Printing from Lightroom

InkjetMall Customer Support Piezography Inks & Printing
1

As a newbie to the system, I’m still confused on whether to print from Lightroom I should just click on the Printer Options and select the QTR printer and then just Print, or if there’s another method.

I gather that to print from Photoshop, I need to use Print-Tool to open the images and then print them, but can’t figure out how to do that from Lightroom if the above workflow isn’t correct.

Thanks!

René

2

What Mac Operating System are you using? If you’re using 10.6.8 or higher, the best output will be obtained by printing directly from QTR Print Tool to QTR. From Lightroom, you can export images, then open in QTR Print Tool to print to QuadTone RIP.

3

Hi Dana
I hope all is well with you and your new baby?!

I have been reading and re-reading Jon’s article on printing out of Lightroom. I think I have most of it under control, but would just like to check with you. I:

  1. Adjust the picture in the “Develop Mode” as per normal using the appropriate profile in “Soft Proof”. Once I am happy I export as follow:-
  2. In Lightroom I have created an export preset for Piezography. The “File Settings” are as follows:-
    (a) Image Format - TIFF
    (b) Color Space - AdobeRGB (1998)
    © Bit Depth - 16 Bit
    (d) Resolution - 360
    (e) Compression - None

I have made two similar presets - one for glossy sharpening and one for matte. They export to a “Piezography Folder”.

I open the “Piezography” files from the QTR Print Tool and note that the “Embedded Profile” is AdobeRGB (1998). According to my understanding, this profile has a Gamma of 2.2 - so all is good?
i) I leave “No Color Management” as is.
ii) I set paper size etc. in “Page Setup”
iii) In “Print” I select the necessary curve in “Curve 1”
iv) Print.

In the PDF article “A Quick Macintosh QuadTone Rip Tutorial” the importance of using “Greyscale Images” (in Photoshop) is stressed on Page 8. How does one convert to “Grayscale” in Lightroom?
My question is this: should one first send the final adjusted image in Lightroom to Photoshop, convert it to “Grayscale” and then save for Piezography?

Regards
William

4

  1. Soft Proof works well according to the quality of your calibration. For example, it works well on a Spectraview calibrated NEC Spectraview display and works much less well on a Mac display calibrated with Spyder. So the soft proof is critical to calibration standards…

  2. All ok but do not resample in resolution if you are changing image length. always allow optical resolution…

sharpening should only be done at actual pixels view and i prefer to do that in Photoshop where you actually do see pixels. Oversharpening will result in masking lines and contrast lines in Piezography that can be seen in Photoshop but may miss your attention in LR. So use caution…

All well in your print setup!

5

Hi Jon
Thanks for the quick reply!
What do you mean by “always allow optical resolution”?
Thanks for the tip on sharpening…
I have an NEC Spectraview and today changed from 90 to 85l. Thanks you again.
Regards
William

6

Optical resolution is the native resolution of the image file when it is captured or created. So do not resample it larger or smaller. Usually the dpi in LR is not used for resampling unless you specify a dimension. If you do not specify dimensions - the image is resized without resampling… 360 without resampling would turn the 3600 pixel width to 10" width at 360. but if you specify an output width of 20" and select 360 dpi - then the file is upsampled to 7200 pixels and will result in something softer than it might be had you allowed to printer to instead adapt to the scale choice by printing more dots of ink rather than receiving more pixels (that have been resampled). whew!