Digital BW, The Print

Richard-

I've worked with IJC/OPM and QTR extensively and would only add this to the 
discussion:

Both QTR and IJC/OPM work well out-of-the box. I find the IJC linearization 
and printing curve authoring process much easier to work with. Its certainly a 
better choice for the students I work with. Our approach is to find solutions 
that produce the best results using 4000's and UC inks; this simplifies the 
issues of running printers for both color and grayscale printing. We'll add a 
dedicated quadtone printer in the future, primarily so that students are exposed 
to the options. HP is providing us with a Designjet 130 that will also allow 
students to print with dye inks. But the core solution, for us, are printers 
that can produce professional color and grayscale work from the same pigment 
ink set. The advantage is ttwofold: they spend more time learning the software, 
and building skill sets that they'll be able to use as the technology 
continues to evolve, and they can concentrate on print quality and the joy of making 
prints.

ImagePrint is an excellent application if you want or need the productivity 
features. I find, and my students have found, the TintPicker to be 
non-intuitive. We've achieved better results from OPM.

If you only want to print grayscale, IJC/OPM is a remarkable application. If 
you want more control over the printing process, including the ability to 
print color and grayscale with UC inks, a RIP that supports linearization of the 
printer first, and then authoring ICC printing profiles is demonstrably better. 
We're using ColorBurst which is, in my opinion, an excellent application. The 
grayscale ICC printing profiles that Josh Lubber's has authored are the best 
I've seen. If we were on a PC platform, StudioPrint would also be an excellent 
choice.



Bill Kennedy
Associate Professor of Photocommunications
St. Edward's University
512/448-8680


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