Digital BW, The Print

What am I doing wrong?

I installed QuadToneRip on my computer running Windows XP home and no 
error messages showed up.  I dragged the 21step.tif gray scale file 
into the Print-2200.bat icon and the grayscale printed out perfectly 
on the Epson 2200 printer.  I tried various warm, cool, coolSe and 
Sepia profile combinations and they worked as advertised.  I could 
move the image on the page using margins specification.

Then I took one of my own images and in Photoshop CS flattened the 
image, changed it to grayscale mode, changed it to 8-bit color, set 
the size to what I wanted and saved it as an uncompressed TIF file.  
I dragged that image to the Print-2200.bat icon and it printed out 
beautifully.

That is the end of the happy story.

Every other image that I have tried to print with this procedure 
(with an exception that I will mention later) has failed.  Everything 
seems to work fine except that it gives a nonsense printout.  The 
size of the image prints out correctly, the placement on the sheet is 
OK.  But what prints out within that rectangle is a mess, often with 
stripes in it, and with no hint of the original image.

I saw that Roy had put up a version 2, so I removed all the original 
QTR programs and all the profiles from my machine and downloaded and 
installed version 2.  Nothing changed.  All symptoms were the same.  
I tried saving the images from Photoshop CS as a compressed (LZW) TIF 
file and as an uncompressed TIF file.  I tried various sizes for the 
image.  I tried several different resolutions, including some within 
and some outside of the recommended range of 240ppi to 720ppi.  No 
improvement.

The exception to this string of failures was this: I wondered if all 
that extra information that is included in a TIF file could be 
messing up the process so I took a JPEG image, loaded it into 
IfranView, changed to grayscale, and saved it as an uncompressed TIF 
file.  When I dragged this image to the Print-2200.bat icon it 
printed out properly on letter size paper.  Later I brought this 
image into Photoshop, chose not to color manage it, changed the size 
to 18" x 12" to fit on a SuperB paper, saved it as uncompressed TIF.  
This printed out OK on SuperB paper.

What is going on here?  What am I doing wrong?  What I told you 
suggests that I am not preparing the images in Photoshop properly, 
but I don't know where I am going wrong.

Bailey Donnally

Fortunately I have found the answer to my problem in printing with 
QTR.  You have to get rid of any alpha channels before you save as a 
TIF file.  If you have saved a selection, for example, you create a 
channel which will be saved by TIF and which will then screw up the 
printing process with Windows QTR.   

Bailey


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Bailey 
Donnally" <bdonnally@s...> wrote:
> What am I doing wrong?
> 
> I installed QuadToneRip on my computer running Windows XP home and 
no 
> error messages showed up.  I dragged the 21step.tif gray scale file 
> into the Print-2200.bat icon and the grayscale printed out 
perfectly 
> on the Epson 2200 printer.  I tried various warm, cool, coolSe and 
> Sepia profile combinations and they worked as advertised.  I could 
> move the image on the page using margins specification.
> 
> Then I took one of my own images and in Photoshop CS flattened the 
> image, changed it to grayscale mode, changed it to 8-bit color, set 
> the size to what I wanted and saved it as an uncompressed TIF 
file.  
> I dragged that image to the Print-2200.bat icon and it printed out 
> beautifully.
> 
> That is the end of the happy story.
> 
> Every other image that I have tried to print with this procedure 
> (with an exception that I will mention later) has failed.  
Everything 
> seems to work fine except that it gives a nonsense printout.  The 
> size of the image prints out correctly, the placement on the sheet 
is 
> OK.  But what prints out within that rectangle is a mess, often 
with 
> stripes in it, and with no hint of the original image.
> 
> I saw that Roy had put up a version 2, so I removed all the 
original 
> QTR programs and all the profiles from my machine and downloaded 
and 
> installed version 2.  Nothing changed.  All symptoms were the 
same.  
> I tried saving the images from Photoshop CS as a compressed (LZW) 
TIF 
> file and as an uncompressed TIF file.  I tried various sizes for 
the 
> image.  I tried several different resolutions, including some 
within 
> and some outside of the recommended range of 240ppi to 720ppi.  No 
> improvement.
> 
> The exception to this string of failures was this: I wondered if 
all 
> that extra information that is included in a TIF file could be 
> messing up the process so I took a JPEG image, loaded it into 
> IfranView, changed to grayscale, and saved it as an uncompressed 
TIF 
> file.  When I dragged this image to the Print-2200.bat icon it 
> printed out properly on letter size paper.  Later I brought this 
> image into Photoshop, chose not to color manage it, changed the 
size 
> to 18" x 12" to fit on a SuperB paper, saved it as uncompressed 
TIF.  

> This printed out OK on SuperB paper.
> 
> What is going on here?  What am I doing wrong?  What I told you 
> suggests that I am not preparing the images in Photoshop properly, 
> but I don't know where I am going wrong.
> 
> Bailey Donnally