QTR-Quadtone RIP

I use qtr for making and linearizing inkjet prints.

Now I want to test making inkjet  negs for alternative process prints. 

Is there a tutorial somewhere for doing this?  I have an I1 spectro. 

Does anyone have any qtr starter curves to relinearize for palladium and gum printing?

John

PiezoDN.


Bill Kennedy
Professor of Photocommunications
Area Coordinator
St. Edward's University
Austin, Texas USA

-----Original Message-----
From: deanwork2003@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>
To: QuadtoneRIP <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 31, 2018 5:50 pm
Subject: [QuadtoneRIP] Using QTR and Epson k3 Inks for making digital negs on OHP



  
    
                  
I use qtr for making and linearizing inkjet prints.

Now I want to test making inkjet  negs for alternative process prints. 

Is there a tutorial somewhere for doing this?  I have an I1 spectro. 

Does anyone have any qtr starter curves to relinearize for palladium and gum printing?

John

Doesn’t someone have starter curves and workflow written out for QTR printing on OHP.?  People have been doing this for a long time. I’m surprised there are no curves loaded with qtr. I guess you could start with gloss paper...but that’s pretty far away.

Yes, yes, I have Piezo DN just set up in a 3880. One of the chips is bad  right off the bat so I have to deal with that, ug, but it does sound great once it’s working, and I will have to buy the additional $75.00  curve package to test it..  And I have the HPZ3200 with the auto profiling method set up that’s amazing and nobody knows about it because of HPs sad commitment to it.

. What I want to do is compare doing these methods with QTR and K3 inks for people who will not be setting up a used printer from eBay or a new one with an expensive circuit board on the P800s or a Z printer. I want to teach a workshop in December that can cover it all.

Yes Richard I’ve read about how you claim your software is the best thing on earth for this situation with k3 inks, and it very well may be, and I’ll probably buy it for testing, but the only video describing your system on youtube is a web seminar that was a disaster. I’m not sure why that is still up. It certainly isn’t helping you.  On none of these forms have I heard anyone else beside you describe the quality of the results or the ease of the learning curve for students and such ( your biggest market). But maybe I’m missing other people discussing  it somewhere. If you offered a free trial with a watermark or something like Bowhaus does for True Black and White  you would most likely have a lot of people talking about it, and cultivate beta testers. It’s just not cheap for something that is so totally unknown at this point.

 And it may be a bargain, and the perfect solution for k3 I don’t know other than what the author is saying.



John

I’m sorry, I do not have what you’re looking for. If I did, I would freely give it.

 

I must agree with you regarding Richard Boutwell’s system. That video is horribly unhelpful and frustrating. Why it was posted in that condition is beyond me.

 

I can’t speak to his new system. But, while the previous Excel based version does seem to work to a degree, getting detailed help on it was extremely difficult. Several questions still remain unanswered and the documentation does not answer them. It is loaded with typos which leads one to wonder about the accuracy of the app. At the end of it all, I don’t find QTR so difficult as to justify paying 70% more than the cost of the QTR RIP for Richard’s K3 Profiler System. Also, with QTR you know what you’re getting at every step. With the QTR Profiler I remain skeptical regarding the accuracy of the results.

 

Mick

From: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of "deanwork2003@... [QuadtoneRIP]" <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at 7:08 PM
To: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Using QTR and Epson k3 Inks for making digital negs on OHP

 

  

Doesn’t someone have starter curves and workflow written out for QTR printing on OHP.? People have been doing this for a long time. I’m surprised there are no curves loaded with qtr. I guess you could start with gloss paper...but that’s pretty far away.

Yes, yes, I have Piezo DN just set up in a 3880. One of the chips is bad right off the bat so I have to deal with that, ug, but it does sound great once it’s working, and I will have to buy the additional $75.00 curve package to test it.. And I have the HPZ3200 with the auto profiling method set up that’s amazing and nobody knows about it because of HPs sad commitment to it.

. What I want to do is compare doing these methods with QTR and K3 inks for people who will not be setting up a used printer from eBay or a new one with an expensive circuit board on the P800s or a Z printer. I want to teach a workshop in December that can cover it all.

Yes Richard I’ve read about how you claim your software is the best thing on earth for this situation with k3 inks, and it very well may be, and I’ll probably buy it for testing, but the only video describing your system on youtube is a web seminar that was a disaster. I’m not sure why that is still up. It certainly isn’t helping you. On none of these forms have I heard anyone else beside you describe the quality of the results or the ease of the learning curve for students and such ( your biggest market). But maybe I’m missing other people discussing it somewhere. If you offered a free trial with a watermark or something like Bowhaus does for True Black and White you would most likely have a lot of people talking about it, and cultivate beta testers. It’s just not cheap for something that is so totally unknown at this point.

And it may be a bargain, and the perfect solution for k3 I don’t know other than what the author is saying.

John

Hi John,

First, I have used Richards excel sheets and programs for a long time and I can say that they are great and very helpful in getting consistent results. 

Second, you come to this group asking for free info and start trashing people who have been very helpful and have created tools for a low price. If you can afford to print platinum and already have PiezoDN then $75 doesn’t seem like a stretch for a tool that takes a lot of the guess work out of the process. Otherwise go spend hours testing and wasting expensive platinum like the rest of us have. Use google, there are plenty of sites that detail how to do this, most though are outdated or search the fourm for hours. 

Richard has helped a huge amount of people for free and has spent lots of time creating charts and looking over excel sheets of my results for free. 

Greg

Well it makes total sense that someone would develop a user friendly system for this as alternative process options are becoming so popular these days all over the world.. It’s just your video really confused me.

Congratulations Richard. I also realize that the best printmakers with good ideas are not always the best promoters and sales people! That’s a fact.

Hell if I were a software geek, which I will never be, I’d have set something like this up long ago because QTR is perfect for it. All the literature and workflow for making digital negs with Oem inks that I’ve seen is way too confusing for most students. 

Personally I’m finally getting set up with k7 DN Piezography to make my own negs with,  and their documentation and materials are the best I’ve seen. Once it’s set up it is easy and they have a great library of curves made. I also know how smooth the ramp potential and resolution capabilities are from doing prints with these inks for the last 17 years. But there are people who want to do the occasional platinum print or van dyke  and want to experiment with processes before they invest in a printer and system like that. 

I’ve experimented with Burkholders template and the Bostic and Sullivan workflow and achieving accurate mid tone mid tone separation requires a lot of time and materials to be wasted. Most people give up. But even that is well beyond the trials we used to go through with shooting, developing, and contact printing large format camera negs, though a lot of outstanding work was done that way ( Jan Groover for instance.)

John

I’m not trashing Richard. It seems like he is really on to something significant and I want him to be successful. It’s just the initial presentation was very confusing. And you are right, everything else out there regarding oem inks that I’ve found is really outdated and clumsy for students to even approach.

As to Piezo DN, I know it was designed by people who know what they are doing, and I don’t see it being surpassed as the finest platform for doing this kind of work.

My comments were about options for students to experiment with this kind of printmaking without having to invest in a dedicated monochrome printer in the very beginning.  I have always thought the final, best, and ultimate place to be is Piezography DN with their software, without question. And the price for that software plus the significant library of various media curves plus the copy of QTR is about the cost of Richards software. 

And you are right, all of that is relatively insignificant compared to the price of noble metals, good paper, and hours spent learning to do it all.

Sorry if I was very clumsy in my initial post. 

I dont hang out on social media anymore so I’m sure I miss a lot of current info.

John

Me too.

Mark
stillrivereditions.com

> On Aug 28, 2018, at 5:19 PM, daimone@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> Richard,
> 
> Somewhere around here a few weeks back you mentioned a demo Mac version might be out soon.  Did this ever happen or will it?  I'd like to give it a try...

It would be interesting to try. But, I certainly would not pay $125 for it without proof that it is in every way as good or, as it is claimed through being much easier than QTR, better than QTR. It seems to me that if one could simply take all “the math, the ink descriptor text file stuff” from the QTR process “and threw it out the window” to achieve the same results, Roy Harrington would have done so by now. You know the old adage “if it seems too good to be true, it likely is.” That said, it may be true. But, it surely is incumbent upon the developer to prove it by providing a test version of the software.

 

Mick

From: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of "Mark Savoia mark@stillrivereditions.com [QuadtoneRIP]" <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 at 9:19 AM
To: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Using QTR and Epson k3 Inks for making digital negs on OHP

 

  

Me too.

 

Mark
stillrivereditions.com



On Aug 28, 2018, at 5:19 PM, daimone@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Richard,

 

Somewhere around here a few weeks back you mentioned a demo Mac version might be out soon.  Did this ever happen or will it?  I'd like to give it a try...

I’d like to come to the defense of Richard on this. There is a lot of different ways to make ink curves and the ink curve method used with QTR is almost entirely optimized for ink-on-paper, not UV blocking. Richard has implemented some interesting curve work in his software as have we with PiezoDN (all-be-it for a different ink-set than K3 OEM). I would not nock his software just because you have not seen prints in the wild. This is a niche market. Software developers do not have to release free test-beta software and especially in this market where you would release a software trial, someone would calibrate their darkroom perfectly, and then possible not have to use the software again for a year or so.

Best regards,
Walker



> On Aug 29, 2018, at 11:29 AM, Mick Sang mick.sang@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> It would be interesting to try. But, I certainly would not pay $125 for it without proof that it is in every way as good or, as it is claimed through being much easier than QTR, better than QTR. It seems to me that if one could simply take all “the math, the ink descriptor text file stuff” from the QTR process “and threw it out the window” to achieve the same results, Roy Harrington would have done so by now. You know the old adage “if it seems too good to be true, it likely is.” That said, it may be true. But, it surely is incumbent upon the developer to prove it by providing a test version of the software.
> 
> 
> 
> Mick
> 
> 
> 
> From: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com <mailto:QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>> on behalf of "Mark Savoia mark@... <mailto:mark@...> [QuadtoneRIP]" <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com <mailto:QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>>
> Reply-To: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com <mailto:QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>>
> Date: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 at 9:19 AM
> To: <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com <mailto:QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>>
> Subject: Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Using QTR and Epson k3 Inks for making digital negs on OHP
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Me too.
> 
> 
> 
> Mark
> stillrivereditions.com <http://stillrivereditions.com/>
> 
> 
>> On Aug 28, 2018, at 5:19 PM, daimone@... <mailto:daimone@...> [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com <mailto:QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Richard,
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Somewhere around here a few weeks back you mentioned a demo Mac version might be out soon.  Did this ever happen or will it?  I'd like to give it a try...
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 



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

I’m in no way knocking Richard or his software.  However, he indicated an intent to possibly release a trial version so I asked.  I’m sure it’s wonderful software and he has every right to not release a trial version.  I might buy it after trying to see if it’s worth it for me to improve my workflow, but I won’t shell out the money for something I haven’t tried.  I’ve purchased many good products that haven’t really worked for me.  So if there’s a trial version, there’s a good chance I’d buy it.  If not, chances are I won’t.  This says nothing about Richard and his software.  This says that I don’t absolutely need it and won’t take the risk without a test drive.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 29, 2018, at 9:49 PM, donsbryant@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> Mick,
> 
> 
> The proof of the validity of Richard's products are provided by the individuals testing and endorsing his digital negative software. Of those individuals,  the most significant is Sandy King. A internationally recognized alternative process printer, esteemed beta tester of various software used to create digital negatives, recognized authoritative workshop instructor and noted author.
> 
> So there isn't any need for Richard to provide test or beta software since it is a proven product. So in short you are way off base with your implication of it being to good to be true.
> 
> Cordially,
> 
> Don Bryant
>  
>

Thanks for the update.  Appreciated.

David Aimone
david@...

http://www.aimonephoto.com

> On Aug 30, 2018, at 11:16 AM, richard@richardboutwell.com [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> I'll try to make a more detailed response when time allows, but yes, I am working on a demo version of the app with the next update. Basically, all the interface, measurement file, and quad loading features will work, but you will not be able to export the starter or linearized curves until it is unlocked with a paid license. That will give a general idea about how the app works, but still limit the main features to paying customers.
> 
> 
> Timing: There are some other more important features I was working out over the past few weeks that still need some darkroom testing. Then I need to figure out how I am going to structure some of the demo features. I'm going to try to make the demo features over the long weekend, but I can't say when it will be available yet. Maybe a week? Maybe three? 
> 
> I'll try to address more of the other questions about how it is different than what the traditional qtr tools allow when I have more time.
> 
> Hope that helps, 
> Richard Boutwell
> 
> http://www.richardboutwell.com/ <http://www.richardboutwell.com/>
> http://www.bwmastery.com/ <http://www.bwmastery.com/>
> 
> 
>

Richard,

You are going to be very successful with this workflow if you do that. I know that about 3/4 of the people out there who would like to use QTR for making digital negs right now don’t have the aptitude or time to figure it out. With your system they will be able to figure it out. 

John

Wonderful!  When I return home later this week I will give the Mac App a test drive.  Thank you!

David Aimone
david@... <mailto:david@aimonephoto.com>

http://www.aimonephoto.com

> On Sep 24, 2018, at 1:58 PM, richard@... <mailto:richard@...> [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com <mailto:QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>> wrote:
> 
> 
> I just released a big update to my QTR digital negative macOS app that now has a demo mode for people to try it out. You can see how the starter curves work, and also load measurement data and quad files, however you won’t be able to save the files without purchasing and activating the app. 
> 
> You can enter your info to get the demo here: https://www.bwmastery.com/quadtoneprofiler-digital-negatives <https://www.bwmastery.com/quadtoneprofiler-digital-negatives>
> 
> Here is short list of new features:
> 
> * Support for CGATS.txt, DataTool.txt, QTR-Linearize-Data-out.txt, QTR-Stepwedge-Tool.txt, ColorMunki.csv, SpyderPrint.txt files
> 
> * Support for 21, 51, 86, 101, 128, 129, and 256-step grayscale targets
> 
> * Automatic averaging of multiple samples for 21, 51, and 86-step targets
> 
> * Two built-in measurement data smoothing options. One uses an adjustable moving weighted average, and a second uses an adjustable interpolation smoother.
> 
> * Real-time quad curve updates instead of needing to recalculate and redraw after each setting.
> 
> If you do want to buy it, I am offering a $25 off discount for people in the Yahoo Group.  Use the code: I’m a real app for the discount on the 3rd payment page.
> 
> All the best,
> Richard Boutwell
> 
> http://www.richardboutwell.com/ <http://www.richardboutwell.com/>
> http://www.bwmastery.com/ <http://www.bwmastery.com/>
> 
>