Digital BW, The Print

I've read the help file and Tom Moore's tutorial about curve creation
following my previous post, but still can't understand exactly how to
judge the patches for maximum density - there are some conflicting
directions.

When looking for the patch that represents the % ink at which the
paper is loaded, should I use a loupe, as Tom says, or unaided
eyeballing as Roy's help file says AND should I start from the light
end of the scale and find the lightest tone that seems
undifferentiated from the rest of the black patches or should I start
from the black end and find the darkest tone that can be distinguished
from the next darkest tone? The wording in help and tutorial is
confusing because I get much different values depending on which way I
work it, as explained in my previous post on this topic (like 50% one
way and 85% the other).

Despite the confusion, I've run the program both ways and neither one
gives good results, so I really don't know what I'm missing. 

Also, in Tom's tutorial he talks about some kind of text file for
making a curve adjustment, but I can't find it under Curve Creation in
version 2.2.0 that I'm using. Has that been eliminated and replaced by
some other method built into the pull down menus and tabs?

I'm trying to make QTR work for an 1160 with MIS original pigment
quadtone inks on a WinXP system.

Frank

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "njfranknj" <kolwicz@e...> 
wrote:
> 
> I've read the help file and Tom Moore's tutorial about curve creation
> following my previous post, but still can't understand exactly how to
> judge the patches for maximum density - there are some conflicting
> directions.
> 
> When looking for the patch that represents the % ink at which the
> paper is loaded, should I use a loupe, as Tom says, or unaided
> eyeballing as Roy's help file says AND should I start from the light
> end of the scale and find the lightest tone that seems
> undifferentiated from the rest of the black patches or should I start
> from the black end and find the darkest tone that can be distinguished
> from the next darkest tone? The wording in help and tutorial is
> confusing because I get much different values depending on which way I
> work it, as explained in my previous post on this topic (like 50% one
> way and 85% the other).
> 
> Despite the confusion, I've run the program both ways and neither one
> gives good results, so I really don't know what I'm missing. 
> 
> Also, in Tom's tutorial he talks about some kind of text file for
> making a curve adjustment, but I can't find it under Curve Creation in
> version 2.2.0 that I'm using. Has that been eliminated and replaced by
> some other method built into the pull down menus and tabs?
> 
> I'm trying to make QTR work for an 1160 with MIS original pigment
> quadtone inks on a WinXP system.
> 
> Frank

Frank,

Ink limits are one of those things where there is no "absolute" answer.  
I would concentrate on looking at the black ink since that will have the most
effect on the final dmax and output.  I'd just use what you decide on for K
for the other gray inks.  For a toner ink you can vary the ink limit to adjust the
amount of toner ink based on the color of the output.

The judgment of where to draw the line tends not to be that critical -- with
an 1160 I'd start with an existing profile.  The issue of too much ink shows
in various ways, blotchiness, reduced dMax, lack of even shadows (the 
linearizer will make very steep curves to try to compensate).  Too little inks
gives reduced dMax or incomplete ink coverage.

Tom's tutorial was written before the QTRgui had the user interface for the
text file.  The info is still the same though -- in fact the text file still exists
as the .qidf file.

Roy