QTR-Quadtone RIP

Guy,

So firstly, ABW puts down more ink than the colour driver, so you get the
best blacks with ABW.
But yes MK dmax is much higher then PK. But the exact value depends on the
actual paper and the Epson driver paper settings.

So question is what Epson paper setting are you using for Photo Rag?
I think Ultrasmooth puts down the most ink, VFA next and Textured Fine
Art the least.
I use Textured Fine Art ABW setting for Photo Rag on my 4800. I am on the
road so I can't tell you the dmax I get. But its going to be between 1.6 and
1.7.

You can try the different paper settings on your 2400 to see which gives you
the best black without laying down too much ink (blocking the shadows). Do
this by printing out the Create ICC step wedge, measure it and then before
you use Create ICC, plot the values on a graph and see if the shadows are
closing up like the end of a hockey stick or not. If they are then you are
putting down too much ink, try a different paper choice in the ABW driver.

Also I would use the normal setting for ABW not the darker setting. The both
have the same dmax, but normal gives Create ICC more headroom to manipulate
the shadows and I find a I get better shadows with normal.

Hope that all makes sense and helps.

Mike


On 20/11/2007, Guy Brown <guyxbrown@...> wrote:
>
>   Dear all,
>
> I've followed Mike's advice and developed a few profiles for Epson's ABW
> driver using
> CreateICC and a borrowed Eye-one densitometer. The results on HFAP and
> Epson
> Semigloss are very good, with the latter giving a particularly good dmax
> of about 2.4 with
> the R2400 and photo black ink.
>
> However, following the same procedure with the matt black ink on
> Hahnemuhle Photo Rag,
> I could only get lacklustre prints with a paltry dmax of about 1.6. I was
> very suprised,
> since colour prints on this paper made with the R2400 have good contrast
> and appear to
> have a reasonable black. I'm pretty sure that I'm not doing anything
> wrong. So the
> questions are:
>
> * Should I expect a low dmax on photo rag with matt black on the R2400,
> printing using
> the ABW driver?
>
> * If so, are results any better by using Quadtone RIP?
>
> * Are there other "fine art" papers out there with a look and feel similar
> to photo rag that
> give a better dmax on the R2400?
>
> Thanks
>
> Guy
>
> 
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]