Quad Tone Rip
Quad Tone RIP provides what its developer calls "color management" for black & white inkjet printing in TIFF format, using quadtone inksets (four tones instead of four colors). It produces outstanding results and is very highly regarded by experts. It works with several kinds of Epson inkjet printer and with both standard and custom dedicated B&W inksets.
Profiles already exist for many printer/ink combinations, but you can create a new profile for an inkset using a densitometer or spectrophotometer. The software includes facilities for making full B&W ICC profiles for printing and soft-proofing within Photoshop and other editors. QuadToneRIP requires "a fair amount of memory," according to the developer.
Comment
It sounds like an anomaly: color management for black & white printing, but in fact there are several shades of black as this product demonstrates.
If you are a photographer who shoots and prints B&W on an Epson printer, then Quad Tone Rip is an obvious choice. It is a first-rate product, greatly admired by B&W photographers who refer to it as QTR.
Good documentation, tutorials and a user group are available.
Tech info
- OS: Windows XP Pro (recommended) onward; Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5 (recommended)
- Price level: Approx. $50
Roy Harrington
Roy Harrington is an accomplished B&W landscape photographer who uses the 4x5 format. He developed Quad Tone Rip very much from a photographer's perspective -- and has won the praise of similar photographers who strive for the highest quality in B&W printing.
From the same vendor:
- guides and tutorials for using Quad Tone RIP
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