Re: Colorsync-users Digest, Vol 10, Issue 179 (Mike Strickler)
I too have tried many RIPs on ink-jets over the years (mainly for photographic reproduction up till now) and found that none of them came close to the manufacturer's driver in terms of what satisfies us as a good photographic fine art print. (I am sure they all do a brilliant job matching press conditions etc! and I do remember the old days when the RIPs used to beat the vendor's driver for BW neutrality etc). We came to the conclusion that the manufacturers 'special sauce' for driving these printers was not being made available to the RIP makers, so it is a relief to see them start to embed it... A relief because many RIP productivity tools such as automated layout etc are highly desirable to us but require compromising on output (in our opinion). Until now I only am aware of DInax Mirage, Colorburst Overdrive and EFI XF giving this option but I would like to know the extent to which EFI XF is using Epson's RGB driver (i.e is it basically the Epson Driver?) The other two rips are great but are not really designed for bigger production environments and automation. I'd be interested to know of any fully automate-able, integrate-able, server side runnable RIPs which use the printer manufacturers 'RGB' drivers and of anyone's experience with them (on or off list) thanks, Rob.
Message: 1 Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 12:21:18 -0700 From: Mike Strickler <info@mspgraphics.com> To: colorsync-users@lists.apple.com Subject: Re: Colorsync-users Digest, Vol 10, Issue 179 Message-ID: <FD9B5268-FE52-4034-B199-B70ED3031B72@mspgraphics.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Though I don't sell it, Colorburst Overdrive makes exclusive use of printer mfr RGB media sets, no CMYK or CMYKn. EFI eXpress or Fiery XF (which I do sell) have embedded RGB drivers for a number of models. I have not made a survey of all the >RIPs that have RGB drivers. One requirement is that the printer model actually has RGB input. This is the case for all the "photo" printers from Epson, Canon, HP. Production printers (Mutoh, Mimaki, Roland, HP Scitex, VUTEk, Durst, et al) typically >have no RGB input .and one must drive them with a RIP in CMYK or CMYKn. My shopping advice: All RIPs that use RGB output are using the same maufacturer-written drivers, so base your decision on other features and price. RIPS, especially for >fine-art and signage applications, are mainly about productivity and not color, and this extends to RGB printing as well. (Please no deluge of claims from RIP mfrs on superior color from their CM engines, or about proofing--or begin a new thread >for it!)
Mike Strickler MSP Graphic Services
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On 6 Aug 2013, at 15:53, Robert Crow <R.Crow@mdx.ac.uk> wrote:
I'd be interested to know of any fully automate-able, integrate-able, server side runnable RIPs which use the printer manufacturers 'RGB' drivers and of anyone's experience with them (on or off list)
The latest version of GMG's ColorProof allows you to choose to use the Epson driver if you want. On the x900 Epsons the results are indistinguishable to GMG's 10 colour driver (if you use RGB workflows) and it is much faster to calibrate as the targets are half the size and there is no pre-lin test to fail :-) -- Martin Orpen Idea Digital Imaging Ltd
Yes, all the RIPs mentioned below use the manufacturer's drivers, their screening, their RGB-device color separations. This is why I suggest making one's selection on other features, usablity, and price. You mention EFI XF, but the RGB drivers are also incuded in the lower-cost version, eXpress. The print environments are interchangeable between the two. Onyx has also included some RGB drivers. If I neglect to mention other products it is only out of ignorance and not to slight them; shop around to see if any others exist. RIPs are enormously helpful in automating and foolproofing repetitive tasks and there is no longer any reason for fine-art printers to avoid them Mike Strickler MSP Graphic Services On Aug 6, 2013, at 7:53 AM, Robert Crow wrote:
I too have tried many RIPs on ink-jets over the years (mainly for photographic reproduction up till now) and found that none of them came close to the manufacturer's driver in terms of what satisfies us as a good photographic fine art print. (I am sure they all do a brilliant job matching press conditions etc! and I do remember the old days when the RIPs used to beat the vendor's driver for BW neutrality etc).
We came to the conclusion that the manufacturers 'special sauce' for driving these printers was not being made available to the RIP makers, so it is a relief to see them start to embed it... A relief because many RIP productivity tools such as automated layout etc are highly desirable to us but require compromising on output (in our opinion).
Until now I only am aware of DInax Mirage, Colorburst Overdrive and EFI XF giving this option but I would like to know the extent to which EFI XF is using Epson's RGB driver (i.e is it basically the Epson Driver?) The other two rips are great but are not really designed for bigger production environments and automation. I'd be interested to know of any fully automate-able, integrate-able, server side runnable RIPs which use the printer manufacturers 'RGB' drivers and of anyone's experience with them (on or off list)
thanks, Rob.
I have been spending my week making CMY profiles for Gutenprint. At this point, I would agree that the Epson manufacturer drivers are always going to win for generic photographic reproduction, especially if you want a profile that can do both color printing and also decent black and white - the neutrality seems to be the hardest part. Edmund On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Mike Strickler <info@mspgraphics.com> wrote:
Yes, all the RIPs mentioned below use the manufacturer's drivers, their screening, their RGB-device color separations. This is why I suggest making one's selection on other features, usablity, and price. You mention EFI XF, but the RGB drivers are also incuded in the lower-cost version, eXpress. The print environments are interchangeable between the two. Onyx has also included some RGB drivers. If I neglect to mention other products it is only out of ignorance and not to slight them; shop around to see if any others exist. RIPs are enormously helpful in automating and foolproofing repetitive tasks and there is no longer any reason for fine-art printers to avoid them
Mike Strickler MSP Graphic Services
On Aug 6, 2013, at 7:53 AM, Robert Crow wrote:
I too have tried many RIPs on ink-jets over the years (mainly for photographic reproduction up till now) and found that none of them came close to the manufacturer's driver in terms of what satisfies us as a good photographic fine art print. (I am sure they all do a brilliant job matching press conditions etc! and I do remember the old days when the RIPs used to beat the vendor's driver for BW neutrality etc).
We came to the conclusion that the manufacturers 'special sauce' for driving these printers was not being made available to the RIP makers, so it is a relief to see them start to embed it... A relief because many RIP productivity tools such as automated layout etc are highly desirable to us but require compromising on output (in our opinion).
Until now I only am aware of DInax Mirage, Colorburst Overdrive and EFI XF giving this option but I would like to know the extent to which EFI XF is using Epson's RGB driver (i.e is it basically the Epson Driver?) The other two rips are great but are not really designed for bigger production environments and automation. I'd be interested to know of any fully automate-able, integrate-able, server side runnable RIPs which use the printer manufacturers 'RGB' drivers and of anyone's experience with them (on or off list)
thanks, Rob.
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Gutenprint does not support, fully, Epson Pro 9900 David David B Miller, Pharm. D. member Millers' Photography L.L.C. dba Spinnaker Photo Imaging Center Bellingham, WA www.spinnakerphotoimagingcenter.com 360 739 2826 On Aug 6, 2013, at 12:07 PM, edmund ronald <edmundronald@gmail.com> wrote:
I have been spending my week making CMY profiles for Gutenprint.
At this point, I would agree that the Epson manufacturer drivers are always going to win for generic photographic reproduction, especially if you want a profile that can do both color printing and also decent black and white - the neutrality seems to be the hardest part.
Edmund
On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Mike Strickler <info@mspgraphics.com> wrote:
Yes, all the RIPs mentioned below use the manufacturer's drivers, their screening, their RGB-device color separations. This is why I suggest making one's selection on other features, usablity, and price. You mention EFI XF, but the RGB drivers are also incuded in the lower-cost version, eXpress. The print environments are interchangeable between the two. Onyx has also included some RGB drivers. If I neglect to mention other products it is only out of ignorance and not to slight them; shop around to see if any others exist. RIPs are enormously helpful in automating and foolproofing repetitive tasks and there is no longer any reason for fine-art printers to avoid them
Mike Strickler MSP Graphic Services
On Aug 6, 2013, at 7:53 AM, Robert Crow wrote:
I too have tried many RIPs on ink-jets over the years (mainly for photographic reproduction up till now) and found that none of them came close to the manufacturer's driver in terms of what satisfies us as a good photographic fine art print. (I am sure they all do a brilliant job matching press conditions etc! and I do remember the old days when the RIPs used to beat the vendor's driver for BW neutrality etc).
We came to the conclusion that the manufacturers 'special sauce' for driving these printers was not being made available to the RIP makers, so it is a relief to see them start to embed it... A relief because many RIP productivity tools such as automated layout etc are highly desirable to us but require compromising on output (in our opinion).
Until now I only am aware of DInax Mirage, Colorburst Overdrive and EFI XF giving this option but I would like to know the extent to which EFI XF is using Epson's RGB driver (i.e is it basically the Epson Driver?) The other two rips are great but are not really designed for bigger production environments and automation. I'd be interested to know of any fully automate-able, integrate-able, server side runnable RIPs which use the printer manufacturers 'RGB' drivers and of anyone's experience with them (on or off list)
thanks, Rob.
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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
Martin. What does " place a rectangle in the middle of a page" mean? Cheers David David B Miller, Pharm. D. member Millers' Photography L.L.C. dba Spinnaker Photo Imaging Center Bellingham, WA www.spinnakerphotoimagingcenter.com 360 739 2826 On Aug 6, 2013, at 1:56 PM, Martin Orpen <martin@idea-digital.com> wrote:
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 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Colorsync-users mailing list (Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/colorsync-users/spinnakerphotoimagin...
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A corollary of what we've been saying here is that "Printer Manages Colors" aka Vendor Color works amazingly well for photo printing if you're using vendor media and vendor drivers. Of course if you use a RIP you have much better layout facilities; but then I've never looked at the software that came with the printer, maybe it can help there. I think there was a huge change about 2 generations ago, and now the big Epsons are very stable and have good drivers and good profiles; this is a surprise to those of us who owned the previous generations and smaller inkjets. I used to run a 9600, and now have an Epson 3880 sitting on my shelf, and there is simply nothing bad I can say about it apart from the ink costs. Edmund On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 1:25 AM, Spinnaker Photo Imaging Center <spinnakerphotoimagingcenter@dnmillerphoto.com> wrote:
Martin.
What does " place a rectangle in the middle of a page" mean?
Cheers
David
David B Miller, Pharm. D. member Millers' Photography L.L.C. dba Spinnaker Photo Imaging Center Bellingham, WA www.spinnakerphotoimagingcenter.com 360 739 2826
On Aug 6, 2013, at 1:56 PM, Martin Orpen <martin@idea-digital.com> wrote:
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 _______________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored. Colorsync-users mailing list (Colorsync-users@lists.apple.com) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/colorsync-users/spinnakerphotoimagin...
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On 7 Aug 2013, at 00:25, Spinnaker Photo Imaging Center <spinnakerphotoimagingcenter@dnmillerphoto.com> wrote:
What does " place a rectangle in the middle of a page" mean?
I mean that the best selling point of a RIP for me personally is being freed from the nightmare of OS and driver screw ups -- of which there have been so many. A lot of fine art printers have to maintain a Mac museum setup - CS4 Photoshop, 10.6 and an old Epson driver because changing any of this production chain is too painful. Things are a bit better now, but there are still plenty of driver niggles such as roll paper settings not sticking in 10.8 and various utility screw ups. For example, why can't X-Rite's SpectraProofer Utility linearise Velvet Fine Art media on a 9900? It can do it on a 4900 but not a 9900. Look under the hood on these products and you'll find some ugly bits of programming lashed into Frankensoftware that loads badly, behaves badly and is guaranteed to break with every OS or dependent app upgrade. Using a RIP means that you get to send all your bug reports to one place: the GMG Help System, Have just one tech support person tell you that "nobody else has reported this problem". And then smile when the sales team sell the bug fix as a feature when they next visit. It was just over a year ago that I posted here about 100c & 80y issues with GMG and Epson's x900. Have you seen GMG's brand new x900 Quality Check test page? There are a lot of 80y patches on it…. :-) -- Martin Orpen Idea Digital Imaging Ltd
On Aug 6, 2013, at 9:53 AM, Robert Crow <R.Crow@mdx.ac.uk> wrote:
I too have tried many RIPs on ink-jets over the years (mainly for photographic reproduction up till now) and found that none of them came close to the manufacturer's driver in terms of what satisfies us as a good photographic fine art print.
It's a good test for color geeks these days - see if you can get results as good or better through a RIP. I wouldn't say it can't be done though - it's just really hard and choosing the RIP and methodology is critical. Scott Martin www.on-sight.com
participants (6)
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edmund ronald
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Martin Orpen
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Mike Strickler
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Robert Crow
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Scott Martin
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Spinnaker Photo Imaging Center