Well, it's not quite that simple. While it's true (and I've already stated this at least twice) that manufacturer's drivers produce excellent color and screening, RIPs that are designed for press proofing have features specifically designed for producing and maintaining the tightest possible match to the target reference press, and verifying this compliance with integrated measurement tools. Only very recently have some proofing RIPs attempted to do the same with RGB drivers, and it is only in RIPs that you will find such capability. This is of little concern to the photographer making fine-art prints; likewise he may have no use for nesting, tiling, step and repeat, contour cutting, and a hundred other features that reside in RIPs. What they do care about is reasonably accurate color, the largest possible gamut, smooth screening, and low cost. I can't evaluate the statement Epson has actually "done their best" to keep useful features out of their drivers, but I can say that "avoiding investing in a RIP" would not be something to "smile about" if you had to make a living either proofing or production printing. Large- and grand-format display printers are not sold with RGB drivers as they would be largely irrelevant in that sector, whie pinching pennies on productivity software for a $20,000-4000,000 printer would be regarded as doubtful economy. Likewise in a prepress shop where the proofer must be able rto simulate multiple reference press conditions, including spot colors, on the fly, in multiple print queues. I don't know about you, but that's hardly boring, and it can't be done without dedicated RIP software. Mike Strickler MSP Graphic Services

Message: 5 Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 21:56:33 +0100 From: Martin Orpen <martin@idea-digital.com> To: "'colorsync-users?lists.apple.com' List" <colorsync-users@lists.apple.com> Subject: Re: RGB Drivers in RIPs Message-ID: <048A41D9-AF6F-4F9F-8174-461EA8FCAD43@idea-digital.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

On 6 Aug 2013, at 19:05, Mike Strickler <info@mspgraphics.com> wrote:

...

RIPs are enormously helpful in automating and foolproofing repetitive tasks and there is no longer any reason for fine-art printers to avoid them

Sure they're helpful.

But the original, big selling point from RIP vendors (and colour management experts) was that RIPs would *always* produce *better* prints than were possible with the manufacturer's drivers.

Now that users are realising that the drivers on printers like Epson x900 series are too difficult (or risky) for the majority of RIP vendors to bypass, the extravagant claims of superior printing have gone… replaced with boring stuff like "automating and fool-proofing repetitive tasks".

Admittedly, Epson and Apple have done their best to make it as difficult as possible to repeatedly place a rectangle in the middle of a page, but there will be plenty of fine art printers (and loads of photographers) who have saved their money and avoided investing in a RIP who are smiling to themselves right now :-)

-- Martin Orpen Idea Digital Imaging Ltd