Digital BW, The Print

I don't quite understand this thread.  Perhaps I'm missing something.

First, Qimage will always output a monochrome RGB from a grayscale
input image, no matter whether you print to file or to a printer
driver, and no matter what sharpening etc is applied.  When Mike
Chaney modified Qimage so that we could use the QTR profiles, (and Roy
fixed the profiles to suit Qimage), some of us tried to convince Mike
to allow Qimage to output true single-channel grayscale images as
well.  Mike said that that would be way too much work for him, and
since Roy had made the RGB profiles, it wasn't really necessary for
us.  In that sense, he is right.  QTR prints the monchrome RGB images
just as it would a grayscale.  So, Qimage *always* outputs a three
channel file.

Second, I don't understand why, for QTR users, you need an RGB version
of QTR-Create_ICC?  Perhaps someone can explain it to me.  What I do
is convert to QTR-RGB-Matte or QTR-Gray-Matte in PSCS2 (depending on
whether it is a true grayscale image or a three channel monchrome
image), and then in Qimage turn "Printer ICC" off.  I get an untagged
monochrome RGB which effectively is in QTR-RGB-Matte, and this gives
me wysiwyg results via QTR.

I guess the alternative would be to convert to QTR-RGB-Matte in
Qimage, which should give me (approximately) the same output image,
but tagged.  I don't do it this way because I think that there are
some inaccuracies in the way that the LCMS colour management engine in
Qimage handles the QTR profiles, but in theory it works.

So why do I need QTR-Create_ICC, or is this just for 2400 / 4800 AWB
users, and Roy has already effectively done this for us by creating
the RGB profiles?

F_P

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Husband"
<thusband@s...> wrote:
>
> I know QI takes a grayscale and produces an rgb when interpolating
and sharpening and that's what I use it for.  I don't print with QI I
use its "print to file" feature so I can use its resize and sharpening
capability. "Print to file" leaves an rgb file on my desktop which I
then I print through QTR.  So if I have a grayscale and use "print to
file" the new image is rgb.  No way around that.  I can convert the
grayscale image to the QTR-Create_ICC file in QI when I use "print to
file" but the results would be an rgb image on my desktop with an
imbedded grayscale icc file.  That's where an RGB-QTR-Create_ICC
version would be handy for me.
> 
> What I do now is take the rgb image back into Photoshop and covert
back to grayscale before printing with QTR.
> 
> Tom