Dedicated black and white printer profiling with color inks

[richardboutwell]

I've been working on a new version of my QTR profiling tools that are geared toward custom inksets when using gray or color toning inks. The new tools use my own grayscale partitioning formulas for the gray inks and new tools for adding and balancing the toning curves toward specific a* or b* values. It still uses grayscale images, and the grayscale QTR driver, but does allow for more accurate toning profiles for different ratios of color inks.

Take a look here for more info: QuadToneProfiler-Pro

[deanwork]

Richard,

Your workflow seems very nice and uses the same principles ( though a little less intuitive) as the Bowhaus True Black and White software designed for Canon large format printers.

I think there is a market for it for those that are serious about finessing the print color of their Epson monochrome work.

However, when I tried to view your video a couple of months ago it was a mess.
If you want people to take this software seriously as a professional app, you need to completely redesign that instructional video. It was totally confusing.  You make it look like 10 times more difficult to use than it really is. And I'm a professional printmaker for 18 years, God help the amateurs.

John

I've been working on a new version of my QTR profiling tools that are geared toward custom inksets when using gray or color toning inks. The new tools use my own grayscale partitioning formulas for the gray inks and new tools for adding and balancing the toning curves toward specific a* or b* values. It still uses grayscale images, and the grayscale QTR driver, but does allow for more accurate toning profiles for different ratios of color inks.

Take a look here for more info: QuadToneProfiler-Pro

[richardboutwell]

Richard,

Your workflow seems very nice and uses the same principles ( though a little less intuitive) as the Bowhaus True Black and White software designed for Canon large format printers.

I think there is a market for it for those that are serious about finessing the print color of their Epson monochrome work.

However, when I tried to view your video a couple of months ago it was a mess.
If you want people to take this software seriously as a professional app, you need to completely redesign that instructional video. It was totally confusing.  You make it look like 10 times more difficult to use than it really is. And I'm a professional printmaker for 18 years, God help the amateurs.

John

I never had the opportunity to use the Bowhause tools, but I know they had integrated i1 Pro support and a native app that made editing the control points a lot easier. I would love to be able to make these tools available with the same level of refinement, but that would either force me to pay a real developer to make the app, which would price it out of most people's willingness to pay for, or learn a real language to do it myself. (I am actually in the processes of doing the latter but talk about a learning curve...) the QuickCurve-K3 tools are going to be easier to make as a stand alone macOS app, but the new -Pro level tools are a lot more complicated to "port" over, but Excel is working really well for now, and is serving as a good version 1 for people to use for the time being. I'm worried that by the time I get a native macOS done there won't be a market for dedicated black and white ink sets for Epson printers and using QTR...

The video: I just posted a comments about the video quality on one of the other threads about the QuickCurve-K3 tools, and don't want to repeat myself. However, In posting it unedited like I did, I didn't consider how the fumbling with the different technical issues I was having during the live screencast would influence how people would perceive the difficulty of actually using the tools.

I am making a set of videos and slides for these new tools and am about half-way done. There have been some pretty serious life things come up over the past few weeks so getting time to finish has been an issue.