Epsons and ImagePrint 5
Epsons and ImagePrint 5
- Subject: Epsons and ImagePrint 5
- From: "Cris and Ellie" <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 16:57:35 -0300
Having spent quite a bit of time ( over a year) with this product, I feel that
I'm at least a little qualified to hop in and make some comments. To say that
this RIP is designed to operate in the same manner as say Onyx or Bestcolor is
is certainly not the case. I've run quite a few of these RIP's and even
completely "dialed in " with all of the linerazation everyone feels is so
important, I defy anyone on this list to find a RIP that provides better
photographic quality output and color. The bottom line is that Colorbyte uses
ink recipies specifically designed for say Epson Ultrachrome ink in the 9600.
They have a proprietary way of configuring the blending points which is quite
sophisticated, and which is the key to getting such smooth tonal transitions.
The ink recipies are perhaps slightly similar to the Epson "media type"
setting. The total ink needed to get adequate density on premium luster paper
at say 1440dpi is something that they can reliably calculate ( all done with
custom software and a spectrolino) and is built into the print mode. This
setting is only valid for that particular resoultion setting, which is why you
need a seperate profile for each resolution mode in ImagePrint because each
"recipe" is written for a certain resolution. It gets far more complicated
because of the variable dot heads in the case of Epson and Roland.
Not only is this scenario easy to profile, but you really cannot get good
quality output from most other RIP's without owning a spectro where you can do
all of their linerization curves to even get you set for profiling, add at
least $1500 (plus a couple thousand for the RIP itself which people already
complain about being too pricey) for a spectro on most other RIP's. When I
print RGB targets from ImagePrint for profiling, they always look excellent,
very good density, no ink puddling, and I can ink limit (never need to in my
case) if the media cannot quite take the ink load. The reason that Colorbyte
works in this fashion is that if you run all of these ink limiting and
linearization curves, you are moving everything but the blending points that
they worked so hard to dial in for the particular printer. Their black and
white printing is so far superior to anything else, no other RIP is even in
the ballpark. The ability to varible tone the prints within the RIP, and yet
the prints lack any nasty crossover is a testament to their programming
skills. If the RIP works this well, I don't care if it is designed like all of
the others, who says they way its been done for years is the optimal solution
anyway? Photographers and artists don't appreciate the complexity of most
RIP's , professional creative types don't want to learn every nuance of most
RIP's, they are too busy making money on real jobs. Colorbyte has managed to
provide better color and output quality that everyone can use. I wouldn't
switch RIP's if I was given any other one on the market for free. I cannot
speak for Colorbyte, but I hope that this clears up some of the confusion as
to why this software operates the way it does.
Cris Daniels
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