QTR-Quadtone RIP

Shane,

> Any word on this? I am interested as well. Right now I am still
> trying to decide between this, GQ2 and piezography set.

MIS is sending me Eboni-6/1800 carts today.  Using my 1400 as a test bed, I
think I have an ink arrangement and QTR profile structure that will work.
For the 1800 I'll double up on the Y and LM (lightest inks) and keep the
3-MK as is (MK, PK, and GL).  This should allow us to overcome the 1800's
banding problems.

The trick with the 1.5 PL printers is to hold down the increase in Lab B
from the carbon.  By avoiding the middle dilution (warmest) inks (LC and M),
I've been able to hold Lab B on Premier Art Smooth BW to about 1 in the
midtones.  

It's rather interesting how the arrangement evolved.  I started out seeing
how much I could do with just the lightest ink -- Eb6-Y -- and Eboni MK.
They are the "coolest" of the carbon inks.  Eb6-Y on PA BW goes to about Lab
B = 0 and just stays there.  So, I used as much of that as I could.  Then I
added only those inks needed to close the gap between this Y and the Eboni
so as to make a totally smooth print.  LM, the next lightest ink goes to a
max of about Lab B=1 on PA BW.  I tried to go from that straight to Eboni,
but on close inspection I could still see some roughness.  So, I sprinkled
in just enough Eb6-C to hide that.  So, there are basically 4 dilutions of
Eboni-6 used -- that is, it ended up a classic "quad."  

On the 1800, I'll just stick redundant Y and LM inks in the Blue and Red
spots to hide the banding and keep my preferred tonality.  (For those who
want greater warmth Eboni LC and M could be installed, and profiles can be
written to use more of the warmer inks.  Paper choice, of course, is the
main factor in tone control with Eboni-6.)  I'm hopeful on the 1900 banding
will not be a problem, and we'll be able to use the large number of ink
positions to do something interesting.  

At any rate, aside from using the dilutions that MIS already has on the
self, this effort started with a clean piece of paper.  What's rather
interesting is that the final result looks a whole lot like the original
PiezoBW quad arrangement -- 2 very light inks, then a large dilution gap to
a rather dark C and MK.  

I've pulled my 1800 out of storage and will set it up with this Eboni-6
arrangement.  With the 3-MK still in it, I'll be curious how the QTR sliders
work to allow further tone control.  Needless to say, at least on the 1400,
the Eb6-quad setup makes extremely smooth prints.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com