Re: RIPs: ImagePrint or Colorburst
Re: RIPs: ImagePrint or Colorburst
- Subject: Re: RIPs: ImagePrint or Colorburst
- From: Dan Reid <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 00:18:21 -0700
on 6/16/03 2:56 PM, Cris Daniels at email@hidden wrote:
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<ImagePrint works best with their own profiles. Yes you can create your
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own ICC profiles but their software is really not designed for such even
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though many do.>
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I'm not sure what that means, you can certainly disable their color
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engine to print raw targets, and create your profile in a third party
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app, re-enable the color engine, and print using your custom built
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profile. To me this constitutes custom profiling. You may not like your
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custom profiles, but that's a different story.
Maybe that would be because of lack of ink controls? As others have
reported, ImagePrint works best as RGB to get the gray balance feature
everyone touts from the CMM. I ain't a big fan of any product that does an
automatic analysis of image data (or profiling charts) in order to separate
to CMYK.
My point in the original post was ImagePrint works best with their custom
ICC profiles to get the gray balance tint option that is the selling point
of the product. You can create your own custom ICC profile but ImagePrint
won't offer it's nifty gray tint option.
>
>
< ColorBurst on the other hand was designed for optimizing ink
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distribution before creating custom ICC profiles. Most importantly you
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can optimize the output using an i1 device. ImagePrint does not support
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any color measurement devices. ImagePrint believes you don't need to
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linearize your printer as their proprietary software can handle all the
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various Relative Humidity and temperatures across the US that affect dot
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gain.>
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Lets be honest here, this is not the end of the world. There are tons of
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people printing with Atkinsons profiles that are thrilled, I take it
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they are probably not all neighbors of Bill himself and are therefore
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likely in a different printing environment all together. How can they
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all be happy if these environmental conditions are so catastrophic to
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the validity of the profiles. I'm not saying that these ambient
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conditions are worthless, but in decent working conditions there just
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isn't much of a difference. Certainly the machine to machine tolerances
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are more of an issue in the normal inkjet world. If Andrew and Bruce are
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on the West Coast printing fine and I'm in Florida printing fine (all
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with Colorbyte's profiles), I don't care about the Doppler radar
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readings. I can't spend my life re-linearizing my printers when the
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relative humidity changes 9%, and most real people print in conditions
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that will fluctuate a little by nature. So while the ColorBurst option
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is there, Colorbyte doesn't let the end user linearize because its not
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done in the same stage of the process that other RIP vendors use.
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Comparing the smoothness of the prints versus other RIPs is really where
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the rubber meets the road, and so far ImagePrint excels in this
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category.
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No doubt many on this list get great results using the Atkinson ICC
profiling diet. <g> Seriously, some require CMYK print path way for many
reasons you don't agree with. That's fine.
A more appropriate question would be do you and others all share the same
color tolerance? Probably not. With proper process control in a RIP you can
minimize color variance be it however large or small. ImagePrint does not
offer a way to compensate. I can tell you from LOTS of experience that
ambient conditions do affect how quickly ink is absorbed into paper. You may
not be sensitive to these changes daily or even weekly or simply find this
sort of drift acceptable. (within your color tolerance!) But I seriously
doubt everyone in different states could get a print that matches each other
with different R/H or temperature. That's what process control is designed
to minimize and potentially negate.
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<Last I looked ImagePrint didn't even offer a TAC setting so you better
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have the option to ink limit at your profiling package unless you are
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creating RGB profiles. Which if that's the case just stick with the
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Epson driver!>
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You can ink limit the channels no problem, on certain medias you might
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have to. If you have to ink limit your fine art medias, your media
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sucks.
Good point, yet I have yet to find an art media, or any media for that
mater, that can handle 400% coverage. Maybe the humidity in FL causes the
color to sit higher up on the paper than here in the desert? Obviously I am
being facetious here. ImagePrint is doing something behind the scenes to
minimize puddling and potential color reversal. The ink limit option is an
adequate tool for jockeying ink restrictions. It surely would be easier to
measure instead of eyeballing the adjustment.
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The native behavior of ImagePrint over the Epson driver is very evident
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when you print profiling targets. Superior gray balance and no wacky
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blocked up garbage for the profile to unwind.
Auto-something behind the scenes? I agree the RGB charts look better but I
don't profile CMYK devices as RGB. I guess I have a phobia about a CMM
performing an auto gray balance and ink limiting based on the image data. I
am looking for consistency not just pretty pictures.
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I've run Colorburst for OSX and it generally works as advertised but
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there are three things I thought that needed improvement or their
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product just won't fly (at any price). First, the dithering was pretty
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bad, third class in fact, but I've heard it is improved and will give
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them credit for addressing the problem (I hope they added 2880dpi
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support). Secondly, at least the version I used was completely queue
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based, no WIZIWYG layout tools or provisions, no way to do anything
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fancy for page layout, I couldn't even figure out how to center the
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image on the page, this made the Fiery RS-5100 look flexible. This is
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not good, no photographer is going to go for this.
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Third, I ran it under OSX (of course) and yet when I was printing the
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computer was completely unavailable for use with other apps, no
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Photoshop , nothing. If this thing can't multitask why bother. Colorbyte
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can drive multiple LF printers simultaneously and still do other tasks.
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True xProof and xPhoto are version 1 software programs unlike ImagePrint
which has gone through a couple of revisions. ColorBurst (Compatible Systems
Engineering) has been amazingly proactive in updating their software and
addressing the concerns you, and many of us, have voiced.
I just received word the speed issue (bug) is being addressed with an
update available in less than a fortnight. Not too many software companies I
can think of address issues this quickly.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. Please remember this is a list to learn
and share information not for arguing the merits of one product over
another.
P.S. If you need special placement on the printer paper then just drag your
image into a new document in Photoshop with the printing paper dimensions.
Don't forget to use the same ICC profile in your new layout doc as the
image! Super easy workaround. Photoshop has several tools for nesting and
packages if you were unaware.
--
Dan B. Reid
RENAISSANCE PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGING
Color Management Products & Training for Print, Internet, & Motion Graphics
http://www.rpimaging.com | Toll Free: (866) RGB-CMYK
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