Printing with ICC

Piezography Professional Tools
1

Hi there,
I hope you are all doing well with all the chaos we are living through. Right now, it is really messy in Switzerland, and things are going to get worse… So, staying indoors, and working a lot in the studio with the piezo inks. I am trying to really understand how to make use of the ICC profiles since I need to print a series of images for a handmade book these next days, and I have these questions that I would be extremely grateful if someone can help me with!. All these questions are related to using the ICC profile that is provided by the Piezography ICC Profiler application:

When printing with ICC (Relative rendering) in Photoshop or Lightroom

I assume we do not use Quad curves, since we are using the Epson driver… In that case, the ICC profile is taking care of the linearization AND also providing the contrast boost to match print to screen… That is what I understood, but…

  • Is the ICC profile telling the printer which ink channels to use specifically for each tone, like when printing with quad curves and QTR rip? Since I am not using a quadtone curve when printing, how does the printer know that? How does the printer know that the Orange channel for instance (where I have piezoflush) should not be used?
  • What if I remap the printer channels and switch positions of the inks? How does the ICC “carry” that information when I use it to print with the Epson driver?

When printing with ICC profiles from Print-Tool:

When printing from Print Tool and with ICC profile (Relative intent), I suppose we can choose to print either with the Epson driver (Epson 9900) or with QTR rip (Quad9900 printer). When we use QTR, are we FORCED to use the quad curve (even if not linear) that we used to print the target-measure-and create the ICC profile? Or could we use ANY curve at all, provided that we activate the ICC profile in Color Management? I am just trying to understand whether using the ICC to print just takes care of the whole linearization, and therefore whichever the curve we select, results are the same…(basically, the curve does not do anything, the ICC does the whole job)

  • If on the contrary it turns out that we have to choose THAT specific quad curve, why can we print from Photoshop or Lightroom (Epson driver) where that curve is not referenced at all?

When printing with ICC profiles from Print-Tool:

I suppose we can also choose the Epson driver instead of the QuadPrinter, and proceed as if using Photoshop or Lightroom, right? I suppose the same answers would apply here as when using Photoshop and Lightroom, right?

Thanks and kind regards,

Rafael

2

Think of the ICC as simply a curve (an S curve). Lightroom is the layout program (same as Print-Tool or Photoshop) so the workflow is really exactly the same

so, Lightroom/Print-Tool/Photoshop -> ICC (or no in the case of Print-Tool) -> QuadtoneRIP -> Printer.

QTR does all the ink stuff still. Why are you assuming you have to use the Epson driver or something? Why are you confusing yourself here?

NO! Have I ever written in any of the thousands of pages of words on the subject that have come from my fingers that you can use the Epson driver for Piezography?

3

What you mention is what I though in fact. The confusion came from using Lightroom from the PC. There I could not see the Quad9900 printer, and only saw the 9900 driver. I realize from Windows all this does not apply, since one has to use QTgui and therefore the whole ICC workflow only applies to Mac.

I know you mention that on the video about profiling, but I thought you were talking to the creation of the ICC. That is why I created the ICC on the Mac, and thought of using it on the PC. I realize my mistake.

Getting there…Sorry again, I just started using the PPEv2 a few days ago, and since there I am full on working on it…

4

ahh, yes, the PC requires QTR/gui.

cheers,
W