basic QTR set up question

[Eric Brody]

I've been happily using QTR to print for some years (and yes, I purchased it). I recently read Jeff Schewe's excellent digital printing book (purchased that too) which has a nice section on using QTR. In the example settings he shows, for color handling, he uses "Printer Manages Color."

I went back and reviewed both Roy Harrington's QTR User Manual and Amadou Diallo's "QTR Workflow." Both indicate setting "Photoshop Manages Color," in color handling. Mr Diallo's example is with CS3, a 3800, K3 inset, and OS 10.5. Mr Harrington's example is also with CS3 even though the manual is dated May 2014.

Both use "QTR-Grey (matte or glossy) Paper as the printer profile whereas in Jeff's book, the printer profile choice is grayed out as it is set to "Printer Manages Color."

Maybe there's no significant difference, but I wonder who's got it right.

I'd greatly appreciate comments from those using QTR regarding their settings. I'm using a 3880 with the standard Epson ink set on a Mac Pro with OS 10.10.4 and Photoshop CC.

Thanks.

Eric

[Jeff-Grant]

My understanding is that you should be using PrintTool on a Mac. The QTR Yahoo group is the best place to ask questions on QTR.

[Schewe]

Both use "QTR-Grey (matte or glossy) Paper as the printer profile whereas in Jeff's book, the printer profile choice is grayed out as it is set to "Printer Manages Color."

Maybe there's no significant difference, but I wonder who's got it right.

I'm thinking it was Photoshop CS5 where on the Mac, you could no longer select No Color Management in the Print command. You have to choose either Printer Manages Color or Photoshop Manages Color. So, when I did the section I used Printer Manages Color and selected the correct curves in QTR. Hey, sometimes things change...

[wattsies]

Get a copy of Print Tool and have a look at the User Guide in the Print Tool section of the QTR website.  It runs through examples of all the settings for different printing situations.  It's the cheapest way to print properly.

[Ferp]

It sounds like both of these documents in effect advocate converting to a profile for printing with QTR.  I thought that keeping the image in grey gamma 2.2 was the usual workflow?

Although this won't be of interest to the original poster, printing from recent versions of Photoshop on Windows using printer manages color also has issues, as Photoshop will always convert the image to sRGB.  Of course this isn't relevant for QTR, but it just demonstrates the increasing problems with using Photoshop for printing monochrome.

[Eric Brody]

Thanks to the responders. I actually do have a copy of the Print Tool (paid for), but while it does work, it does not really change what one needs to do to make a decent print with QTR.

I've tried printing both ways, what the manuals (some are out of date relating to Photoshop) say, and what Jeff's book says and see no significant difference. What would really be nice would be if Roy or someone else would publish a set of profiles for some of the extensive variety of excellent papers now available, e.g. the Canson Platine and Baryta just to name two.

Eric