Digital BW, The Print

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Peter wrote:

> 
> I have found the "profiles" folder but they don't have an "install" icon 
> that I am used to seeing. Notwithstanding that, are the profiles installed? 
> If so, how can I use them? Are "curves", which is often referred to, another 
> word for profiles?

They're "installed" in the sense that QTR knows where to find them.  As far as Windows is concerned, they're an unknown (*.quad) file type.  They're really nothing more than a text file with some comments (lines beginning with #) and a "curve" for each ink.  The curve is just a list of 256 16-bit numbers that tells QTR for each pixel's gray value (0-255) how much ink to put down (0-65535).

So, in the case of QTR, yes the profile is really just a set of curves.  For ICC profiles, the file format among other things are a bit more complicated. 

The QTR profiles/curves can be loaded in notepad or word or whatever editor you like.  You can cut and past the list of numbers into excel for example and graph them to see what they look like visually.

http://fors.net/temp/qtr.gif

To use the various profiles, you can either edit the Print-2200.bat file in notepad and change the 'set CURVE1=' and 'set CURVE2=' lines to the profiles you want to use.  Then change the 'set BLEND=' line to the percentage of CURVE1 you would like to print at.  With BLEND=50, QTR just averages CURVE1 and CURVE2 when it prints.

Another easier way to do this would be to download Stephen Billard's QTRgui program.

http://sbillard.org/Shareware/QTRgui.htm

It allows you to select the curves and other settings in the familiar windows GUI fashion and acts as a front-end to QTR.

> 
> I have been successful in finally getting a b&w print but it has no "snap". 
> No doubt that is because it is printed on Epson's Enhanced Matte with Photo 
> Black ink. It is just too expensive and time consuming to change to matte 
> black ink for these trials.

I agree.  I don't like to change inks either, but I normally prefer matte papers and only switch to photo black ink when doing digital negatives.

--Tom