Thanks Tony and Terry.  Everything you guys do is a big help.  Keep up the great job...we thrive on your insights.

Richard

Terry
Great job, as usual.  But following your references led me to a post by Fred some time back where he wrote 'but I gave the extra click which sent Refine into the next level of exposure selection, Recover Highlights! This will give you, as an indicator, a RED outline around your selected grid square."  I assume that was changed as I cannot get a 'second level' of highlight recovery. I find 'normal', 'camera blk pt' and 'auto blk pt'.
(Blue, red and violet). No second click change??
QU keeps knocking my socks off but I still struggle to utilize the possibilities...which seem to be without end!
Richard

Fred
Yes, we got the upgrade and it is very quick....what a treat. In fact, I find it entertaining to just watch the thumbs move to yellow to green and DONE!
Sweet.  Thanks Mike.

Richard

Here's a possibility.  To treat a skin rash like on the face, use Sel Col to restore natural skin tone!
Medical miracles with a click...
Richard

Fred

I only needed to slightly brighten the screen image to get a fairly close match. Print image, select the thumb and delete the brightness filter, then compare.  The truth be told, half the time it seems I forget to first delete the filter before comparing.
One of the joys of being 'retired': remember everything ten years back but damn if I know what I had for breakfast today! 

The saga continues. The monitor in question gave up the ghost yesterday and I replaced it with a 19" AOC LCD with LED backlighting ...wow, talk about bright.  I find calibrating even more of a challenge.  My first attempt produced a white point of over 7000K!  If you have any suggestions they would be most welcome. For now I will drop the black point and see how it goes from there.  No point in printing until I get all my eggs in a row.

Thanks again, Fred.

Richard

Fred
Just the standard Epson profile for Premium Photo Paper Glossy:  SP 1400 1410 PGPP (P, PBC).

Also received additional info from Mike: "NCA is always darker because it is linear output, but it produces the largest gamut and is the best indication of the color that is reproducible by the printer."

So back to NCA for me.  Can't wait to do my own profiles...

Richard

Ah...Fred, you got me again!
Forgot to mention that the printer profile I was using was Epson's...that, I guess, says it all.  Once I can make my own profiles and revel in the joy of using a proper monitor for photo work, I will be in an euphoric state.

Richard

Thanks for the comments, Terry.
I mentioned that item to Mike in a question to him regarding settings in Profile Prism. He of course said it applied to older printers and even remarked that I should use the standard target profiling my printer and not the one designated 'bright'.  Nonetheless, it does not change the fact that there is an anomaly in Epson's driver regarding NCA setting as I can produce a print that significantly gives a closer match to the monitor image using Color Controls.  All of this will probably be moot shortly as I hope to spring for a wide gamut IPS panel monitor (NEC EA232Wmi from B&H...very affordable).
This forum is better than sliced bread...
Richard

An epiphany here!
I was reading Mike's Help section under Profile Prism on the QU web site.  Under the "Quick start instructions..." item #3: Set print driver settings according to recommendations.  Click on this link and Mike's recommendations for  printer settings is displayed.  Of particular interest is the Note under Option 2, which begins with "Epson printer output varies greatly when the driver is set to "no color adjustment"...  I have read tons of stuff regarding color management but this was the first time I ever saw a contrary statement to the accepted "always set your Epson printer to 'No color adjustment' using the check box under ICM."  My first reaction was "Holy bloody cow!"  I've had my 1400 for three years and just love the print quality.  However, the 'too dark' syndrome has always driven me nuts.  Sure, I have gone through all of the 'adjust monitor brightness settings' until I was ready to scream...yeah, I got some improvement.  It was enough that for each image I 'merely' had to increase brightness and contrast in an image editor before printing. But after printing you have to go back into the editor and reset the B & C back to where they should be so when you compare the print to the monitor image you are comparing apples to apples, so to speak.  I was so determined after seeing the incredible results from using Qimage that I bit the bullet and bought the coloroimeter hardware to properly calibrate my monitor (Spyder4Pro).  The colors are great, but....  It helped the 'too dark" question only a wee bit. It still required playing the never ending brightness and contrast game (current settings 20 & 35). I said to myself: if the printing guru of the ages, Mike, says 'Under "Color Management", click... "Color Controls" etc it is certainly worth a try.  So I went against the grain and did just that.  The first print I made knocked me off my chair..."I am reborn!" So you see where the epiphany part came from. The print was neigh almost PERFECT!  Hallelujah!  Just like that, the difference between 'too dark' and nearly perfect occurred in a mere two minutes.
Suggestion: clicking on the 'Color Controls' opens up Gamma and Color Modes.  Select gamma 1.8 and mode RGB.
Be sure ALL sliders are set to "0"....NO color adjustment....
If you own an Epson AND are still fighting the 'too dark' syndrome, give this a go...you will not be disappointed.

Nice job Tony.  As soon as I can acquire ProfilePrism I will definitely refer to your post.
Many thanks.
Richard

Thanks, Fred.
Frankly, I was afraid to call it a "bug"...a wee gnat is perfect.
Every day I am more impressed with the power of QU.  Now it is a rare day that I open any other program to manipulate an image.  As for sharpening, no other program comes close.  Awesome.

Richard

Fred
Thanks for replying. On a second read I can see why my observation is unclear.
This is what I did:  I opened an image in the image editor, did some basic edits and decided to see how the image looked in sepia. While still in the edit window, I clicked on File>Open Filter Parameters from file....
I selected the sepia filter and clicked Open. Then I clicked Done in the image editor, thereby closing the editor and proceeded to do a couple of test prints.  Did not care for the results. I removed the 'sepia filter': rt. click, Remove filters...etc.  I reopened the image editor, clicked on File>Open Filter Parameters from file... to see my other choices.  At this point I changed my mind.
Status: small window still open and near the bottom in the File name slot is my previous selection: {Q}sepia, highlighted. So to close that window I just clicked on Cancel.  Behold, it applied the filter anyway.
I removed the filter using the Clear button in the main image editor page.
I thought that was odd, namely the filter being applied even though I clicked cancel.  So I reopened the Filter Parameters window.  Of course the File name slot still shows {Q}sepia, which is highlighted.  So I pressed Del on my key board and it disappeared. But with NO selection "Open" does nothing, so I clicked Cancel.  Filter applied again!

I guess my point is that the behavior of the Filter Parameters window in the Image Editor seemed odd to me...or is it just me...the odd part!

Richard

Regarding my previous post.  I find it only happens if I am in image editor with the same thumb to which I had previously associated a predefined filter. 

Hope this helps explain my dappling...
Richard

Thanks to all for the many ways to clean up!  I especially like the red X trick.
An item of interest.  In the image editor, File>Open Filter Parameters from file...window with Mike's predefined filters. 
Suppose one then decides to not use any and even deletes the last used item in File name (my case B&W), click Cancel...the filter is still applied!??  Must be my one thumb doesn't know what the other is doing.

Richard

Mr Photobob
I'm new here and just read your post from last month regarding filter parameters.  Can you clarify what you did so I can wrap my head around it?  I had a similar problem.

Richard