To RIP or not to RIP ?

[H3dtogo]

Hi, does anybody has experiance with the Fuji Hunt rip for the Epson 9600/7600/4000 printers?

 

[jlm]

any comments on the LL review of imageprint 8? used with the xx900 epsons?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/imageprint8.shtml

i am curious how much of the printer maintenance gets handled by IP: cleaning cycles, etc

 

[Jack]

I'd like to know too --- I may have to download the demo and try it. At $1495 for my printer, it will have to generate a really significant improvement over the Epson drivers and profiles for me to even consider it for my uses...

 

[Ebe]

Another long time Qimage user

 

[docmoore]

Nice when you are 4 - 5 years past the initial investment and can move side or upgrade rather reasonably.

It works so well for the 17 inch and under I would imagine you will see a difference. Cannot wait to hear your impressions.

Bob

 

[LJL]

any comments on the LL review of imageprint 8? used with the xx900 epsons?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/imageprint8.shtml

i am curious how much of the printer maintenance gets handled by IP: cleaning cycles, etc

Not sure about the cleaning cycles and other printer maintenance. With an older version (v6.1), I used the Epson Large Printer app to check on things from desktop, etc. The printer (Epson 7800 in Phatte Black mode) would show alerts about cleaning and other maintenance items on the printer display itself. So if an ink was running low, the panel would alert me. If the heads needed cleaning, the panel would indicate such. If the waste tank needed to be changed, again, the panel on the printer showed the issue. I rarely run the Epson app from the desktop, except if I needed to check on something specifically, which was very rare. Since I had to be at the printer anyway for paper loads and image collections, it is hard not to see the status on the printer LCD. Not sure how much fancier the 7900 or others are with respect to maintenance and such, but it is pretty easy to cycle through things on the printer as needed. Just my experience.

LJ

 

[2x2]

Don't often disagree with you Jack, but I will here.

Now I can't speak to the 2400 but I did do a comparison with my 3800, and the image quality visibly jumped ... so much so it was like two different printers were used.

I had everything tuned and profiled without the RIP, but a pal convinced me to at least try the Colorburst RIP (which isn't exactly the greatest out there), and WOW!

Again, don't know how the 2400 would do.

-Marc

I'll second that.
The ColorBurst RIP may not be the best or most expensive one but once you figure things out it does a fine job.
(Just make sure to by the full version. Not the light version that one can buy with the printer.)

 

[RomanJohnston]

We are using an Onyx RIP on our Canon iPF9000 (60" wide printer) and have tested it extensivly against uprez programs (IE: Genuine Fractals) Old School techniques (IE: 10% upres incrementally using PS) Just reducing PPI to get the desired sizes, We also compared it to the mechanical uprez of a LightJet we had in the shop.

For us the scaling is up to the same par as the mechanical LightJet uprez which ended up being better than all the other techniques.

The colors printing from BetaRGB color space and letting the RIP do its work seems to have better color handling as well. There just seems to be a better pop to the prints on the bright white matte I print on.

I am not sure what the ColorBurstRIP has in the ability to help with colors, but dosn't look too darned expensive and being it is from Epson, (which I have had some prints printed at a local pro shop on an Epson with a ColorBurstRIP and they looked up to my normal quality standards (finiky :~) These were 40" x 60" prints from 12MP shots and held up very well.

I am a big fan of RIP's so far...I am not thouroughly versed in every RIP out there, but so far they have proved merit to my persnickety tastes.

Hope that helps.

Roman