PIEZOGRAPHY SPECIAL EDITION INK
BY JON CONE
Soft proof: Piezography Split tone Glossy Warm Neutral/Selenium on JonCone Studio Type 4
Soft proof: Piezography Split tone Glossy Warm Neutral/Selenium on JonCone Studio Type 5
Piezography Special Edition is a unique ink set blended by Jon Cone. It split-tones to display crisp neutral highlights that melds into selenium which melds into detailed Carbon shadows. This is the most beautiful ink set Piezography has ever released to the public.
“The most beautiful print color since Agfa Brovira, perfect screen match, tack sharp, deep and detailed shadows… Spectacular product.”
Craig Wallace Dale
www.craigdale.com
This ink set was influenced heavily by my work for photographer Gregory Colbert and his Ashes and Snow exhibitions (the Nomadic Museum). The 11 inks I developed for Colbert are extremely complex. There were three subtle splits in the Ashes and Snow prints made for the Tokyo and Mexico City exhibitions. These prints were seen by more than 10 million people! (You can read more about this by searching on this website for “MyStory“.)
I also decided to blend a simple ink set of six shades for the Epson 1400 printer. I developed a unique K6 curves architecture. Although the ink set is available for all the supported printer models, the 1400 kit is the purest expression of what I envisioned.
We work on the principle that all Piezography inks are intermixable. Photographers might eventually wish to make their own “blend”; secret or not. As long as the shades are not cross-mixed, any shade can be mixed with the same corresponding shade of another ink set.
Special Edition’s recipe, initially a secret, is simple. You are more than welcome to begin making your own blends.
Special Edition inks
Shade 1 = Piezography K7 shade 1 black
Shade 2 = Carbon shade 2
Shade 3 = 75% Carbon Shade 3 and 25% Selenium Shade 3
Shade 4 = 50% Carbon Shade 4 and 50% Selenium Shade 4
Shade 5 = Selenium shade 5
Shade 6 = Neutral shade 6
Shade 7 = Neutral shade 7
This is a split toning ink that is blended to make the splits as subtle and gradual as possible. You can say that the split melds into the next.
For actual split toning, the most popular set is to take Carbon shades 2, 3, & 4 and use them with Selenium shades 5, 6, & 7. Piezography K7 shade 1 is used with this – and its beautiful. To make is just that step more exquisite, you could make a mixture at shade 4 or at shade 5, depending on how high or low you want the split to be. The mixture can be at shade 4 and the shadows will be the more pronounced. To not blend makes a great mid-gray split. And to blend in shade 5 will bring the split up a little higher than mid-tones and may be perfect for landscape.
To the left are prints from a Warm Neutral / Selenium split tone ink set that is not blended and follows the spit scheme in a Glossy version. For the matte print on type 2, we used the matte Piezography K7 shade 1. In our 8 ink printers we run both blacks and use a separate printer to apply the Gloss Optimizer.
Piezography Glossy Split Tone
Shade 1 = Piezography MPS shade 1 black
Shade 2 = Warm Neutral shade 2
Shade 3 = Warm Neutral shade 3
Shade 4 = Warm Neutral shade 4
Shade 5 = Selenium shade 5
Shade 6 = Selenium shade 6
Shade 7 = Selenium shade 7