Master printmaker Jon Cone is a wizard at the tinkering process. And one of the things he loves to tinker with is the making of an Iris print. In fact, Cone has transformed, re-invented and retooled the Iris print as a fine-art medium-not once, but several times.
     His latest innovation is called DigitalPlatinum, and it will surely be remembered as an important landmark in the history of the digital art print. Simply put, a DigitalPlatinum print mimics a gallery-quality photographic print to such an extent that it can fool even a photographer's eye.
      "It's the first time that what I call 'true optical quality' is present in a digitally produced black-and-white print," says Cone. "People don't think of Iris as having a dither, but it's always been there. A really discerning photographer can look at a standard Iris print and know that it's really not a photograph. On the prints that we produce, that feeling is not there."
      Says landscape photographer Carl Austin Hyatt, who has worked with the process: "They're absolutely beautiful prints. I'd stand them up to anything."
      How does DigitalPlatinum work? A very smooth gray scale is one important innovation. New printer driver software created by Cone uses CIElab color space (instead of CMYK) and the 3047 printer from Iris, to

CONE'S NEW INKS AND SOFTWARE CAN BE
                    USED TO MIMIC TRADITIONAL PROCESSES
                                   LIKE PLATINUM AND PALLADIUM PRINTING.

deliver more than four times the number of gray levels than the standard Iris software can produce. That means a lot more subtlety, and a lot more possibilities, in tone.
      The new inks created by Cone for this process are also unique: capable of producing warm, cold and neutral tonesÑin a single set. Used with the software, these can be manipulated to closely mimic a variety of traditional processes, including platinum and palladium printing, and selenium toning.
      "My process can easily manage the complex split toning, which is one of the most sought after aspects of platinum printing," Cone says. "For example, the highlights and darker tones could be completely separate from the main mid-tones. And itÕs completely natural looking. Just like on a finely made platinum print, the toning seems to occur without a definite separation."
      The process uses the computer's capabilities to produce a variety of different results. Hyatt uses the process, for example, to make prints with a long and wide gray scale, like selenium toning. Another photographer, Barbara Bordnick, is using the same tools to produce prints with a much narrower tonal range, like palladium. Created with a digital back on a large-format camera body, Bordnick's images have no film grain, which produces an entirely new effect.
      In addition, Cone is still tinkering with the software and inks to mimic other, even more archaic processes. At the end of last year, he invited Carl Weese, the nation's recognized expert on everything platinum, to help him reinvent Ziatype, a printing-out process first patented by Captain Giuseppe Pizzighelli in 1887. "These old processes have a lot of limitations, but they are very beautiful," says Cone. "I want this to be a virtual digital darkroom that does non-traditional processes."

    DigitalPlatinum can be used with a variety of art papers, up to 35 x 47 inches (traditional platinum printing is rarely available larger than 16 x 20). And it costs much less than a traditional platinum print: A 16 x 20 DigitalPlatinum print goes for $250 for the first print (including scanning) and $150 for reprints; a traditional print would cost $500 to $600. Oh, and did we mention longevity? Based on his understanding of the inks' composition, Henry Wilhelm of Wilhelm Imaging Research estimates that DigitalPlatinum prints on traditional watercolor papers under typical indoor illumination would not noticeably fade for more than 100 years. (WilhelmÕs lab is currently testing the product.) At the moment, DigitalPlatinum printing is only available through Cone's company, Cone Editions, of East Topsham, Vermont. Cone is investigating bringing it to other labs later this year, perhaps through franchising.
     
      Also in '99, Cone is introducing Atelier Giclée for Windows NT, a new Iris printer driver for increasing black-and-white tonal fidelity and latitude. It will use CMYK inks, and will permit up to 30 different monochromatic black-and- white "colors" and shades. (It can also be used with Epson and Encad printers, and even dye subs.)

     Cone may be a technical wizard, but he is also passionate about art. He studied art photography at Ohio University under the tutelage of Arnold Gassen, who is widely credited with completing the chemistry and densitometry of the Zone System. When Cone switched to printmaking (a discipline which includes lithography, etching, screenprint and relief printing), part of his studies involved working in an atelier in which printers and artists were invited to collaborate. The term "master printer" actually refers to a person who collaborates with an artist to create an original print, not a reproduction. "The original printmaker literally serves as handmaiden-in-the-act of creation, inventing technology and techniques to help the artists render their concepts," says Cone. "There's a saying that all a master printer needs is a razor blade, masking tape, a number 2 pencil and a small jar with a screw-on lid, and he can do anything."

     After college, Cone worked as a reproduction printer at ChromaComp, and as head printer and studio steward at Twitchell-Nichols Printmakers, both in New York. He founded Cone Editions in 1980 to go back to master printing, collaborating and inventing. Several times a year, the studio invites artists to create original multiples utilizing the various digital and traditional printmaking equipment. Currently the studio is publishing the works of David Humphrey, Emily Cheng, Altoon Sultan and Cathy Cone. Other artists also contract the studio to do digital printing for them; the studio is currently working on color print projects for Richard Avedon and Kiki Smith, as well as a black-and-white project for Diana Michener which utilizes split toning on tissue-weight hand made Japanese paper.

     Cone acquired an Iris in 1992, he says, "planning to use it to make grounds for silkscreen or woodcut. Then after a year of working with it, improving the process, I found that the output was really quite satisfying as finished prints." His work with the Iris led to several commercial products, which he still sells. In 1993, Cone introduced his HALS/UVA fade-resistant coating. That year, he also began selling the Cone Editions Interface, an alternative Iris printer interface and color table methodology which significantly increases color gamut and productivity. (As a consultant, Cone has set up more than 40 digital studios with his alternative software.) He also sells CEP/RIP and Layout Manager, interface software which makes the Iris more art-friendly by giving the user more precise control over image layout, and speeding up the printing process significantly. As for the future, thereÕs no telling exactly where Cone will be inspired to innovate next. "I'm not particularly scientific, actually," he says. "To me, the process feels more mystical. I get a vision of something I want to create – it comes all at once, as an idea. Then, I am practically compelled to make it happen."