QTR-Quadtone RIP

Hello friends:

Earlier this week I started a thread: "Calibrating for Ultrachrome Inks." Thanks for the advice so far, especially that of digging up some posts from Randy Rancier. I did just that and found this nugget of advice which I am going to now take:
=====
"There are many outdated tutorials and other bits floating around the internet
and Google will find them all. Roy's Mac tutorial that accompanies the current
version of QTR is the best to use with OS X for the basic usage of QTR as a b&w
RIP for existing printer/inkset/paper combinations that have already been
profiled.

If you want to profile new papers on existing printer/inksets, Tom Moore's
latest Windows tutorial will provide another level of usage--that of curve
creation but you will have to translate that info to the Mac format. Not particularly
difficult once you get the hang of it.

[snip]

Put away all the tutorials except for Roy's and Tom's newest and work there
until you are comfortable.
======
Okay.... so I have performed the "basic usage of QTR" as a RIP for printing an image using Roy's "Basic Tutorial for Mac OS X". That went smoothly enough.

Moving on to Calibration... I used the "QuadTone RIP User Guide" by Tom Moore. It's Windows oriented, but after completely ignoring certain parts and going straight to the Photoshop print dialog box and QTR driver window I can print out the first Ink Separation Test Page. I let it dry and determine that my K limit is 55%. Good so far...

With 55% as my ink limit for Black ink (I'm using an Epson 9880 and Epson Enhanced Matte paper) I printed a second page of the Ink Pattern Page using the Calibration mode in the QTR  driver window. Okay... not bad so far....

First major glitch: It seems there is no equivalent Mac version of the Curve Creator as described on page 16 of the User Guide. Urrrp!! So I leave this guide and move to the "QuadToneRIP 2.5 Calibration" guide. I work through the first three pages and end up with my two Relative Density numbers: LK=26.6% and LLK=8.6%. 

I'm rather proud of myself, but....

It's time to use those Relative Density numbers, and this is where it gets dicey. Page 4 of the 2.5 Calibration Guide starts talking about Dot Gain Compensation Calibration. I don't see any connection of this to the determination of the relative densities so I saveit for later and decide to move on to the "Getting Started with QuadToneRIP 2.4" Guide. 

I make a copy of the UCmk-EpsEnhMatte-Warm.txt file in the 9880-UC profiles folder. Open it in TextEdit and start hacking away. I'll slow down here because this is where my questions will really begin:

1) Am I on the right track to make an adjusted profile for printing on Epson Enhanced Matte paper on the 9880 printer?

2) Assuming I'm on the right track, I changed this part of the profile text file from this:
---
#  QuadToneRIP curve descriptor file
#
#  for 4800 with ultrachrome k3 inks

CALIBRATION=NO
GRAPH_CURVE=NO
---
to this:
---
#  QuadToneRIP curve descriptor file
#
#  for 9880 with ultrachrome k3 inks

PRINTER=QUAD9880
CURVE_NAME=UCmk-EpsEnhMatte2-warm
CALIBRATION=NO
GRAPH_CURVE=NO
---
Note that I ADDED two lines: 
the PRINTER=... line,
and the CURVE_NAME=... line

That's it for now. Thanks for reading this and for offering any suggestions.

--- In QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com, "michaeldsji" <michaeld1001@...> wrote:

> 
> It's time to use those Relative Density numbers, and this is where it gets dicey. Page 4 of the 2.5 Calibration Guide starts talking about Dot Gain Compensation Calibration. I don't see any connection of this to the determination of the relative densities so I saveit for later and decide to move on to the "Getting Started with QuadToneRIP 2.4" Guide. 
> 
> I make a copy of the UCmk-EpsEnhMatte-Warm.txt file in the 9880-UC profiles folder. Open it in TextEdit and start hacking away. I'll slow down here because this is where my questions will really begin:
> 
> 1) Am I on the right track to make an adjusted profile for printing on Epson Enhanced Matte paper on the 9880 printer?
> 
> 2) Assuming I'm on the right track, I changed this part of the profile text file from this:

This is where I am a little confused.  You have printed on EEM successfully using the pre-existing profiles?  And now you want to profile your machine so that you have a custom profile for EEM on your machine?  If this is the case,  simply take the existing profile that you have printed with, erase the linearization line and all that follows.  Then print out a 21 stepwedge, read that wedge and redo the LINEARIZATION= line using your numbers from your 21 stepwedge.  That will accommodate any dot gain difference between your machine and the machine that the profile was made on.

I am not familiar with the large format printers so bear with me here.  If you were able to install the existing profiles, print successfully with the existing profile and they show up under QTR without any problem, then it may not be necessary to change the 4880 to 9880 etc.

Hope this helps, Robert

--- In QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com, "robert49brake" <robert49brake@...> wrote:

> This is where I am a little confused.  You have printed on EEM successfully using the pre-existing profiles?  And now you want to profile your machine so that you have a custom profile for EEM on your machine?  If this is the case,  simply take the existing profile that you have printed with, erase the linearization line and all that follows.  Then print out a 21 stepwedge, read that wedge and redo the LINEARIZATION= line using your numbers from your 21 stepwedge.  That will accommodate any dot gain difference between your machine and the machine that the profile was made on.

Oops, forgot to mention you will need to save the new file with a different name to the 4880-7880-9880-UC folder then run the install9880.command by double clicking on it and restart PS so it shows up in the print dialogue.  Damned Daylight Savings Time!