Re: Suggestions for PS Color RIP
Re: Suggestions for PS Color RIP
- Subject: Re: Suggestions for PS Color RIP
- From: neil snape <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 14:50:26 +0100
on 2/22/2001 8:24, Al Salam Publishing House at email@hidden
wrote:
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I am looking for a good PS Color RIP (MAC) to use with our HP 1220C printer.
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Most of our work is printed from QuarkXpress with Compass XT for applying
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profiles. Up to this point I have used Adobe Press Ready and am not very happy
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with it for three main reasons: 1) All the workarounds needed to get around
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the "hardwired" profiles and 2) It will not overprint black (text out of
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Quark). 3) And as someone on this list mentioned the crossrenderings are on
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the "flattering" side and not good representations of press output.
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There has been much discussion on list lately about black generation in Best
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Color DE. Is there a consensis that this a a good RIP for color management? 1)
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Will it let me actually select my own profiles which I have generated in the
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prefereneces or does it have it's own "Hard Wired" profiles that have to be
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worked around? 2) For anyone using Best Color DE with QuarkXpress and Compass
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XT: Does it overprint black?
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Where besides "Best Color's" web page (There is not much there) can I get info
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on this RIP?
It was probably me stating the slightly over-exaggerated prints from
PressReady. For the price it's an incredible product, with far more research
than one would think for it's intended user. True Adobe level 3 so mesh
gradients print in vector, downloadable csa's and crd's and the lot. The
thing is, though it surpasses the needs of it's intended user there are
users who need more.
The Best DE works well on a Mac producing (in my opinion) inkjet proofs
with colorimetrically correct contract quality colour press proofs. This is
no small feat as any one on this list would contend. All your ICC functions
are easily prepared and perfectly executed in Best. Any press or true
Postscript printer profile can be simulated with a very good exactitude.
The quality of the simulation is affected by the choice of paper, and the
inherent quality/characteristics of the inks. Best has press papers for
excellent proofing with media simulations such as commercial, news , coated,
matt in all the appropriate sizes. Especially nice is the oversized A4 to
leave space for the crop marks, colour bars and settings info. Oh yes you
can add an EPS customised control strip such as the Gatf, or say Matchprint,
Brunner etc.
The colour matching is done correctly for proofing and not in colorimetric
as in PressReady, realistic but yes less pretty. Best will give exactly the
same results from any Postscript file, EPS, PDF and direct tiff images. I've
good luck from all the major DTP apps. You can rip once in Best and save the
ripped file(s) for later reprinting. Yes as to the 100K in Best . You can
choose to print 100k, and should thus the text rendering is very good,
probably even more so with the HP than an Epson.
Best is unrestricted in using ICC device profiles. There will be a method of
linearisation shortly for the Mac if you choose to generate custom profiles
for you inkjet employing linearisation tables before profiling. You can
profile without linearisation , but it's better to be calibrated before to
avoid gross alterations in the profile.
PressReady is not customisable. In theory you can hack the profiles (just
the naming) and replace this custom profile with the stock profile. In
reality myself and others have found that by doing so to come back to the
original state and using alternate press profiles got messed up in the
background and created unusable proofs. This necessitates a clean re-install
each time so unless you want to enter into coding/hacking is not doable.
Anyway PressReady was never intended to do this let alone if one has the
right to hack an application.
Best , using the supplied support media profiles gives me reliable press
simulations that equal my monitor, scans and the printed pages. Since this
fits my bill I don't at this time need to look further, but when I do the
integration is already there waiting to be used.
Yes there web site needs help. Is there anyone doing that now?