Linearizing for Gum - Questions about Starting Out

PiezoDN Digital Negatives
1

Hi Y’all - First time for me to post questions. Thanks in advance for the help. I appreciate the community here.

I’m attempting to linearize for gum, for particular pigments and paper. I’ve worked with gum for a bit so am familiar with the nuance and particularities and all of its variables. In a brief exchange with Walker (thank you!) it was suggested that I use the 21 x 16 target and the Pro Tool. I am using the K7 inks in a 3880 with the newer black ink… My questions are:

  1. Is it better to begin with the Master.quad when printing that target, or better to start with the Gum.quad that was supplied?
  2. Does it matter which parent folder from the Curves folder I work from, the 3880 PiezoDN, the 3880-PiezoDN-P2, or the 3880-PiezoDN Pro if I am to use the Pro Tools to linearize along with the ink set I am using?

Thanks!

2

gum is so finicky, in my limited experience, it seems like the master (or maybe the mater limited to ~240 for certain colors like black or lighter yellows) is the best route to go, then just change image based on printing variables. once I’m really really good at printing perfect gum prints, I may come back to attempt a calibrated workflow, but for now, I can’t get enough consistency to produce the same chart twice.