>
> Jon,
>
> Good thoughts here. If you feel the brunt of my rant, my apologies. The rant would have been equally well-directed at any number of other highly opnionated persons in this forum. I would be perfectly happy to sit down over beer (my treat), preferably poring over prints, rather than this impersonal (and anonymous) forum. Perhaps next time I am in the Vermonts area.....
>
> The point I am trying to make is please be respective of other, viable options. These may not be your choice, but that does not make them universally wrong or inferior. I participate in a monthly exchange of prints, so get to see lots of prints by others. Not everyone in the exchange is highly skilled, but neither is everyone a slouch at printmaking. Some in fact have refined their crafts to a very high degree and are customarily making their own ink mixes. They actually take the potential of inkjet printing to a level higher than anything available commercially (sorry, but higher level than K6/7 in limited attributes). But most use straight-up ABW, and some use linearized ABW. Many have used various flavors of K6/7. These are my objective observations:
>
> Generally prints made with K6/7 systems are no better than those made with ABW. Ultimately it is the skill of the printmaker that dictates the quality of the final result, not the tools they used. I am near-sighted, and routinely take my glasses off to view prints nose-to-paper. When I use my view camera, I don't even use a loope for final focus, just take my glasses off, and go nose-to-ground glass. So I know what smoothness is. Never have I sensed that K6/K7 trumps ABW. Under high magnification, sure there is a difference, but it is totally meaningless, and what I call politely "technical self-gratification." So naturally, I ask myself what is all the hubub for K6/K7? I read someone (you or Tyler, or perhaps someone else)recently write something to the effect that the visual superiority, fidelity of K6/7 is not something everyone can see. When I read that, by knee-jerk (and quite possibly totally accurate) read on that was "very few people, or more likely no one will see that difference unless they use a loope." So why bother? Well, you bother because there are cons to ABW, especially selective color fading. So use pre-mixed mono inks. But that comes with a price; you are now stuck with the hue you get with the paper of your choice. No free lunch. In some of your recent post, I have seen a decided view of a balanced approach to selecting the ink choice based on important criteria - that is good to see.
>
> I personally have no angst about or yearning for the long-gone past; I never practiced darkroom printing, other than printing electron microscope images. So that technology has no emotional meaning to me. I have also participated in LF print exchanges, where contact prints from 8x10 negatives were submitted. Total blah. Not because of the technique, rather because of the photographic and printmaking skills of the authors were limited. It being a contact print on 8x10 Azo has no aesthetic appeal in itself. On the other hand, BO prints made by someone with skills of say Clayton Jones or Nicholas Hartmann were tremenndous. Again, not because they were BO prints, but because these guys knew how best to use the technique. Speaking of Clayton Jones, me maintains a perfectly grounded-in-reality database of papers, Dmax, paper color, print hue, all out of goodness of heart. Why not do the same for Piezo inks?
>
> Some of us have become wary of e-marketing lately, and are naturally skeptical. So we do our own research (waste time). Like the discussion we had a few days back about encapsulation vs resination. I come from a technical background, and have bona-fides in materials science/engineering and low-and-behold have done a lot of electron micrscopy of sub-micron particles. See links below. You would need subscription to access other peer-reviewed articles.
>
> http://www.ors.org/web/Transactions/48/0132.PDF
>
> http://www.ors.org/web/Transactions/48/0049.PDF
>
> So when you wrote that you have never looked at ink particles at EM level of detail, I just about fell out of my chair. I was asking "if so, how can Jon claim that each and every pigment is (triple) encapsulated." Really Jon, how do you know that? But, I stopped myself from asking because ironically it does not matter that they are triple or otherwise encapsulated. What matters is the resultant print on paper. There, I have already seen with my eyes that it does not matter at all. Clogging and clumping? I don't know, but I may have to scratch that itch, and see for myself under an EM. My point: please keep the discussion to what is relevant, and truly verified with data. I was surprised that even HP had nothing more tha a schematic of encapulated pigment, not an actual EM image.
>
> OK. This has gotten long enough. I must tend to my daughter's needs. But as a final word, if the large corporations are putting barriers, beat them by being more inventive, more innovative; that is the American way.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Shilesh
>
>
>
>
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "piezobw" <jon@> wrote:
> >
> > Shilesh,
> >
> > I don't disagree with you about much what you ranted, and ranting is healthy. It opens up discussion about things that are truly important and thought provoking. It's a philosophical difference between us though, don't you think?
> >
> > I agree that using color inks is forward thinking and lamenting the loss of traditional photographic values is backwards thinking. But, I've been making digital b&w prints now for nearly three decades and I've seen it all, and started or have done most of it - and nothing new has yet inspired me to adopt it in my own work or that which I do for others. I can't be the one who teaches how to deal with the limitations in ABW, nor its pros and cons. That has to be someone else like yourself. Because for me, ABW exists as a technology which I can easily still exceed.
> >
> > So, the discussion is not so much a commercial argument as to what system is better or worse, but a philosophical argument that is at the core of light and how we capture it and then how we choose to display it back to the eyes of the viewer, and probably what we are willing to compromise in order to do so for the sake of convenience (maybe even expense).
> >
> > I have to agree with Tyler in regards to lamenting the loss of what silver and platinum can do that Epson ABW and color inks can not do (as well). Yes, I agree with you that its totally backwards thinking - but only because black & white photography basically is extinct...in that it is like the last lumbering and weak dinosaurs on a planet that can no longer support them. They will continue maybe a few more generations at best, but will not be able to keep up with the mammals who need less food and can hide better from the elements. And without the dinosaurs being gone, humans would not have succeeded to invent photography! So perhaps it is a necessary thing. A good thing? No. A more convenient thing? Not for me either.
> >
> > On the other hand, I make photographic printmaking systems and will continue to makes them the only way I know how to, which is to exceed what is available because that is one of the primary motivations for me as a printmaker. When a system comes out that is as good as or better than what I can imagine - I will simply stop. My candle if its not bright enough will no longer have a purpose as developer. I have plenty other passions which I do - and I will not unnecessarily hang onto development when I can still collaborate and continue my own photography and printmaking. My color ink business is far exceeding the business I generate with Piezography. But color ink is not close to my heart in the same way as b&w is.
> >
> > I have been making monochromatic ink as far back as 1977 because inventiveness is next to printmaking. I have been developing printmaking techniques since founding Cone Editions in 1980. If I had my way, all digital printmakers would work on inks and software and behave like traditional printmakers do - so that the medium as a whole would evolve rather than depend upon the OEM.
> >
> > This is a new notion...not inventiveness being a new notion...rather it is a new notion to be a printmaker using existing technologies without the ability to modify them. That is a modern notion whether in the darkroom or print studio. And frankly, that is what is backwards. Skill is not a modifying tool as you regard. Making ink and software are modifying tools. Paul Roarke has it. Roy Harrington has it. Dozens of others who attempt to mix and blend and find their own way in it have it. You even mentioned that you have tried some experimenting in this regard. But, we're all up against the limitations imposed by patent technologies. Improving our Photoshop skills and fooling printer drivers or operating systems is not a way to evolve printmaking.
> >
> > Neither lithography, etching, woodcut, intaglio, nor silkscreen would have evolved if printmakers had accepted the status quo. All of these new printmaking inventions evolved out of discovering ways to modify and exceed the capability of the commercial version from which it developed. The history of photography has been similar. We all know that.
> >
> > This is nearly the first time in the history of photography and printmaking that such a large audience has been held captive by the OEM because of the barrier imposed by technology. This is the first technology with limitations built-in that the average user and student can not exceed it, nor experiment with it, because of disabling patents, or the inability of a photographer or printmaker to understand software and ink making.
> >
> > Yet, when you read the messages on this board, what you read is photographers struggling to recapture something lost that is familiar to them in a visual context. They are adapting - some successfully and others not so successfully - to what they used to manage with ease and particular skill associated with experimentation and exploration in the darkroom. Many had produced autographic systems of their own which they are finding impossible to do now.
> >
> > So these are important philosophical differences rather than being arguments or salesmanship - and more people are affected by it than I think you realize. I may be closer to those who struggle because they find their way to me. Piezography is decidedly retro I admit. But, it takes tremendous technology in order to be so - and that makes it forward. Exceeding the status quo is always forward thinking even when one is trying to preserve the past like I am.
> >
> > In any event there is more than enough room for everyone to do whatever it is they wish to do with these printers. Everyone probably has enough to worry about just keeping print heads moist or figuring out how to upgrade to MacOSX or the latest Windows without undoing everything that they struggled to get (or almost get) right where they wanted (or almost wanted.) ;)
> >
> > Jon Cone
> > Professional Rantmaker
> >
> > --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "shileshjani" <janishilesh@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Today must be a one for rants; here's my humble contribution.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > respectfully snipped to make room for a long reply....
> >
>