QTR-Quadtone RIP

Hi everyone

 

Hope all is well for the holidays. I am a new member that is just getting
into black and white printing with my Epson R220, I am getting ready to buy
some inks from inksupply.com and no sooner do I get there and now I need a
rip program.

 

When you go to Harrington's web site it doesn't really say much about why I
need it and how to use it? I mean my biggest question is why wouldn't my
photoshop elements do the job, and what is wrong with good old fashion
tweeking and learning as you go along by making adjustments with the Epson
printer and photoshop? 

 

 

 



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

--- In QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com, Art Romano <aromanocpa@...> wrote:
>I am a new member that is just getting
> into black and white printing with my Epson R220, I am getting ready to buy
> some inks from inksupply.com and no sooner do I get there and now I need a
> rip program.
> 
>  
>  why wouldn't my
> photoshop elements do the job, and what is wrong with good old fashion
> tweeking and learning as you go along by making adjustments with the Epson
> printer and photoshop? 
> 

that route is doable especially if you are using an inkset designed to take advantage of the Epson print driver.  See Paul Roark's website and look for the inksets for the 220 especially the EZ black and white.  That said, many of the people who are willing to put more time into their prints than the average consumer opt for the most control over those prints they can get.  QTR is just another tool in their arsenal and for the nominal cost it is one of the most powerful available.  The ability to create soft proofing profiles for full size photoshop alone with QTR (I don't know if Elements has the ability to soft proof now as I haven't seen it since version 2.0) will pretty much pay for QTR  quite rapidly in paper savings alone.  

I knew a fellow many years ago who made absolutely beautiful prints on home sensitized albumen paper, home prepared albumen/glass negatives and an ancient 8x10 view camera.  His answer as to why he preferred that process was: I found the camera at a garage sale for ten bucks and eggs are cheap.

It's all about choices.

Art Romano <aromanocpa@...> wrote:
>
>...just getting into black and white printing with my 
> Epson R220, I am getting ready to buy
> some inks from inksupply.com and no sooner do I get 
> there and now I need a rip program.

See http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/R220_R2_Readme.pdf for some options with MIS inks, including some that do not require a RIP.

I designed the inkset to work with just the Epson driver, and Elements was the image editor I assumed would be used.

There are some ICCs available, and as you get into it more, you may want to be able to make your own ICCs (using QTR's "Create ICC" that is part of the download package).  But, you don't need to do or buy anything to get good prints with the UT-R2 inkset. 

Note that while Elements does not support soft proofing, the ICC approach makes the system "color managed" such that the print will match the relative densities of a calibrated monitor.  Being able to make these ICCs with a flatbed scanner is something I've been pushing for some time (see http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Making_B-W_ICCs-GrayCard.pdf) and Roy will soon make even easier with a script that runs on PS CS3 & 4.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com