Digital BW, The Print

Corrado schreef:
> Ernst,
> 
>   thanks for your comments. However, I do not share your point of view. Many people in this forum  have been printed  with a converted inkset and without a RIP. An example is MIS UT-R2 Inks with OEM driver. Earlier work from many expert here have used such approach. The trick is to find the right dilutions of blacks. 
> 
> As much as I love QTR, I am terrified from building an entire workflow (and a business) around a non commercial product. One day it is gone and you have to make up a new workflow. For us, it took months (certainly less for smarter guys). On the other side, OEM drivers are always supported; you change your printer and only need to change ink dilutions (or a PS curve).
> For ultimate tuning, a spectro and QTR-Create-ICC (or Colorvision software) are more than enough.
> 
> Ciao,
> 
>   Mantinieri

What I have seen of QTR since its birth is support for all the OS system 
changes possible and support for all the Epson printers that were worth 
a B&W RIP, but the 7900 and 9900. I don't think that the OEM drivers 
have a similar history. Few commercial RIPs so far that support the 7900 
and 9900 so QTR isn't the odd one out there. I trust the one man shop, 
less commercial software more on various aspects than commercial 
solutions. Vuescan, Qimage, QTR are fine examples and there are many more.

Any RIP that can drive ink channels individually and linearise the total 
is a big advantage compared to curve solutions for an OEM driver. I know 
Paul did wonderful jobs with PS curves but it starts with a handicap, 
requires a very flexible brain to develop and is less WYSIWYG in 
practice plus it is harder to keep consistent in time. And that route 
has to be followed for every paper quality you want.

Before QTR appeared I used the Wasatch SoftRip to drive an Epson 9000 
with a MIS quad set + 2 toners. That RIP couldn't split the CcMmYK 
channels to individual channels. I used another method (from CMYK) than 
Paul did (from RGB) to get there and I could linearise the printer but 
it required a similar mind boggling thinking. As soon as QTR appeared I 
switched to that program.  When the HP Z models appeared I switched to 
that system because it gave a similar control and B&W + color on the 
same machine. I think QTR will still be around when Windows 8 and Red 
Lynx on the Mac have no compatible driver for the Z models.

There's one thing I have some experience with and that is using HP 
pigment inks on HP thermoheads intended for dye inks. That works in my 
case. Several HP desktop printers have a better ink feeding system, a 
CIS right away like the Epson 3800 has internally but better. A4 and A3 
models. Carts smaller though. The heads are often user replaceable and 
not expensive if compared to Epson or Canon. So I thought about the 
possibilities to use a quad or higher number B&W inkset on one of the 
smaller HP models. But right now the balance still tips to the Epson 
side for custom solutions, thanks to QTR and not because thermoheads 
can't spit pigment inks.

With QTR based in GimpPrint/GutenPrint you should also check which HP 
printers are supported in that software. I did some time ago and there 
are several HP printers not supported that could be interesting. Makes 
it harder to get QTR on HP models. Then about the dithering, weaving. 
Often that is a driver feature and not done by the printer firmware . So 
a switch to QTR takes away what you might expect from the Designjet 130. 
The Designjet 130 was launched in 2004 so I do not expect it to be any 
better than what is available now in recent printers + drivers. The 
GimpPrint and GutenPrint dithering etc had steady development too and 
wasn't judged as being bad.

-- 
Met vriendelijke groeten,   Ernst


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