Quadtone RIP Announcements

Ron-san · Jul 16, 2008

Friends
Three items that may be of interest to the digital negative community.
First, I have completely rewritten my Manual describing how to write Quadtone RIP profiles for making digital negatives. The updated Manual is available as a free download from my website, www.ronreeder.com. The revised approach in the new Manual is much simpler to apply and should get you to a useable profile more quickly.
Second, I now have a section on my website where I will post ready-made QTR profiles for some combinations of Printer/Photo Process. These profiles may help you get started in making a custom QTR profile fine tuned for your own printing process.
Third, I have posted an article on writing a QTR profile designed to make a digital negative on the Epson 3800 that gives very good results when contact printed on a variable contrast silver/gelatin emulsion. Combining the smooth printing characteristics of the 3800 print head with a QTR profile that makes intelligent use of the K3 inkset results in a negative that comes very close to equalling an in camera negative for silver/gelatin printing. It is still not perfect (in areas of smooth tone I can still see bit of digital dot pattern) but this is the best I have ever accomplished on silver/gelatin. See what you think.
Enjoy, Ron Reeder

rogein · Jul 16, 2008

Thanks Ron!

donbga · Jul 16, 2008

Ron-san said:
Friends
Three items that may be of interest to the digital negative community.
First, I have completely rewritten my Manual describing how to write Quadtone RIP profiles for making digital negatives. The updated Manual is available as a free download from my website, www.ronreeder.com. The revised approach in the new Manual is much simpler to apply and should get you to a useable profile more quickly.
Second, I now have a section on my website where I will post ready-made QTR profiles for some combinations of Printer/Photo Process. These profiles may help you get started in making a custom QTR profile fine tuned for your own printing process.
Third, I have posted an article on writing a QTR profile designed to make a digital negative on the Epson 3800 that gives very good results when contact printed on a variable contrast silver/gelatin emulsion. Combining the smooth printing characteristics of the 3800 print head with a QTR profile that makes intelligent use of the K3 inkset results in a negative that comes very close to equalling an in camera negative for silver/gelatin printing. It is still not perfect (in areas of smooth tone I can still see bit of digital dot pattern) but this is the best I have ever accomplished on silver/gelatin. See what you think.
Enjoy, Ron Reeder

Thanks Ron! As a coincidence I'll finally be ordering my 3800 tomorrow!

Don Bryant

Colin Graham · Jul 16, 2008

Hey! I just ordered a 3800 on Monday- this is perfect timing. Thanks very much Ron, very generous of you.

clay · Jul 16, 2008

Ron, thanks once again for taking the time to work through all this stuff and being generous enough to document it so well and post the results. The QTR approach still is the ultimate solution for Epson printers, IMO.

Kees · Jul 17, 2008

Thanks Ron! I'll give them a try. Do you print the silver negatives also on OHP or on the white Pictorico?

In the readme files with your QTR profiles you specify a method to change the path to the .acv curve. This can be done much easier if you remove the absolute path (only working on your computer) alltogether and just leave the curve name. If you keep curve and .txt file together in the same folder (with the quad3800 installer) this (relative) path works allways.

Ron-san · Jul 17, 2008

kees said:
Thanks Ron! I'll give them a try. Do you print the silver negatives also on OHP or on the white Pictorico?

In the readme files with your QTR profiles you specify a method to change the path to the .acv curve. This can be done much easier if you remove the absolute path (only working on your computer) alltogether and just leave the curve name. If you keep curve and .txt file together in the same folder (with the quad3800 installer) this (relative) path works allways.

Thanks, Kees. I really only know enough about QTR to be dangerous. Your method for keeping the .acv curve with the relevant QTR profile is much better than the kludge I was using.
No, I was not using the white film for silver/gelatin negatives, just the normal old transparent Pictorico OHP. Seems to me the only reason why white film might work better would be due some diffusion of the light so the printer dots are not as obvious. So, if you want a bit of diffusion, turn the OHP over and expose through the back or put a clear sheet underneath the negative, or some other dodge. (All this is theory, no actual experiment). Also, the white film is just too blasted expensive. I thought the ultimate test of the system would be to try and make a useable silver gelatin neg on clear OHP, so that is what I did. If someone wants to try out the same profile on white film, I would be quite interested in hearing the result.
Cheers, Ron Reeder

sanking · Jul 17, 2008

Ron-san said:
I thought the ultimate test of the system would be to try and make a useable silver gelatin neg on clear OHP, so that is what I did. If someone wants to try out the same profile on white film, I would be quite interested in hearing the result.
Cheers, Ron Reeder

I have some of the white stuff and will give it a try. However, based on very fine grain, almost non-existent in fact, that I saw from the test on VC silver paper that we did at the Formulary I would find it hard to believe that the white material would improve the situation.

However, if the diffusion idea has any merit, which I think it does, I would recommend using a thin piece of mylar between the pictorico negative and the sensitized paper since you are sure to get some loss of sharpness in printing through the pictorico base.

Sandy King

Kerik · Jul 17, 2008

Ron - Thanks for doing all the legwork and posting your results for all to use. It is very generous of you, indeed!

Colin Graham · Jul 18, 2008

I have a question about installing profiles in XP- is it ok to just rename the textfile with the .qidf extension and save in the 3800 profile folder? I can't seem to figure out any other way to install them on XP. They seem to be loading correctly in both the Curve Creator and the Curve 1 drop-down list in the QTR GUI but it's hard to tell if the profile is getting corrupted or not. The stepwedges I've printed so far are fairly grainy. I remarked-out the curve in the Carbonprint Profile and upped the CMY values from 15 to 20 and that got rid of the grain- so maybe something it happening to the curve in this method of installing the profile?

Ha! I guess it would help if I inverted the step wedge before printing.:rolleyes:

donbga · Jul 19, 2008

Colin Graham said:
I have a question about installing profiles in XP- is it ok to just rename the textfile with the .qidf extension and save in the 3800 profile folder? I can't seem to figure out any other way to install them on XP. They seem to be loading correctly in both the Curve Creator and the Curve 1 drop-down list in the QTR GUI but it's hard to tell if the profile is getting corrupted or not. The stepwedges I've printed so far are fairly grainy. I remarked-out the curve in the Carbonprint Profile and upped the CMY values from 15 to 20 and that got rid of the grain- so maybe something it happening to the curve in this method of installing the profile?

Ha! I guess it would help if I inverted the step wedge before printing.:rolleyes:

Yes, but you have to create a .quad file using QTRgui. I assume from reading your post you are doing that.

After any change in the qdif file you have to generate a new quad file. You should be able to verify that a new file has been created by the date-time stamp.

Or am I mis-understanding your question?

Don Bryant

Colin Graham · Jul 19, 2008

Thanks Don- they do look like they are being generated...somehow. I checked the quad3800 folder and the files do indeed have recent time stamps. I've been exiting and restarting QTR after every modification to get the newer file to show up in the drop down menu- so maybe it's auto updating somehow? I obviously need to reread the manual several more times! I'm trying to do too much in one day, brand new printer and brand new digi-neg method, I need either whiskey or sleep! I appreciate the help very much.

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