Jack
jack-at-jacklowe.com (Jack Lowe)::6/5/04::8:46 am:: GMT+0100
>On 6/5/04 11:45, Michael Wilkinson wrote:
>
>> In a nutshell what benifit is a RIP for printing?
for those printing from applications which produce Postscript a RIP is
pretty much inescapable. That's the basic RIP=RASTER IMAGE PROCESSING
part.
For many years I'd have said printing photographic images was likely to
be made worse by using a RIP, then along came the photo quality RIP.
Earlier RIPs has to coarse a dither, lines in the print etc. Many still
do.
So let's come to the important part for photo printing, how
sophisticated is the printer driver section of the RIP application. It
is amazing to be able to spectrally linearise a printer properly (not
just density) for the chosen paper, no more testing grayscale strips.
To go the whole 9 yards and get hold of and adjust light and full
density inks separately is a real boon too, and the RIP proves to be
able to lay down ink much more accurately than an Epson driver.
Hypothesis = Epson seem to throw a lot of light ink under the image,
apparently this makes for a print which looks mushy alongside same
image printed with a good RIP.
I should mention that on Jacks 9600 it's about 3 to 4 times as fast aswell.
Michael:
Notice I keep saying GOOD RIP. any old rubbish called a RIP isn't going
to do it. Ther is some real junk out there. PRO level inkjet printing
is almost always done with a RIP. We've had it easy with the likes of
1290 etc. pretty easy to set up quite well. Quite well is the thing
tho, any doubts. get Jack Lowe to do a few prints for you, his work is
exemplary.
>
snip
>So, in a nutshell, my printing life has been revolutionised. Output
>quality, gamut and workflow have all been improved. Beware, though,
>the learning curve takes on new meaning when it comes to setting up
>the RIP and then working out how best to implement it.
I guess that since you learned so well how to make beautiful prints by
accounting for the idiosyncracies of the Espon driver - the RIP /
printer presents itself as quite a different beast, at last you have
access to printer CMYK and that makes a big difference to image
optimisation.
Plainly this makes a difference for proofing accuracy, but also for
general photo/art work too.
In my opinion a GOOD PHOTO RIP, (and right now as far as I can see,
Proofmaster is the only viable option, will give better sharpness /
detail, clarity, colour accuracy. Simply makes an Epson driver print
look like mush too much ink is caked on the paper.
>
>Neil Barstow was here for a week setting up and ironing out problems
>but all the effort and heartache (some of which continues) has really
>been worth it.
yep, we had a few <very early SW release> niggles to erase!
about 2 days to set up an <ISO certified> proofing workflow on 7600.
about 2 days to set up for fine art on Hahnemulle on 9600. That custom
built 10,600 patch chart took a while to print/measure/process but
proved worthwhile in pure grays I'd say.
>
>If you aren't a profile-building guru yourself (as indeed, I am not!),
>then I can't stress how important it will be to have the likes of Neil
>(actually, there's nobody else like him in my opinion) on site with
>you to get things just right.
thanks Jack, you're too kind
Thomas can do it aswell, of course.
Regards, NeilB. Apple Solutions Expert
colourmanagement.net :: Consulting in Imaging & Colour Management
custom profiling, training, implementation, seminars,
resell:: Gretag+eyeOne. basICColor Display etc. XRite. GTI viewing booths
www.colourmanagement.net/ :: www.apple.com/uk/creative/neilbarstow/
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