PrintFab RIP experience?

[GrahamBy]

It looks to me as though the PrintFab RIP:
http://www.printfab.com/en/comparison.html
could be an alternative to QTR with the advantage that it works also for Canon, and an alternative to TBW in that it works for Windows.

I'm thinking it could allow me to use a profile for the K3 inks in my pro-100, as a way of detouring around the "black-box" of the Canon driver's equivalent of Epson's ABW. I could also allow me to bring my old S9000 (which is not supported by any current Canon driver for W10) out of retirement to experiment with different inksets.

The price seems reasonable for A3+ use ($79).

Has anyone used it?

[TylerB]

It's a tool that gives many additional production options the OEM driver does not. But it uses the OEM driver for screening. It's no replacement for QTR or TBW, as it gives no individual ink control for fine tuning B&W output. Last person I was attempting to help for B&W, uses it and, like printing from Adobe to Epson, has no way to use profiles with the ABW option.

[GrahamBy]

Thanks for the info  . I got a bit optimistic seeing that there were sliders to adjust individual inks, but there doesn't seem to be any way of profile B&W, as you say.

In any case, after printing a few gray-scale ramps from Hutchcolor it looks like things are pretty good with the black-box setting on the papers I use: consistent step sizes down to the 256-step ramp, and I can see the last step in the 64-step ramp under reasonable lighting.

[unesco]

PrintFab is a nice little piece of software, but without dedication to BW. It must be remembered that the many of sliders for individual ink control are active ONLY when you have custom profiles made by PrintFab team (~15 EUR) which are not ICC profiles.
PF can give good results when you have not genuine inks and want to maximise their performance. E.g. I used printfab on Epson 1400 with inks from L800 to maximise deep reds in shadows what was wirtually imposible even with profiles made by iSis and nearly 3000 sample target. But in general printfab needs a lot of tweeking and the options and documentation is not a mastery of cleariness.

[GrahamBy]

Thanks. I may still end up getting it so I can make some use of my old S9000, which has had very little use and will otherwise go in the bin... which would be a shame.

BTW, are you at UNESCO or you just picked the name? I managed to be an invited speaker at a meeting early this year, was a nice experience :-)

[enduser]

Printfab has a free 30 day trial and even after 30 days it still works but with a watermark.  (You don't get their profiles with the trial.)             

[GrahamBy]

Thanks, good point. Some day when I have enough free time in view, I'll probably try that.