QTR and K7 Selenium set for 7600

[gmikol]

Top black line is total ink volume

Ahhh....Total Ink. The one thing I have always felt has been missing from QTR.

--Greg

 

[clay]

Ben, this looks similar to how I have been teaching the QTR approach in workshops, except that I still use a fair amount of intuition in figuring out the initial ink blend. I am really glad to see someone make the QTR approach a little more user friendly, because i still think it is ultimately the best approach. I have written a pdf file that is on my website that outlines the approach I have been using, which is a lot more empirical and seat of the pants than yours appears to be. Keep us informed about how it is going!

 

[Ben Altman]

Clay - Nice explanation. I like a lot of what you are doing. Using a scanner and Ike's script is more convenient than a densitometer. Might be able to work something like that in at some point. I have slightly different ideas about the distribution of inks in the underlying file, but we're going in the same direction. (Which I find reassuring!)

Greg - The QTR CurveView function, which was new a couple of versions ago, gives the maximum total ink in a little box bottom left. For other points on the profile you could estimate off the curve. (The CurveView graph scales everything to a percentage of total ink). And yes, my spreadsheet gives total volume at any point on the profile.

Best, Ben

 

[gmikol]

Greg - The QTR CurveView function, which was new a couple of versions ago, gives the maximum total ink in a little box bottom left. For other points on the profile you could estimate off the curve. (The CurveView graph scales everything to a percentage of total ink). And yes, my spreadsheet gives total volume at any point on the profile.

CurveView = Mac ?

I don't see this in QTRGui.

It's less of an issue with my 3880...but with my R1900, I started to get bad pizza wheels between 80 and 100% total ink, which was too low for some of what I was doing, and needed to have an eye kept on it. With the 3880 and the adjustable rollers, less of a problem, and I find Pictorico saturates between 160% and 200% total ink with the 3880.

--Greg

 

[donbga]

CurveView = Mac ?

I don't see this in QTRGui.

It's less of an issue with my 3880...but with my R1900, I started to get bad pizza wheels between 80 and 100% total ink, which was too low for some of what I was doing, and needed to have an eye kept on it. With the 3880 and the adjustable rollers, less of a problem, and I find Pictorico saturates between 160% and 200% total ink with the 3880.

--Greg

You have to right click on the curve name in QTRGui to see the curve plot.

Don

 

[gmikol]

You have to right click on the curve name in QTRGui to see the curve plot.

Don

I'm familiar with the QTRGui interface, but I simply don't see any total ink information, nor are my ink levels a percentage of total ink...they are absolute on the graph.

I'll attach a pic, and then I can try and sort this out with Don or Ben via PM, if necessary, to avoid further hijacking this thread.

--Greg

PS---The pic is with QTR / QTRGui 2.7.0

 

[donbga]

Don--

I'm familiar with the QTRGui interface, but I simply don't see any total ink information, nor are my ink levels a percentage of total ink...they are absolute on the graph.

I'll attach a pic, and then Don and I can sort this out via PM, if necessary, to avoid further hijacking this thread.

--Greg

PS---The pic is with QTR / QTRGui 2.7.0

My bad, I misunderstood the question.

Don

 

[Eirik Berger]

When using Epson 7600 I dont see any reason to use QTR, since IJC/OPM is far superior when it comes to user interface. You can drag and bend the curves until you are happy, And the ink limit controls and linearization tools are just sweet. I have used Epson 7500 and MIS Ultratone inks for years. Too bad Bowhaus dont seem to develop the software anymore.

 

[sanking]

When using Epson 7600 I dont see any reason to use QTR, since IJC/OPM is far superior when it comes to user interface. You can drag and bend the curves until you are happy, And the ink limit controls and linearization tools are just sweet. I have used Epson 7500 and MIS Ultratone inks for years. Too bad Bowhaus dont seem to develop the software anymore.

What is the cost of IJC/OPM? And how does resolution compare to the Epson driver? And are there free profiles available for different papers?

QTR can be downloaded for free, and costs only $50 to own. And regardless of whether you use the Epson inks or K7 QTR prints with about 2X the resolution of the Epson driver. And for paper, there are profiles available for many papers.

Sandy King

 

[clay]

My understanding is that IJC/OPM and QTR use the same underlying open-source low-level driver code. The main difference being the user interface. There was some thread to that effect on photo.net back when that forum was somewhat relevant.

 

[sanking]

I will be very interested to see how Ben's program allows for user creation and editing of profiles. In this exercise Ben did all of the work in terms of programming and creating the profile and all I had to do was do the process testing and and read and report the UV and print densities.

Sandy

 

[Ben Altman]

I will be very interested to see how Ben's program allows for user creation and editing of profiles. In this exercise Ben did all of the work in terms of programming and creating the profile and all I had to do was do the process testing and and read and report the UV and print densities.

Sandy

- And the work we did gave me several new ideas on that very topic. The fundamental ideas about characterizing the inkset and structuring the profile seem to work well, although they are now better refined. I'm currently working on routines that will help to figure three things out as quickly as possible: the best ink combinations to minimize grain, the maximum usable ink volumes, and the negative dMax aim point (i.e. print dMin or paper-white point) for the profile.
With these in hand, linearizing is relatively straightforward. I have the tools for curve-bending mostly worked out. But each innovation or improvement takes a while to write and debug, so it's a slow process...
Ben

 

[Eirik Berger]

Sandy.

IJC/OPM costed a few dollars (100-200?) but I dont remember exactly how much. I bought my license back in 2005 when I converted my Epson 7500 using MIS Ultratone inks. The ink with both warm and cool greys in it, which made it possible to blend curves to make warm, neutral and cool BW-prints. I still have some amazing prints made and the resolution is as good as QTR for sure. Bowhaus has focused on making the True Black and White software for Canon large format printers, leaving Epson users and IJC/OPM to die a ungraceful death I have e-mailed recently with Charles James at Bowhaus, and even if he is the nicest guy on earth I could read between the lines that they would not spend too much effort on IJC/OPM. The newest version (2.0) has support for Epson 3800 (7 channels only). But that is not good enough for me since I use Selenium K7/MPS with GO, using all 9 channels.

I have a Epson 7600 standing in my lab that I will use with Piezography Selenium K7. After reading this thread and the writings of Jon Cone on the Piezography blog, I am tempted to set it up to make digital negatives and take up carbon transfer printing again.

If you send me an e-mail (post (a) f45 dot no) I can send you a list of the supplied curves with IJC/OPM. There was a forum of IJC/OPM-users once upon a time hosted by Bowhaus, but this forum seems to be gone. So there is no visible community of users anymore, at least not that I know of.

It seems like you and Ben is doing some valuable work on QTR, and if Ben is able to make a better user interface for making K7 curves to QTR, I dont see any reason to use IJC/OPM anymore. For me it has been important to be able to make profiles and curves my self, I like tweaking, customizing and linearizing things. But one need proper software to do so.

My brother is a software engineer and I have showed him IJC/OPM and what I like about it, all from curve-bending, ink limit controls, linearizing with EyeOne and so on. And then showed him the challenges of making K7 curves with QTR. We have spent a lot of time analyzing the Master curves and the anatomy of the K7 .quad-files to see if it is possible to make a IJC-like user interface. But my guess is that it would be too time consuming for a brother to brother favor

Eirik Berger

 

[Felinik]

My brother is a software engineer and I have showed him IJC/OPM and what I like about it, all from curve-bending, ink limit controls, linearizing with EyeOne and so on. And then showed him the challenges of making K7 curves with QTR. We have spent a lot of time analyzing the Master curves and the anatomy of the K7 .quad-files to see if it is possible to make a IJC-like user interface. But my guess is that it would be too time consuming for a brother to brother favor�

Eirik Berger

To open up an old thread but with an interesting subject.

What about a kickstart project?? I'm sure we're a bunch of us that would chime in, and in the end when the software is ready, you and yo bro could charge a neat lil $29-$59 or something for those who didn't chime in...

 

[Ben Altman]

To open up an old thread but with an interesting subject.

What about a kickstart project?? I'm sure we're a bunch of us that would chime in, and in the end when the software is ready, you and yo bro could charge a neat lil $29-$59 or something for those who didn't chime in...

Unfortunately as far as my project goes I got busy with other stuff. I can use it myself but it would be pretty opaque to anyone else. Part of the problem with making it user friendly is that every process is so different, (not to mention each person's working methods, light source, etc.etc.) It takes a lot of work to find the right combination of inks for each print density such that there's enough blocking of the UV with minimum grain, and not too much ink to dry on the OHP material. Only after that can one refine the curves.

I do still hope to get back to the project in due course. Meanwhile new versions of Excel and QTR, and new printer models, keep rolling out. Support of a system like this is a big undertaking. Pretty much impossible to charge enough to pay for the hours involved...

Ben