Digital BW, The Print

> 1. When opening a b&w file in PS I convert to QTR-Gray Lab 
> space from my default Dot Gain 20%. I use Dot Gain 20% 
> because I don't see a choice of QTR-Gray Lab in Color Settings.
> 2. After finishing editing I then convert to QTR-Gray Matte 
> Paper or Gray Photo Paper depending on whether I am printing 
> to matte paper or glossy paper. I convert vs apply because 
> the Win version requires me to save the file before exporting 
> it to QTR.
> 3. I then jump to QTR, fill out the form and print. So far my 
> prints look good but can I do better?
> 4. One problem I see is constantly changing back and forth 
> between gray lab and Gray Paper. Does this degrade the file? 
> Is there a way to set the default color setting as Gray Lab? 
> Should I do so?

Chuck,

I don't know whether you are starting with RGB digital images, scans or B&W
grayscale so what you need to do might be a little different depending on
your source.

In any case, first of all if you have put the gray-matte, gray-photo and
gray-lab icc files in your "Windows\System32\Spool\Drivers\Color" directory,
they should show in in Photoshop.  Just remember what shows up in Photoshop
will be the profile name, not the file name.  So they show up with names
such as "QTR - Gray Lab".

Once you have done this, under "Edit>Color Settings" in PS, you should be
able to select "QTR - Gray Lab" as your Gray Working Space.  This profile
should show up in the drop-down box and you should be able to set this as
your default gray working space.

Once you have this set up, you should be able to do the following (this is
what I do from scanned B&W negs).

1. Scan the source.  I scan in 16-bit grayscale.

2. Open the raw TIFF in PS.  This file will be an untagged image so I ASSIGN
"QTR - Gray Lab" when I open the file for the first time.  Now I am in my
working space.

3. Do a crop to the edges of the negs to get rid of over scan, basic levels
adjustment and save this as my "original" master.  Everything at this point
gets printed in a contact sheet for further evaluation.

4. For those images I wish to work on further, I continue by doing a final
crop, curves and any other image adjustments and I spot the image to remove
any defects.  This is saved as my "edited" master.

5. To create the print files, I CONVERT to "QTR - Gray Matte" and save this
as a "print" master.  You definitely want to CONVERT at this step and not
ASSIGN the profile.  Convert will change the gray values whereas assign will
just tag the image with the new profile without changing any gray values in
the image.  I generally just append a "pm" or "pp" to the end of the file
name to indicate whether it is a print file for matte paper or a print file
for photo paper and save the file.  This way your print file is never
converted again.  You can either just save this print files for further
printing later on or just delete them and re-create as necessary when you
want to print again.

With this sort of workflow, you should never be converting back and forth.
You do one assignment up front and one conversion for printing and that's
it.

The other general comment is that you could also do the workflow above but
use the RGB versions of the QTR Lab, Matte and Photo profiles.  Downside is
your files triple in size.  But if you are outputting through Qimage, you
might want to consider this because Qimage always works in RGB.  Personally
I have been getting good results just working with the gray profiles, by
YMMV.

Paul