## Printing with QuadToneRIP QuadToneRIP will be available system-wide after installing your printer and any media settings, so you can print from whatever application that supports printing. Getting to the QuadToneRIP print dialog options can be tricky the first time you do it because of the default state of the macOS print dialog window. If a small window like this appears, press the “Details” or “More options” button to expand the window to show the QTR options. Press the button that says “Layout” to open the pop-up menu to reveal the other available settings in the print dialog window. Choose QuadToneRIP from the list to get to the mQTR-specific settings. There are three printing modes to choose from: 8-bit, 16-bit, and Calibration. I always use 16-bit printing because QTR allows for printing 16-bit images and will interpolate the 8-bit ink levels in the .quad file to 16-bits if the image is also 16-bits. Calibration mode requires specific 8-bit RGB images used to print each ink in the printer as a separate channel without any blending from the other inks. Calibration mode will be covered in the Custom Curve Creation section. Normal 8 or 16-bit printing modes will allow you to choose media settings for Curve 1, and optionally for Curve 2, and Curve 3 for split toning. These settings in the print dialog window are where the name “QTR Curves” comes from when referring to the .quad media settings files (not to be confused with correction curves for inkjet negatives). Just remember Curves == .quad files == printer media settings. ### QuadToneRIP Media Settings The media settings you choose for normal color printing with the Epson driver (and the fine-tuned with ICC profiles) are essentially what you are creating when making a linearized QuadToneRIP .quad file. The printer manufacturers create internal driver-specific settings containing the ink levels for the black and color inks for a few papers. These internal media settings tell the printer how to translate the RGB values in the file to the percentage of CMYK ink dots on the paper. QuadToneRIP bypasses the standard Epson driver and is why we need to make our own grayscale media settings. The nice thing is that my tools allow you to do what Epson does to create their media settings but is dedicated to printing grayscale images and allows for unlimited customization of the ink sets and not being locked into the predefined Epson inks and settings. It also means that we can tailor the media settings for YOUR printer, paper, and sensibilities and not rely on ICC profiles and color inks to control the overall density and gray balance or color toning in the print for our selected paper. It might require a few additional steps at the beginning, but the results in the final prints are well worth it.