Print-Tool User Guide

version 1.1.0

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Print-Tool has been developed by Roy Harrington for those of us wanting to retain control
over the print process and overcome or master the differing approaches to printing images
that have been introduced during the last few years by the computer, software and printer
suppliers such as Apple, Adobe and Epson.

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PRINT-TOOL FEATURES
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Position and resize multiple images on a page

- simple drag and drop images, drag edges and corners
Accepts many formats
- jpg, tif, psd, png, gif
- 8-bit or 16-bit; RGB or grayscale
Print to any print driver
- QuadToneRIP, Epson, HP
Full control of ICC color management
- Off, Application Controlled, System Controlled
- Rendering Intents, Perceptual, Relative, Saturation
- Black Point Compensation
- Epson ABW supported
- Soft Proofing
Requires Mac OS X with Intel Processor
- Snow Leopard 10.6.8 - Lion 10.7 - Mountain Lion 10.8 - Mavericks 10.9

This guide steps through the stages of using Print Tool to create a print. Throughout this
Guide one printer - an Epson 4800 - is used to illustrate the print setting options. Every
printer has different settings and controls but the principle is the same for all printers. Some
experimentation will be necessary.

There is no substitute for experimentation. You have to try things to see how they work and
to see if they work for you. This guide is NOT written as a recipe for perfect prints using
Print-Tool. It is written to help you understand the options you have to gain control over
the printing of your images.

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

WORKSPACE

The Print-Tool Workspace has two regions, the Page and the Control Panel. The workspace
can be resized to fill the screen. It is shown here in the User Guide at its smallest proportions.

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The Page
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The left side represents the

page/paper where images
will be displayed for
printing.

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The Control Panel
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The right side is where all

of the settings are made
prior to printing.

The Print-Tool settings

region - The Control Panel
- has four areas referred to
in this User Guide as Panes
A, B, C and D.

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

Page !2 of 16
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

SUGGESTED WORKFLOW

This section outlines a workflow which will help familiarise you with the operation and
capability of Print-Tool. It focuses on each of the Panes and the selections available.

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Printer and Page Setup - Pane A
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Printer: is where you select your printer

from the drop-down. Only installed
printers appear here.

Print is covered at the end of this

section of the guide. It calls up the printer
driver settings.

The Paper: Page Setup brings up the window below. Your current settings here can be
saved as the default in the Settings: drop-down. Ensure that the printer in Format For: is
the same as for the printer selected at the top of Pane A.

Select the Paper Size:

drop-down to choose your
paper size. For each paper
size there are further
options about the print
area. Orientation: selects
landscape or portrait.
Always set Scale: to
100%.

In the Page Size and

Margins choose your
Units from inches, cm, mm, points or picas. The three Grid: buttons select how the
grid is displayed in the paper area to the left of the workspace. The values displayed are not
editable here, they arise from the Paper Size: selection and define the intended extent of
the printable areas. Observe how the extent of the printable area changes for different
options within a particular paper size.

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

Page !3 of 16
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

Placing an Image or Images onto the Page for Printing - Pane B

There are two ways to place an image on the page to be printed.

Select the +button

then navigate to the file
to be loaded:
File>Open Image.
Or drag the image file
to the page from
Finder.
If you require additional
images on the same
page click the +
again. If you require to
print more than one
copy of the image,
select the Duplicate
Image button.

Your selection(s) will now

have appeared on the
page to be printed.

Remove an image file by selecting its file name or its image and clicking the - button.
Remove all image files by clicking the bottom right button of the set.

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Sizing and Positioning an Image or Images for Printing - Pane C
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The position and scale of the selected
image is fully adjustable:

by dragging the image to the desired

position on the page.
by dragging any corner or edge to
resize.
by editing the values in the Image
Position and Scaling window in Pane
C.
by using the two Position buttons to

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

Page !4 of 16
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

center the image on the paper or to move the image onto the paper.
by using the four Scaling buttons to Scale to Fit, to Scale to 100%, or to decrease or
increase the scaling in steps of 25%.
by using either of the Rotate buttons.

Moving or resizing the image on the page or changing any of the values in the Image
Position and Scaling window will automatically cause the other values to be recalculated.

Print Color Management - Pane D

This is where you make decisions about

what color management policy you want to
apply to your printed image. Taking each
drop-down or button in turn:

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a) Select your Color Management policy.
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Options are:
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Application Managed - The ICC profile selected in the drop-down immediately

below WILL be applied to the print. And, Color Management WILL NOT be applied
by the printer driver. Selecting Application Managed is the equivalent in PhotoShop of
PhotoShop Manages Color.
No Color Management - An ICC profile WILL NOT be applied to the print. If there is
a profile displayed in the drop-down immediately below it will be grayed out and WILL
NOT be applied to the print. Also, Color Management WILL NOT be applied by the
printer driver. And, Intent and Proofing options are also unavailable (grayed out). This
is the option to select for printing targets for creating custom ICC profiles and, in the
case of QTR, for linearizing QTR curves
System Managed - An ICC profile WILL NOT be applied to the print. If there is a
profile displayed in the drop-down immediately below it will be grayed out and WILL
NOT be applied to the print. Color Management settings selected in the printer
driver WILL be applied to the print. Intent and Proofing options are unavailable
(grayed out). Selecting System Managed is the equivalent in PhotoShop of Printer
Manages Color.

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b) Select the ICC profile you want to apply to the print.
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The drop-down contains all of the ICC Profiles available in your profiles folder. Select the one
you want to apply. The option to select a profile is only available if you have selected
Application Managed above.
Print-Tool: Roy Harrington
www.quadtonerip.com

Page !5 of 16
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

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c) Select the Intent to apply to the print.
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Options are:
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Perceptual Intent
Relative Intent
Relative Intent with Black Point Compensation
Saturation Intent

Much has been written about the different Intents and under what conditions they are best
applied - all of which can easily be found on the internet.

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d) Proofing.
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Soft Proofing immediately applies the Print Color Management settings (only available in
Application Managed - above) to the representation of the print giving an indication of the
final look of the print. The value of this check depends on several things including whether
your monitor is correctly profiled. This should only be treated as an indication of how the
final will print will be rendered.

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The Soft Proofing options here are:
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No Soft Proofing
Soft Proofing
Proofing + Ink Black

Ink-Black simulates the darkness (dMax) of the black ink. Its effect is the same as "Simulate
Ink Black in PhotoShop.

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e) Epson ABW.
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If your Epson Printer supports Epsons Advanced Black & White (ABW) for your print, and you
will be using ABW settings for your print, be it a finished print or a target for profiling, this
box must be checked. It enables access to the ABW settings in the Epson printer driver.

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f) Negative - Invert and Flip.
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Checking Negative simply inverts all data and flips left-right for an emulsion down
negative print.
Print-Tool: Roy Harrington
www.quadtonerip.com

Page !6 of 16
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

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g) 8/16 bit.
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Bit control selection determines the bit depth for the color management computations. The
bit control options are:

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Auto 8/16-bit
16-bit
8-bit

Auto is recommended which uses 16-bit for all color management computations sent to the
printer driver. Selecting 16-bit in the QTR drivers and Epson drivers will determine the bit
depth sent to the print driver.

Selecting 8-bit forces all computations to be 8-bit for time/speed reasons, 16-bit may be
needed for drivers other than QTR or Epson to force 16-bit to driver.

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PRINTING
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Once you have made all of the settings click either of the Print buttons at the top or
bottom of the Control Panel. This brings up the printer driver for your selected printer where
there are more settings to review before the print is made. This works the same as if you are
printing directly from any other program such as PhotoShop.

Make your selections from the printer driver (see EXAMPLES in the next section), load your
paper in the printer. Hit Print - this time the one in the printer driver window - to make your
print.

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EXAMPLES
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The next section shows examples of printer driver settings for a selection of different prints.
The examples dont cover every facet of your print drivers. Experimentation and testing will
reveal which selections/options most suit your requirements.

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

Page !7 of 16
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

Example 1: A Color Print or a Greyscale Print (with ICC Profile)

An RGB color image to be printed on 14 x 11 Harman Gloss Baryta Warmtone paper using
the profile supplied by Harman for the Epson 4800 with the PK black ink
(HAR_Eps4800_PK_GlossBarytaWarmtone). This example can equally apply to a Greyscale
print for which an appropriate ICC profile is available.

This profile has previously

been installed in the
correct folder and was
selected from the dropdown list in Pane D. The
original file is 4320x3456
pixels and is an RGB 16-bit
file with the Adobe RGB
(1998) embedded profile.
This image is to be printed
in landscape format at full
size (100%) at 360 pixels
per inch and is centred on
the paper.

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Clicking Print brings up the Epson

4800 printer driver where you will make
your final print settings. The printer
driver window overlays the Print-Tool
workspace.

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Make your selections from the printer

driver, load your paper in the printer,
then hit Print - this time the one in the
printer driver window - to make your
print.

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

Page !8 of 16
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

The Layout drop-down in the printer driver has 8 entries of which only Color Matching and
Print Settings will be discussed here. You must ensure that all 8 drop-downs are reviewed
for your selections.

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Color Matching
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This image is to be printed as Application Managed (set

in Pane D) - meaning its ICC profile will be applied to the
print. This results in ColorSync being automatically
selected with no option to select Epson Color Controls.
As no options are available here ColorSync and Epson
Color Controls are grayed out.

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Print Settings
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There are two windows here, Basic and

Advanced Color Settings.

In Basic, only some of the selections are

available. Choose the exact paper or one similar
to what you have. This also will select the type of
Black ink - PK (gloss) or MK (matte) in the case of
Epson 4800 UC printers. See the Epson driver
documentation for additional information if
needed.

This is the equivalent to printing directly from

PhotoShop where you have selected PhotoShop
Manages Colors.

Selections in Advanced Color Settings are

disabled. The display here shows your selected
media type and the ICC profile the printer driver
thinks is correct. This has been overridden by
your earlier choice of ICC profile. As this is a
standard printer driver screen it cannot be
amended to display your actual profile choice.

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

Page !9 of 16
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

Example 2: A Grayscale Print

A grayscale image to be printed on A2 paper using the QuadToneRIP driver for the Epson
4800 using Epson UltraChrome inks - QuadToneRIP printer name is Quad4800-UC.

This example illustrates

two particular different
aspects of using Print-Tool.

1. It is a System
Managed print (Pane
D). This means that NO
ICC profile will be
applied to the print. If
there is a profile
displayed in the dropdown immediately
below it will be grayed
out and WILL NOT be
applied to the print.
Color Management
settings selected in the
printer driver WILL BE
applied to the print.
Intent and Proofing options are unavailable (grayed out). Selecting System Managed
is the equivalent in PhotoShop of Printer Manages Color.

2. The printer driver is the QuadToneRIP driver available from Roy Harrington (follow link in
the footer). It is used, in the context of Print-Tool, in the same way as any other printer
driver. It has its own settings which are illustrated briefly below and are fully explained in
the documentation accompanying QuadToneRIP.

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Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

Page 10
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

Clicking Print brings up the Quad4800UC printer driver where you will make your
final print selections. The printer driver
window overlays the Print-Tool workspace.

The Layout drop-down has 6 entries of

which Color Matching and QuadToneRIP
will be discussed here. You must ensure that
all 6 drop-downs are reviewed for your
selections.

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Color Matching
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This image is to be printed as System Managed (set in

Pane D) - so the Color Matching drop-down offers either
ColorSync profiles or QuadToneRIP settings. In this case
QuadToneRIP is selected which gives rise to the following
selection widow under the Print Settings drop-down.

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QuadToneRIP
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The use of the extensive capabilities of

QuadToneRIP is covered in detail in the
documentation that accompanies it.

Make your selections from the Quad4800-UC

printer driver, load your paper in the printer,
then hit Print - this time the one in the printer
driver window - to make your print

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Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

Page 11
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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

Example 3: A Grayscale Patch Target for ICC Profiling

A 21x4 step random patch

target to be printed on A4
Ilford Smooth Pearl paper
using the QuadToneRIP
driver on the Epson 4800
using Epson UltraChrome
inks - QuadToneRIP printer
name is Quad4800-UC. An
image such as this can be
used to create grayscale or
RGB ICC profiles for
specific printer, paper and
ink combinations. [Creation
of profiles is not within the
scope of this guide. It is
part of QuadToneRIP
available via the link in the
footer].

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Color Matching
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This image is to be printed as No Color Management (set

in Pane D). This setting is essential for the production of a
patch file unaltered by any color management; so the
Color Matching drop-down options are grayed out and
unavailable.

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QuadToneRIP
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The use of the extensive capabilities of QuadToneRIP is covered in detail in the

documentation that accompanies it. Make your selections from the Quad4800-UC printer
driver, load your paper in the printer, then hit Print - this time the one in the printer driver
window - to make your print. The previous example has a sample QuadToneRIP driver
screen. The profile that you will create from measuring the patches above is specifically for
the combination of printer, paper, ink and settings you have made within the driver. If you
wish to use alternative settings for your final print you will need to print a 21x4 step random
patch for each of the alternative settings.
Print-Tool: Roy Harrington
www.quadtonerip.com

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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

Example 4: A Grayscale Patch Target printed with ABW for ICC Profiling

This is a variation on
Example 3 - a 21x4 step
random patch target is to
be printed on A4 Ilford
Smooth Pearl paper using
the Epson 4800 driver and
Epson UltraChrome inks.
This patch file is to be used
to make an ICC profile for
prints utilizing Epsons
ABW settings to tone the
final print. To make an ICC
profile suitable for the tone
settings required it is
necessary to check the
Epson ABW Mode box (in
Pane D) to enable the
settings to be selected in
the printer driver for
printing the patch file.

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Color Matching
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This image is to be printed as No Color Management (set

in Pane D). This setting is essential for the production of a
patch file unaltered by any color management. In the case
of ABW however, there is the option to tone the print
using the ABW Color Controls in the driver. Selecting
Epson Color Controls here (under the Color Matching
drop-down) enables ABW in the Print Settings dropdown.

Note: in this example against Presets: the settings you make can be named and saved for
reuse - in this case: ABW - ICC - H4V4 - A4 Tray.

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

Print Settings for ABW

Under the Print Settings are two tabs Basic and Advanced Color Settings.

These are the normal printer driver settings

for this printer. Under Color: select
Advanced B&W Photo along with
whatever other settings you require. This
will then enable the display of the
Advanced Color Settings where again you
select what you require. In this example
the print is warmed slightly with an H=4
and V=4 setting.

This example is to print a 21x4 step

random patch target to be measured to
create an ICC profile. The profile that you
will create from measuring the patches
above is specifically for the combination of
printer, paper, ink and settings you have
made within the driver. If you wish to use
alternative settings for your final print you
will need to print a 21x4 step random
patch for each of the alternative settings
and produce the ICC profile to match.

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IMPORTANT: Examples 3 & 4 are both about printing 21x4 step random patch targets
for creating ICC profiles. Whatever settings you make in the driver (QuadtoneRIP,
Epson ABW or any other) for printing the patches you should use the same driver
settings for your final print matched with its ICC profile. Naming and saving settings as
Presets is recommended.
Print-Tool: Roy Harrington
www.quadtonerip.com

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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

NOTES

The workflow above is suggested but the actual sequence in which these steps are carried
out is not important. It is important is that you have made all the selections before hitting the
final Print.

If you have placed more than one image to print on a page then all of the selected settings
will be applied to each and every image.

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COLOR MANAGEMENT NOTES
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Color Management is mostly thought of for printing color but the ICC standard has always
included a grayscale format that can control the lightness/darkness tonality - essentially like a
grayscale PhotoShop Curve. Hardly anybody cared about this so it was not supported much.
QTR added some tools for creating grayscale ICCs way back. They were a bit harder to use
on Windows but on the Mac it all worked just like color profiles. It all worked beautifully until
CS4 - a long time ago. Due to a lot of internal changes like 64-bit programs, the grayscale
CM stopped working when printing from Photoshop to QTR driver. I spent a lot of time with
Apple and Adobe to have them fix this but no such luck. In fact later on they even made it
hard on the color people by dropping No Color Management from Photoshop. So you
couldn't print the color targets for making custom ICC profiles. All this led to me writing
Print-Tool - first as a CM fix and then as a general easy to use layout program.
Color Management has become increasingly difficult to understand. Conceptually its not that
complicated but in practice its hard to know which component of the whole system is doing
what, and how. In general there are 3 main CM players - the application(PhotoShop,
Lightroom, Print-Tool, or something else), the operating system OS X (with Colorsync as
Apple's Color Management System) and finally the driver (for example an Epson printer
driver or QTR printer driver for B&W). Unfortunately they all want to get in on the act - but
you need EXACTLY ONE to do the actual color management conversion.
The concept is to print out a target with no color management happening, measure it and
then create a profile. From that point on you print introducing ONLY THIS PROFILE into the
print workflow. The important thing though is that all the settings while printing have to be
IDENTICAL to those that were used when printing the original target.

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Print-Tool: Roy Harrington
www.quadtonerip.com

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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014

Problems arise if you use different print settings:

if you print with different applications which might do different things,

or if you print with a different OS something is probably different,

or if you have a different driver version something may have been changed.
Not that all these things are likely to be a problem but sometimes, unpredictably, they are.
In practice it usually depends from where the profile came. Epson profiles for Epson papers
for a specific driver tend to work well. Downloaded profiles from someone/paper
manufacturer are harder to know how they were made. A personal example for a custom
paper showed one printer's profiles too light and one too dark. Profiles made with Print-Tool
made both printers work correctly.
It is important to always use OS X Print Presets to make sure you have consistent settings.
CS6 is particularly tricky here because there are settings in the Preset and settings stored
with the image. Make them all the same. Most of the settings show up on the Print Settings
print dialog pane but the Color Matching pane can also be important. CS6 Manages Color
will force Color Matching to ColorSync so if you want Print-Tool the same you should check
this and make it ColorSync as well. If you have a working setup its hard to give a guaranteed
answer - try various ways to see what works. Experimentation is the key.
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QuadToneRIP versus Print-Tool
On Mac there are now two separate products. The long time QTR driver runs as an ordinary
print driver in the OS. Its a specialized print driver for B&W output. You can print with any
program you like - naturally PhotoShop has been the usual. In late 2012 I introduced a new
program for high level image layout. I've used the name QTR-Print-Tool but to be less
confusing Ive now dropped the QTR part of the name. Print-Tool is somewhat like the
QTRgui front-end (for Windows) but its capabilities are a lot closer to something like
Qimage. Print-Tool and QTR are completely independent, so you can do PhotoShop to QTR
driver, Print-Tool to QTR driver, or Print-Tool to Epson driver.
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Roy Harrington

Print-Tool: Roy Harrington

www.quadtonerip.com

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User Guide: Steve Gledhill

v1.1.0 - January 2014