QTR UT7 7600 current experiments
2004-09-21 by James Haney
Fellow perfectionists: I have been doing a lot of research lately on inksets and workflows: My current setup is a 7600 with UT7 inks. I can print to this with the Epson Driver alone or with Roark or Schawb curves. The Epson Driver option I find to have far too much visible screening in the highlights. The Roark and Schawb curves are better, but I still find them to be too "coarse" in the highlights. Additionally, I have experimented with QTR to create my own partitioned inksets, warm and cool and mix between them. The UT7 set consists of: Black Position - Eboni Black Cyan Position - Dark Gray Magenta Position Cool Toner Yellow Position Sepia Toner Light Cyan Position - Light Gray Light Magenta Position - Light Cool Toner Light Black Position - Custom Light Black To my eye the Eboni Black, Cool Toner and Light Cool Toner make a good 3 partition ramp I created a "profile" partitioning these three which produces good but very cool prints. Secondarily I made a "profile" consisting of Eboni Black, Dark Gray and Light Gray. Printing by mixing these profiles creates a nice Selenium tone, however at almost exactly 20% tone there is a graininess where the dot pattern becomes visible. Prior to getting this printer I was using UT inks on a 2200. That inkset consists of 4 grey inks of similar hue and both a warm and a cool toner. I definitely prefer the prints I was getting with this set. I assume this is because I had four graduated grey inks partition, more effectively hiding the highlight dots. The Light Black "Custom Light Black" ink in the UT7 inkset doesn't really help me as it's density is identical to the other light grey options. I seem to need a "very light grey" ink. Any guru's out there care to comment on alternative partitioning/toning schemes that would yield a dotless scale, or should I just hand fill carts with UT inks? James Haney PS - I did some experimenting and found that although the esteemed Mr. Harrington suggests using ordered screening in the print dialog box, that I get smoother dot patterns using Adaptive Hybrid with no other side effects that I can discern. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]