QTR-Quadtone RIP

Hi all,
I just was directed to this group (did not know it existed) because I
was told there is more 
discussion on this list than on the Piezography lists about K7. That
certainly is true.  I will 
make a few comments and try and answer questions if you have more. 

First comment I read was why we would use QTR rather than do ICC
profiles. The main 
reason here is that EPSON driver does not allow an ICC profile to
make individual calls to 
the various black channels if they are used in ways unexpected. Since
we were treating all 
of the color channels as dilutions of black, the 7 and 8 ink printers
would not allow us to 
take advantage of the additional ink channels with an ICC in the way
we want. And now 
that there was going to be three EPSON blacks, and we wanted to be
able to take 
advantage of this next generation, we needed to have drivers. Simply,
the QTR allows us to 
make calls to individual channels which we can fill with ink that the
EPSON driver would 
not understand. QTR is also a great product and great value. Its
win/win
for everyone as far as we were concerned.

Our proprietary ICC profiler was adapted for use with QTR. And
contrary to belief we have 
made a full compliment of QTR curves for the EPSON 2200. We were a
bit surprised by the 
large format 4000,7600,9600 carts coming in so soon - and we did not
make curves for 
those printers. But we decided to put those carts for sale as we
re-focused ink fulfillment 
to the 2200. We will eventually be in full release for the large
format printers and will 
release curves for those. In the meantime, we thought that most Pro
users would prefer to 
take control of their own destiny and use a spectro.

K7 black when used with QTR, is about as black as Portfolio Black is
when it is used with 
an ICC.
So that should give 
some reference. There are other blacks which users may want to use,
but the deeper ones 
do have dye or "proprietary dyes". As always, chasing dMax and
chasing longevity need to 
be balanced. We decided to go pure pigment with the new K7. 

K7 is not related to PiezoTone. Its as quantum a leap as PiezoTone
was over its 
predecessor. Pigments are very tiny, filtered much more uniformly,
and specially treated to 
be compatible with the new finer EPSON heads. This is not to say that
they can not be used 
with older EPSON printers. Rather that older inks just have not
caught up to the demands 
really of the new fine heads that EPSON is heading towards.

We will release K7 in bottles and also R800/R1800 cartridges.

K7 is neutral on the popular white of Bradford Bright White,
Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, and 
Innova Photo Cotton Smooth. Shifting to a "colder" white tends the
inks towards selenium. 
Shifting to a warmer paper is effective in getting the warm neutral
look. With the demise of 
Concorde Rag we will not be able to hit the carbon sepia look.

Finally, hats off to Roy for providing QTR!  Its great to
collaborate with him...

regards,

Jon Cone

K7 and QTR, perfect together. This should be a good year, and fully within a 
Mac environment.