Harry, there are plenty of people out there saying "just print with ABW" and plenty of other people saying "just use QTR" (and some others saying "use Qimage" or whatever the next thing will be), but there are relatively few people showing actual objective comparisons of different methods and materials. If what you use is working for you and the time you have for it then that is great. My blog post was meant for people making prints they are not happy with or for people who don't know what those differences in print quality are until the differences are pointed out.
Steve, I tried going back to look at the original posts about the push to get QTR-Create-ICC built, but I could only find entries after it was already released. But could you elaborate on what you mean by "draw a straight line from an imperfect black and imperfect white"? By imperfect do you mean paper white not being 100% reflective and whatever the inks' D-max not being 0% reflective?
If you look at the pictures in my post, the first one is a down sampled file used to make the resulting prints (gray gamma 2.2 converted to sRGB) and is essentially identical to the QTR print with no color management. What I find when using ABW, or QTR and an ICC profile, is that the prints always have compressed shadows. In theory and computer maths that might be what is supposed to happen, but for me, it doesn't make a better print.
Which is to say, I understand the reason for using the QTR ICC profile workflow, but I choose not to for printing black and white (printing color is a different story). This decision is based on how I build my profiles and observing the effect printing with ICC profiles has on the actual print (which sounds like a case of "it works for me"). The approach I take comes from growing up printing on Azo and then platinum/palladium and being accustomed to the long straight line with rich blacks and smooth open shadows—there might not be "detail" in the shadows the print has a rounder and smoother three-dimensional feeling. When I translate that to inkjet printing: Using QTR with an ICC profile (and rendering intent with black point compensation) or the Epson ABW driver setting that causes the tones to stop increasing smoothly from 95% through 100%K and the resulting print has feeling of flatness even though "more black" is supposed to give the appearance of more contrast. I want to go back and reread Keith Coopers' review of the new Epson printer from last week. I think he addresses some of this there.
Ok, I'm getting back to work. Those scans aren't going to retouch themselves. . .
Richard Boutwell