Digital BW, The Print

I've been doing quadtone B&W for a year or so now, not often enough
(had to unclog my heads last week) using an Epson 1160 printer with
the old MIS quadtone ink set.  I've mostly been using the "Nevins"
method (not partitioned); this has the advantage that I've been able
to make my own transfer curves for various papers, and refine them,
and all in all I'm fairly happy.  Sure looks better than using color
inks!

But I don't think my prints have the smoothness that I'd really like
to be able to see.  And I'm bothered (perhaps illogically) that the
lighter inks don't seem to be going down in the bottles fast enough.
I think I ought to be using them more.  And I'm not really happy with
d-max, but I think that's the inevitable consequence of having to
print on *%#$*%* matte paper, the really *big* sacrifice I've made in
going to digital printing.  (I hope/believe that when I finish my
current sets of ink bottles, I'll be able to buy new inks and new
papers that actually let me do glossy; I guess we'll see, but I gotta
print faster to use these old inks up!).

So I've looked at the Brandon, Randall, and Woolfe curves (and
workflows) at MIS to consider a partitioned workflow.  I'm amused at
how different the color images are (not that this means so much;
especially since some of the curves are for inksets I don't have, and
I don't know that the black density maps to CMYK the same way for all
the inksets).

The big thing that bothers me about all of these is that I have no way
to fix the curves for myself or generate curves for a new paper, or
select the optimal media and paper settings, or anything.  I'd have to
use them for packaged systems.  (And none of them have curves for
Glacier Matte or Aspen).

Since I don't have a densitometer this may be an essentially insoluble
problem, but I've found for making transfer curves that I can get
acceptable results using a decent-quality standard step wedge and
scanning it next to my test print step wedge, and then comparing
scanned density values.  I'm sure this doesn't give me information as
precise as a calibrated densitometer, or as accurate, but it's not
bad.  Even eyeballing samples next to each other isn't bad (I'll cut a
sample print carefully in half, or punch holes in it, so that I can
put the sample print against the standard step wedge and do
side-by-side comparisons by eye; the eye is very good at "which is
darker" for two things that are adjacent).

I also don't have *time* right now (before I need to have some
exhibition prints done) to reinvent this whole wheel; so what work has
already been done in this area?  Anybody have a method for end-users
to produce their own quadtone separation curves?  Or an explanation of
why I don't need to?

If somebody can convince me that I don't need to go the partitioned
workflow route at all, I'll be *really* grateful; I already understand
Nevins decently.
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@...  /  Ghugle: the Fannish Ghod of Queries
 John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
        Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/
                 Photos: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/