QTR-Quadtone RIP

(hope it's ok to double post - I put this up over Digital B & W Printin as well. I got to thinking since this involves QTR that maybe Roy might have some ideas.)

I'm using a 1400, the Eb6 inkset, and Premier Art Smooth 205 paper, and am going to try making a curve. I know Paul already has one in the QTR zip file, but I want to learn more about the process and will save it with a different name.

The upper five or six blocks in the yellow strip of the Calibration print are quite mottled, but they did get better after an hour or two. After I did a head cleaning and nozzle check, which turned out perfectly, I printed out another Calibration print and the yellow strip was a little better but still mottled. For both prints, every block below those upper six in the yellow strip were fine, as were the strips for the other color positions.

All carts have ink, but the yellow cart is a bit low.

Any tips would be welcome... thank you!

Paul

Thanks for the reply, Pete. You may be on to something. I printed out the text version of the curve and the default ink limit is at 40, all the color limits are at 50 except for yellow - which is at 70!

This is Paul's original curve and perhaps he had to set yellow at 70 due to something different in his 1400. He did tell me once he developed these curves using a rather old 1400 that had been hauled by a burro up into the mountains on one of his photo expeditions!

I think I'll create a new curve with yellow at 50, and save it to a different name, of course.

What's odd however is that a few months ago I printed this very serve chart and the yellow is fine throughout. How could that be?

Thanks again, and stay tuned.

Paul

oops - make that "very same chart"

Pete,

I was hoping today to print the calibration file with a reduced upper limit for the Yellow position, but I ran into some computer snags, more precisely, some QTR snags. I had downloaded Paul's latest curves and I got confused as to where my .qidf files belonged. In the midst of all that, I upgraded my QTR to the current version.

Anyway, enough of that... don't go away! I'll post results in a day or two.

Thanks again,

Paul

Well, Pete, no luck so far. I tried reducing the ink limit to several values, 50, 40, 30... then I noticed Paul suggests leaving the limit field blank for the color channels, but that didn't help either. Still getting blotchy upper squares (at the dark end). I mentioned the Y cart was low, just topped it off, that didn't help.

Do you think I should replace the cart? The ones I'm using now are Jon Cone's, the version number on the chip is 6.0. I do have a couple of spare sets, one with 6.0 chips and one with 6.3. I'm reluctant to use them because the set of Jon's that I'm using are special edition 6.0 chips - Jon specified to the manufacturer that they be manually resettable. A feature I really like.

Roy, I wonder if you're following this thread... do you have any ideas? (I am registered by the way, but I can't find my original papers, nor do I see a registration number in my help file.)

A few months are I was getting a very clean Calibration printout. The printer was not used for a few months but I ran a nozzle check every week or so with excellent results.

Paul

I don't use any of the same setup so I've got pretty limited comments.

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On Tuesday, July 1, 2014, paulmwhiting@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Well, Pete, no luck so far. I tried reducing the ink limit to several values, 50, 40, 30... then I noticed Paul suggests leaving the limit field blank for the color channels, but that didn't help either. Still getting blotchy upper squares (at the dark end). I mentioned the Y cart was low, just topped it off, that didn't help.

Do you think I should replace the cart? The ones I'm using now are Jon Cone's, the version number on the chip is 6.0. I do have a couple of spare sets, one with 6.0 chips and one with 6.3. I'm reluctant to use them because the set of Jon's that I'm using are special edition 6.0 chips - Jon specified to the manufacturer that they be manually resettable. A feature I really like.

Roy, I wonder if you're following this thread... do you have any ideas? (I am registered by the way, but I can't find my original papers, nor do I see a registration number in my help file.)

A few months are I was getting a very clean Calibration printout. The printer was not used for a few months but I ran a nozzle check every week or so with excellent results.

Paul

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Thanks, Roy,

Perhaps "blotchy" was the wrong word. It doesn't look like a lot of ink, I've had blotches due to faulty refilling where I got actual puddles of ink. These usually cleared up after a few prints.

Perhaps "mottled" would be a better word. And perhaps Paul will chime in here.

Do you have a sense that us b/w folks frequent all three related groups? I know I do: B/W Digital Print, Epson Printers, and this one, QTR. There is some overlap at times so I try to hit all three.

Do I show up in your registered users? I thought I had a printout in my files...

Thanks again,

Paul

I've had trouble finding the right word to describe what the dark end of my step file printout for the yellow position looks like. I finally figured out how to use Dropbox, and here are closeups of each end of the yellow strip in the Calibration Mode print:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/spegvjtez0kwgy4/AABNy67dVuWze2E6oar_i6mia

The 5 or 6 steps at the dark end show their mottled appearance, whereas at the light end the steps are very smooth, the same degree smoothness on all other strips, cyan, magenta, etc.

I'm thinking of replacing the yellow cart with another one, I do have two spare sets. The ones I'm using now have version 6.0 chips and were obtained from Jon Cone. He had chips made to his specs, and one of those specs is to make them manually resettable - a feature I like better that autoreset chips.

I do have another set 6.0 chips but they are older and may have the autoreset feature. My remaining set has version 6.3 chips and these are the very latest from MIS, also autoreset. MIS claims these were designed to work in all model years of the 1400 - apparently the firmware for the 1400 went through 4 or 5 versions.

Will I damage anything by trying the yellow cart from these sets along side my Jon Cone carts? Or simply not print?

Those who've been following this thread will recall I started it over in Digital B/W Printing, but I soon double-posted it over here, since it was related to QTR. But lately Paul Roark has chipped in with some very helpful comments over in the other Group.

Just thought y'all might like to know...

Paul