Try this. Open the ink separation page in photoshop as an adobe RGB(1998) file. Print out the image in calibration mode with the document space as adobe RGB(1998) and the printer profile (photoshop manages colors) as adobe RGB(1998). This should disable any color management. It won't print right if you make it a gray scale file (although your image files should be gray scale and use the same printing technique as stated above substituting gray gamma 2.2 for adobe RGB(1998)). It's worked for me for several processes including salted paper which requires a significantly denser negative than Pt/Pd. Consider mixing black ink and yellow ( I use equal amounts of black and yellow and equal amounts of light black and cyan as each pair blocks almost equal amounts of UV). It will give you smoother values in areas of continuous tone.
This is my text file for salted paper on a 3800 printer:
This a text file using all the inks (per Ron Reeder) on a R3000 printer for Pt/Pd:
You can see that the ink limits are pretty low for this one so you should not have a problem printing paper white. It's a shame adobe got rid of the no color management option, but everything I have read indicates that matching the document space and the printer profile effectively disables color management. You can check out Jon Cone's writing about piezography to verify this.
I know this will sound crazy, but I also had a situation using PDN a while back where I had to open a calibration file and save it as another file before it printed properly. The original file was printing with very little density and the copied file printed as expected.
Good luck
On Jan 31, 2012, at 8:51 PM, laanyc wrote:
>
> I thought I was using the calibration step. I believe the way I did this is to start the work around application, there is no button for 'color management' so I ASSume that there isn't any management going on (this is the reason for this app, correct?) and print from there (i, no Photoshop involved). Anyway, I printed the min time for black on Saturday, step 3 (on a 31 step wedge) merged with #2, so I multiplied by .794*.794 to get the standard print time. I printed the ink separation on Sunday as well as the min for black test. Sat and Sun min for black are identical. However, while somewhat close, there is no square on the ink separation test that matches the white strip that was under rubylith on the min for black test. On review tonight, step #3 and #4 on the min for black test are pretty close; maybe I should decrease the time. I will rerun the tests again, will print a new ink separation sheet to insure that I did what I was supposed to, and give it all another go. Thinking I should also include the step wedge in the ink separation to insure same results as well (you how pd can be at times). Thank you all for advice....lyle
>
>
----------
# QuadToneRIP curve descriptor file
#
# PRINTER=QUAD3800 Salted Paper
# TPF100 Ink limit =100
PRINTER=QUAD3800
CALIBRATION=no
GRAPH_CURVE=yes
N_OF_INKS=8
DEFAULT_INK_LIMIT=100
LIMIT_K=60
BOOST_K=80
LIMIT_C=40
LIMIT_M=0
LIMIT_Y=60
LIMIT_LC=0
LIMIT_LM=0
LIMIT_LK=40
LIMIT_LLK=0
# Describe usage of each ink
# All inks must be listed
# Gray Partitioning Information
N_OF_GRAY_PARTS=2
GRAY_INK_1=K
GRAY_VAL_1=100
GRAY_INK_2=LK
GRAY_VAL_2=42
GRAY_INK_3=
GRAY_VAL_3=
GRAY_INK_4=
GRAY_VAL_4=
GRAY_INK_5=
GRAY_VAL_5=
GRAY_INK_6=
GRAY-VAL_6=
GRAY_INK_7=
GRAY_VAL_7=
GRAY_INK_8=
GRAY_VAL_8=
GRAY_HIGHLIGHT=0
GRAY_SHADOW=0
GRAY_GAMMA=1.3
GRAY_CURVE=
COPY_CURVE_C=LK
# COPY_CURVE_M=K
COPY_CURVE_Y=K
# COPY_CURVE_LC=LK
# COPY_CURVE_LM=LK
----------
# QuadToneRIP curve descriptor file
#
# for R3000 UC inks
# Revere Platinum
# TPF100 Ink limit =60
N_OF_INKS=8
DEFAULT_INK_LIMIT=100
Print_Curve=Yes
LIMIT_K=17
BOOST_K=25
LIMIT_C=17
LIMIT_M=17
LIMIT_Y=17
LIMIT_LC=46
LIMIT_LM=0
LIMIT_LK=46
LIMIT_LLK=46
# Describe usage of each ink
# All inks must be listed
# Gray Partitioning Information
N_OF_GRAY_PARTS=2
GRAY_INK_1=K
GRAY_VAL_1=100
GRAY_INK_2=LK
GRAY_VAL_2=33
GRAY_INK_3=
GRAY_VAL_3=
GRAY_INK_4=
GRAY_VAL_4=
GRAY_INK_5=
GRAY_VAL_5=
GRAY_INK_6=
GRAY_VAL_6=
GRAY_INK_7=
GRAY_VAL_7=
GRAY_INK_8=
GRAY_VAL_8=
GRAY_HIGHLIGHT=0
GRAY_SHADOW=10
GRAY_GAMMA=1.3
# GRAY_CURVE=
COPY_CURVE_C=K
COPY_CURVE_M=K
COPY_CURVE_Y=K
COPY_CURVE_LC=LK
# COPY_CURVE_LM=LK
COPY_CURVE_LLK=LK
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]