The issue of whether to use an ICC - produced by the Create ICC (RGB) droplet - just for soft-proofing or to convert to it for printing has been a vexed issue. In my view, a lot of it has to do with what style of print you want and perhaps what sort of images you print. Clearly Richard and I and in a different camp to Paul.
There was a heated debate with Jon Cone some (seven) years ago on another Yahoo forum. Partly in light of that exchange, I wrote a post outlining some of the issues for new users, esp those coming from a colour workflow:
http://www.cyberhalides.com/piezography-printing/the-piezography-heretic-to-convert-or-not-to-convert/
I don't pretend that this is a sophisticated analysis, since it's aimed at new users with less technical knowledge that you seem to have, but you may find it helpful all the same. It was written in the context of Piezography, but it applies to any B&W inkset including OEM-K3. Bear in mind that it's also a little tongue-in-cheek.
I know that Richard loves his Macs, but both OS X and Windows have their advantages and disadvantages. They both work. Use what you know are are most comfortable. Print Tool is a great program, but QTRGui is quite useable, esp the curve creator. In either case, you can't print direct from PS anymore, so I don't see a huge difference in the workflows, and I have tried the OS X one. I may have switched to OS X some years ago for printing, but the combined antics of Apple and Adobe to break things, accidentally or intentionally, removed most of the potential advantages for me.
---In QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com, <info@...> wrote :
My intuition
tells me that these curves are more like media type settings since they control
ink levels. The profile would be the ICC
profile being created using the Eye one and the Create ICC RGB droplet. If my intuition is correct than the curves (media
types) and profiles should be working in tandem.