Digital BW, The Print

I got QTR up and running last night with my 1280 and UT2 inks.   It's 
easy if you can follow simple directions (a major stumbling block for 
me).  I did some comparisions with Paul's curves.  

I made a bunch of step wedges on EEM.  The curves seem like good 
matches for Paul's in terms of tone (as in color tone)  Then I made 
some blends.  75% neutal /25% carbon looks like it may be really 
nice.  Of course you can blend the UT2 with curves or with the 
sliders on the Epson driver, but QTR seems a bit more intuitive.  
I made a 100 step ramp for each.  Each had 100 differentiated steps 
(in the past, I have had flat spots with my printer using the curves) 
but to my eye, QTR is a bit more evenly distributed.  The curves may 
give a little better d max, but again, this is eyeball only...no 
densitometer.  It is so close it is hard to be sure.  The stepless 
wedge looks a little smoother with QTR; perhaps the smoothest 
stepless I have seen.  No abrupt transitions.  
Then I made a print on Photo Rag.  It is a landscape with some blank 
sky, smooth transitions and some very smooth sand.  As has been 
repoerted, QTR prints a bit lighter and lower contast.  Nothing a 
simple adjustment curve won't fix.  The sky and sand are very smooth 
(as they are with the curves).  I can't see much difference in the 
dither patterns.  Both are what I would consider so smooth as not to 
be an issue.  That is with a loupe.
So what's the bottom line?  I was and remain very happy using the 
Roark curves and I am very impressed with QTR.  Will probably use 
both.  The real fun begins when Roy gets the profiling feature up and 
running for windows users.
By the way, has anyone profiled the Peizotone inks for QTR and a 1280?
Would like to try them again.

On Aug 18, 2004, at 1:06 PM, zonepeter wrote:

> By the way, has anyone profiled the Peizotone inks for QTR and a 1280?

I have, I recently set up a 1280 with PT warm neutrals in a CIS. The 
only problem that I had was that the generic curves that Roy has have 
the old ink placements and I have the new ink placements. I edited the 
original to reflect the new ink placements then linearized using a 21 
step scale and am getting great results.

cort

--
Cort Anderson
Training Wheels, llc
www.trwheels.com
620-488-2960
620-488-3196 fax

Do you think your curves would work for the selenium tone inks?  
Would you be willing to share?  I'm on PC and can't profile yet.  
Thanks
Peter