular inks.