For God's sake get the Colorburst 3880 RIP!!!!!! For $200. more, it's worth its weight in Gold.
ColorBurst X-Photo cost $700. to $1,500. if you buy it alone. Unless you plan on using SpectraVision Pro to make your own ICC Profiles it's a waste of money. The recent up-graded Colorburst RIP for Epson now even has Print Certification.
Contrary to what has been said, the ColorBurst that comes with the Epson is designed specifically for your printer and is amazing.
I print thousands of images a year from 8 X10 to 17 X 22, and if it were not for the RIP, I'd have gone crazy. It is simply fool proof ... and you can work in C1 or any other processing program ... then Queue up as many photo images you want in Colorburst and go do something else. Select your paper type, paper size, image orientation, and then as many images, from any file or any amount of files as you want to print without opening the damned things in PS one at a time ... I print 50 images at a crack with one click of a button.
When I first got mine, I ran a test by printing out of Photoshop, then the same image using the RIP ... the RIP image was visibly better. I never used PS to send to the printer again. Besides what a PITA sending images through PS.
Adding paper profiles is a no brainer ... but there are so many profiles already in the menu it's unlikely you'll need to.
All the above is especially true if you've never done much printing before. A child can make a great print with this RIP ... even I could :ROTFL:
-Marc