Polymer plate calibration with QuadToneProfiler

© Clay Harmon 2019

January 12, 2019

Introduction
Polymer plate calibration for photogravure intaglio
prints is one of the more intimidating tasks that
beginning photogravurists encounter. What makes
this process both daunting and unfamiliar is that
two exposures are used to expose the plates prior to
their being etched in a water bath.

In order to get an intaglio plate capable of holding

ink in the most deeply etched areas of the plate, an
aquatint screen is used as the so-called screen
exposure, which creates a random sea of tiny
‘needles’ (sometimes called ‘lands’ in traditional
printmaking jargon) on the plate that hold in place
deep deposits of black ink (sometimes called ‘pits’)
that the intense pressure of the etching press pulls
out of the plate and embeds in the paper fiber. This
aquatint would print as a solid black if a second
image exposure using a positive were not
superimposed on it.

These two separate exposures are not independent

of one another. The second image exposure adds
exposure to the the tiny needles that are created by
the aquatint exposure. The interdependence of these
two variables is what can make first-time
photogravure platemakers go crazy.

There are a number of approaches and systems that

can be used to arrive at a well-calibrated
platemaking workflow that yields final
photogravure prints that closely match the image
that is being worked on in an image-editing
program such as photoshop. What these approaches
all have in common is a closely-calibrated system
where the digital image, the monitor, the positive
from the inkjet printer and the exposed and etched
plate are all carefully joined together in a
methodical workflow.

What follows is a straightforward method to

achieve a properly calibrated plate that uses the
QuadToneProfiler QuickCurve app, the
QuadToneRIP PrintTool and a print reflectance
measurement instrument. This last item can be a
spectrophotometer such as the X-Rite i1Pro series
instruments, or alternatively, a flatbed scanner used
in conjunction with a calibrated reflectance step
wedge and the QTR StepWedgeTool.

Tools, Materials, Software and digital files

Polymer platemaking material and equipment.
This tutorial assumes that you have experience making
plates, or have instructions that will guide you
through the process. The basic steps are:

Make an aquatint exposure using a

stochastic screen

Make an image exposure using the

image positive

Etch the plate in water

Dry and set the polymer with heat

Make a third exposure to harden the

polymer

Trim the plate

Ink, wipe and print the plate on an

etching press

QuadToneProfiler version 1.1 or higher software

QuadToneRIP software installed for your Epson printer

QTR PrintTool software for printing
Please note that this tutorial assumes you are using
the MacOS version of the QuickCurve software.

Download the following files from my website

download page

A6-ScreenTest.tif

A6-Screentest-Template.pdf

A6-StepTest.tif

Some type of measurement device

Some method for creating a file with LAB values for
the linearization steps. I use an XRite i1Pro2
spectrophotomer and i1 Profiler software. Another
alternative is to use the QTR-StepWedge-Tool app
available here and a flatbed scanner in conjunction
with a calibrated reflectance target such as the
Tiffen Q13 to generate the measurement files

Overview of the calibration steps

Using QuadToneProfiler, create a QTR
quadfile starter curve.

Print the A6-Screentest.tif file with

PrintTool using a starter curve and no
color management.

Perform the screen test exposure series

and process the plate and print the
plate with your chosen ink and paper.

Evaluate the screentest and determine

the limits for shadow and highlight
values.

Use the Quad-Limiter tool to create a

limited quad with these values.
Print the A6-StepTest evaluation file
with this new quad file.

Using the printed A6-StepTest positive,

expose, process and print the plate.

Measure the 21-step series on the print

using either a spectrophotometer or a
calibrated target and flatbed scanner.

In the QuadToneProfiler linearization

tab, load the measurement data and
adjust the smoothing sliders to make a
nice smooth curve through the
measured points. Load the limited
quad and create a new .quad curve
that is linearized with the 21-step
information.

Print the 51-step evaluation file again

with the 21-step linearized quad file.

Make another plate with this positive

and expose, process and print the
plate.

Measure this print using the 51-step

series, creating a new 51-step
measurement file.

In the QuadToneProfiler linearization

tab, load this 51-step measurement
data and adjust the smoothing sliders
as in the previous steps. Load the 21-
step linearized quad file and use the 51
step measurements to create a new 51-
step quad file.

Print the 51-step evaluation file again

with the new 51-step linearized quad
file.

Make another plate with this positive

and expose, process and print the
 plate.

Measure this print using the 51-step

series, and confirm that your quad file
is close to perfectly linear.

Iterate the process if needed to get the

linearized 51-step measurements.

Print a test image using PrintTool.

Detailed description
Create a Quadfile starter curve
The instructions with the BWMastery
QuadToneProfiler QuickCurve app are quite good,
so I will not cover anything that cannot be found on
Richard’s website. One really helpful hint he
outlines is to navigate to
/Application/QuadToneRIP/Profiles and find the
appropriate installation folder for your printer.
Make a copy this folder inside the Profiles folder
and rename it something like 7800-QCDP and
delete everything except for the installation script.
This will be your QuadtoneRIP printer for this
specific process and leaves no chance that you will
be confused when printing your positives.

Open the QuadToneProfiler app and make sure you

are on the Starter Curve Setup tab. Choose a black
ink limit, and then click the Save Current Starter
Curve button and name it something informative
like starter and then save it to your newly created
process-specific QTR installation folder.

The inkload requirements for polymer

photogravure positives are not extreme. I
recommend keeping it simple and choosing a
maximum black ink level of something in the 50-
55% range.
 QuadToneProfile Starter curve
dialog setup. Loads of ink is not
required - try a black ink limit in
the 50-60% range.

Print the A6-ScreenTest image using the starter curve

Now print the A6-ScreenTest.tif image using
PrintTool with No Color Management selected in the
Print Color Management Section. Choose the
Starter curve in the QuadToneRIP Curve Selection
part of the Print Dialog. Just before printing you
should see something like this:

PrintTool dialog box with No Color

Management selected. Later you
may choose to use PrintTool
managed color for your output, but
for calibration turn off Color
Management

Thoroughly dry the positive before using it in the

next step.
Use the A6-ScreenTest positive to determine screen exposure
Print out the A6-ScreenTest-Template.pdf file on a
laser printer or any inexpensive method you have.
Make sure it is printed at 100%.

Cut a plate to A6 size. I have made all the image

files and templates for this process correspond to
standard ISO sizes, so if all goes well, you will be
able to cut a standard A4 sized plate into 4 A6
pieces and you can complete your calibration with
only a single sheet! I also recommend trimming a
small piece from the upper right corner of the plate
so that the orientation of the plate can be
maintained between the screen exposure series and
the image exposure.

Peel the protective wrap from the A6 plate and

place it on the template in the gray area. Now place
your the aquatint screen on the plate with the dull
side against the polymer. Place this three-stack layer
in your exposure unit or printing frame so that the
light will pass through the aquatint screen onto the
plate. Take an opaque card and place it over all but
the far right hand column marked on the template.
It should look something like this:

Exposure setup for conducting

screen test. The opaque card is
moved to the left at regular
exposure value increments
Choose a starting time that is 50-100% greater than
the typical time normally recommended for the
plate and screen combination and divide this time
by 8. There are 8 exposure strips on the template
that will be used to generate a series of 8 different
exposures for the aquatint screen.

Start the exposure and at each time increment, slide

the card to the left revealing another strip of
material to the exposure light. When the exposure
series is complete, wait for the light to completely
extinguish and then remove the plate and aquatint
screen. Dust the plate lightly with anti-offset
powder and brush off any visible power.

Place the A6-ScreenTest positive image on the plate

with the inked side down against the plate material.
The numbers on this positive should be on the right
side of the plate (which is why we clipped the
upper right hand corner of the plate!).

Pick an image exposure time toward the middle

values of the aquatint screen exposure series. In the
example you will be seeing, I chose a maximum
screen exposure value of 80 and counted down.
This test only went to 30 because I had a scrap of
plate that was skinnier than the typical A6 plate. I
chose an image exposure value of 60 based on my
previous experience with this material.

Expose the plate to the positive, and the process,

dry and post harden the plate. Pro tip: use an X-acto
knife and the template to make small grooves in the
plate at the divisions between the exposure strips in
the series before the hardening exposure. This will
make it easier to see which strip matches which
exposure after you print it. Make a print with the
plate using the paper, ink and press settings you
intend to use.

Evaluate the screen test

Using a pen mark the different screen exposure
values on the base of the print you just made.
Remember that you went right to left on the screen
exposure series which means the resulting print will
go left to right!

The screen test print. This print is

used to pick 1) the screen exposure
value, 2) the shadow value level,
and 3) the highlight value level

There are three things you will be deciding from

this print, and do it in this order:

Pick the aquatint screen exposure In the example I

chose 50 because it had the deepest black values
without the plate being too etched. Although it may
not be apparent in this scan, the higher screen
values of 80, 70, and 60 were all just barely lighter in
tone. The values of 40 and 30 were dark but I
noticed that the lowest values held too much ink
and were no darker than 50. This step involves a
little judgement, but will become second nature
with a little experience.

Pick the Shadow Level Value from the vertical

column. Find the first dark tone that is ever-so-
perceptibly lighter than the tone below it. The tone
below it will be the Shadow Level Value. In this
example, I chose 0 (100% black). But it all depends
on the material. Write this number down.

Pick the Highlight Level Value from the vertical

column. Find the first light tone that is the same
tone as the one above it. In this example, I chose 224
(12% black). I find this step to be trickier for myself
and students, partly because it is so dependent on
wiping technique. When I held this test strip in
bright light, it appeared that every tone above 224
was the same paper white (or almost - there is
always some plate tone in the process), and the
tones below it began to get slightly darker. Write
this number down.

Use the BWMastery Quad Levels Utility tool to create a limited quad
Open the Quad Levels Utility functionality by
selecting it from the Windows->Quad Levels Utility
menu or use the keyboard shortcut Command-L
and click on the Open Quad File button and navigate
to the QTR profile folder which you created the
starter quad file. Select this file and open it.
 The user interface of the Quad
Levels Utility is very simple and
straightforward. There is an open
and save button and two sliders to
set the upper and lower limits of
the quad file

There are two sliders at the bottom of this app. The

left slider changes the highlight limits and the right
slider changes shadow limits.

Since I chose 0 for my Shadow Level Value in this

case, the right hand slider remains unchanged.
Next, the left hand slider is adjusted to the
appropriate Higlight Level Value, which in this case
is 224.

Since the highlight level values have been adjusted

to lay down ink even when the image values are
0%, there is a convenient checkbox that will
override this behavior for the first gray level in the
image file and write down a ‘zero’ instead. This
insures that when the positive is printed that light-
light-black ink is not wasted by printing the
margins in a light gray. By clicking this checkbox
anything at level 255 will always result in no ink
being deposited on the positive.

Once these levels have been set appropriately and

the zero-first-quad-value checkbox has been
checked, click the Save Quad File button and save
the file with a useful name that will help you
remember what it is. I this example, I named my file
73SP-Limit-0-224.quad
Double click the install button and install the new
limited curves.

Print the A6-StepTest.tif image with the new limited quad profile
Note that the A6-StepTest.tif image file that I have linked
to is slightly different than the one that is being shown in
the examples below. I modified the file to make it easier for
someone to use if only a scanner and a calibrated target is
available for generating the measurement files.

In PrintTool, load the A6-StepTest.tif image and

print the positive using the new limited .quad file as
the output ink curve.

Make a plate using the A6-StepTest image positive printed with the limited
quad ink profile
Using the chosen Screen Exposure value from the
first test, expose a new A6 plate with the aquatint
screen. Using the same Image Exposure value used
in the aquatint exposure test, expose the plate with
the newly printed positive.

Etch, dry and post-exposure harden the plate. Make

a print with this plate using your chosen paper and
ink.

I ended up with this print that had the proper end

points but blocked up shadows and overly bright
highlights:
 A6 Step Test printed from a
positive using the levels-limited
quad file. Note how the endpoints
are fine but the shadows are
blocked up and the highlights and
midtones are too light.

Using your preferred measurement method measure the 21-step series on the
test print
I use an X1-Pro2 spectrophotometer, but use
whatever method you have on hand to make a
measurement file that will be used to do the first
pass linearization of the quad file.

The 21-step series is the first series used for the

linearization. The reason for this is that step is
primarily intended to make the large curve changes
needed to get the steps moved close to where they
should be.

Load the measurement data into QuadToneProfiler and adjust the smoothing
sliders for a smooth curve
Open the QuadToneProfiler app and navigate to the
Linearization tab. Click the ‘Load Measurement Data’
button and navigate and select the measurement
data created in the previous step. You will see
something like this:
 In this tab of the app, 'Load
measurement data' is selected first,
before the quad file to be linearized
is loaded. Adjust the sliders until
the curve is smooth. Too little
adjustment will give a jagged
linearized ink profile, too much
won't work as well. Season to taste,
in other words.

Adjust Smoothing 1 and Smoothing 2 sliders to

create a nice smooth curve. Notice how the app
shows you what your eyes have already noticed:
the highlights are generally too light and the
shadows are blocked up.

Now click the ‘Load Quad File to Linearize’ button,

and navigate to the folder containing your quad
files and select the limited quad file created
previously and that was used to print the positive
just measured.

You will see the inking profile window come up on

the left with the ink curves with the linearization
corrections applied:
 After measurement data is loaded
and smoothed, the .quad file to be
linearized is loaded and the
modified ink curves are shown in
the right pane of the app

Click the ‘Save Linearized Quad File’ button and save

your adjusted .quad file to the same location and
name it something informative like 73SP-Limit-0-
224-zero-Lin21.quad which tells you that this is a
curve that has had limits applied, the ‘0’ first ink
level has been zeroed out and a linearization
applied from measuring a 21-step step tablet.

Double click the Installation script and install this

new inking profile.

Print another A6-StepTest positive using the newly linearized .quad ink
profile
The title explains it. Print the StepTest again with
this new ink profile.

Make another plate with this new positive

Thoroughly dry the positive and make another
plate, keeping aquatint and image exposure values
identical to the previous test.

Make another print using this plate.

Measure the print made with the 21-step linearization profile using the 51
step values
Chances are this print is already better than you
could have gotten with several days of fiddling
with photoshop curves. In my case it looks like this:

Scan of a test wedge made after

linearizing the starter .quad file
with the 21-step measurement
values

You can quit here and start printing, or you can go

for gold and make measurements on the 51-step
series and fine-tune the linearization.

Measure the 51 step series and make a new measurement file

Measure the 51 step series and save the
measurements to a file. Using the QuadToneProfiler
app and the Linearization tab, load the 51 step
measurements and check how well the 21 step
linearization worked. In this example I saw this:
 Measure the 51-step series output
from the 21-step quad linearization
and check how close to linear is the
result. In this case the highlights
were still a little off, so the 21-step
.quad was loaded and linearized
with the measurements from the
51-step series.

It is amazingly close, but the highlights are still a

little lighter than I would like.

Adjust the smoothing sliders and save the resulting

adjusted quad with a different name, such as 73SP-
Limit-0-224-zero-LIN51.quad

Print the A6-StepTest using the 51-step linearized quad file

Make another positive using this newly adjusted
quad file and make another plate. Keep exposure
values the same throughout the testing. Make a
print using this plate.

I ended up with this:

The scanned stepwedge made from

the positive that used the 51-step
linearization data for correcting the
curves. This is far closer to
perfection after just two iterations
than any other technique I have
tried.
The changes are subtle but definitely there.

Check your results by measuring the 51-step series on the printed step wedge
Measure the 51 step values on this new print and
open them in the linearization tab of the
QuadToneProfiler app:

The visual results of the second

linearization were quite good, but
it is always wise to measure the
output and check it using the
QuadToneProfiler app. In this case,
the result is close to dead-flat linear
except for a slight bump in the
midtones. This could be inking and
wiping variations, or might
demand one more iteration of
linearization

I am happy with the results of this second

linearization. The linearization routine has
produced results that fall well within the variations
encountered in inking and wiping!

Iterate the steps if needed

However, if you still see bumps or weirdness, this
process can be interated many times, each time
loading the previous quad file to linearize and the
applying the measured output from that same step
to create a new quad file.

Make a test print of an actual image

The final step is to use PrintTool to make a test print
of one of your own images that show a good range
of both shadow and highlight detail.
We also have an option at this point. Up to now, we
have been printing with ‘No Color Management’
selected in the PrintTool Print Color Management
pane. Another option is to print using Print Tool
Managed color and selecting Adobe RGB 1998
Gamma 2.2 output as the printing profile and using
Perceptual Intent. This will subtly boost the shadow
and highlight contrast and will likely more closely
match what you perceive on the monitor.

Here is a print made with No Color Management:

This test image was printed using

the 51-step calibration ink profile
and No Color Management selected
in the PrintTool Color Management
Pane. Compare to the image below,
especially in the dark tonal areas

And here is one made with Print Tool Managed color

and Adobe 1998 and Perceptual Intent selected as an
output profile and output parameter.
 The same image printed with Print
Tool Managed Color : Adobe 1998 -
Perceptual Intent selected in the
PrintTool Color Management Pane.
Compared to image above, both
the highlights and shadows have
better contrast and more visual
snap

The differences are very subtle, but the Print Tool

managed print has just a little more ‘pop’ and
shadow contrast and would be my preferred
printing workflow.

Conclusions
The QuadToneProfile app allows the polymer
photogravurist the ability to quickly create
linearized QuadToneRIP inking profiles for making
polymer plates with the least amount of wasted
material. The entire workflow is streamlined to the
point where a only a few hours are required to
achieve perfectly calibrated plates with a minimum
of effort. No math is required, and the only
workflow requirement that may be slightly out of
the norm is securing access to a spectrophotometer
or alternatively a reflectance scanning target. Used
i1 Pro2 spectros are available on ebay, and if that is
more than you want to spend, an inexpensive
scanning target used with the QTR-StepWedge tool
will enable someone with access to a scanner to
achieve the same results.

This material is free for personal use but is copyrighted

by Clay Harmon, 2019

Polymer plate calibration with QuadToneProfiler

© Clay Harmon 2019 - January 12, 2019 - clay harmon