Advantages of RIP

[Crying Saul]

Hi all,

New as I am to the digital printing process (just got a 3800), I am curious as to the advantages of printing through a RIP. I've been reading about these systems on many a web page but I don't really understand the idea behind it. What can you do with a RIP that you can't do with PS + Epson driver (except feeding four-meter long papers into the 3800, for instance) ? Looking at the average price tag of these applications, it must be something very, very precious... Is it print quality ? (I would be surprised since I assume Epson would fine-tune their drivers to get the best possible quality out of their printers, but I may be wrong about this).

Thanks for your enlightenment.

[Tim Gray]

Hi all,

New as I am to the digital printing process (just got a 3800), I am curious as to the advantages of printing through a RIP. I've been reading about these systems on many a web page but I don't really understand the idea behind it. What can you do with a RIP that you can't do with PS + Epson driver (except feeding four-meter long papers into the 3800, for instance) ? Looking at the average price tag of these applications, it must be something very, very precious... Is it print quality ? (I would be surprised since I assume Epson would fine-tune their drivers to get the best possible quality out of their printers, but I may be wrong about this).

Thanks for your enlightenment.

I have an Epson 4000, without the "advanced BW" and without a RIP (I use Quadtone, which is free) I can't get a neutral BW.  I also use it for the relatively esoteric purpose of printing digital negatives on film for use in platinum/palladium printing since with the ability to closely control each of the inks used it's easier to get the response curve of the negative correct than with an adjustment curve in PS, which is what I used to do.  As I recall several years ago when I was looking at the more pricey RIPs it seemed that it might have been easier to layout different sized images on a single page of paper.  For the really long panos I use Qimage.

[eleanorbrown]

I have printed using Imageprint for years and years, beginning with my 2200, then on to the 4000, then 7800 and now 9880.  Then Lightroom 3 Beta was released and the Print module has incredible RIP qualities...better than Imageprint and easier to understand for me anyway.  I totally am printing through Lightroom....everything...color, monotone using Advanced Black and white mode and have never been more pleased with the results.  (I do my RAW processing through Capture One but then on to Lightroom 3Beta. Eleanor

I have an Epson 4000, without the "advanced BW" and without a RIP (I use Quadtone, which is free) I can't get a neutral BW.  I also use it for the relatively esoteric purpose of printing digital negatives on film for use in platinum/palladium printing since with the ability to closely control each of the inks used it's easier to get the response curve of the negative correct than with an adjustment curve in PS, which is what I used to do.  As I recall several years ago when I was looking at the more pricey RIPs it seemed that it might have been easier to layout different sized images on a single page of paper.  For the really long panos I use Qimage.

[Crying Saul]

Thanks for the info, but I still don't understand what "RIP qualities" mean... and if it stands for Raster Image Processor, then I don't understand the need to rasterize a pixel-based file (like a photograph) which isn't PostScript or some other layout-oriented description format. Any URLs around which explain the point of using RIPs with photographs ?

Thanks.

[digitaldog]

Thanks for the info, but I still don't understand what "RIP qualities" mean... and if it stands for Raster Image Processor, then I don't understand the need to rasterize a pixel-based file (like a photograph) which isn't PostScript or some other layout-oriented description format. Any URLs around which explain the point of using RIPs with photographs ?

Thanks.

IF you have no intention of printing CMYK data, or Postscript data, you don’t need a true RIP.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Thanks for the info, but I still don't understand what "RIP qualities" mean... and if it stands for Raster Image Processor, then I don't understand the need to rasterize a pixel-based file (like a photograph) which isn't PostScript or some other layout-oriented description format. Any URLs around which explain the point of using RIPs with photographs ?

Thanks.

The rasterisation as happens in a RIP is comparable to what printer drivers do. While the Raster Image Processing may have been intended for rasterisation of vector, cad formats originally, it also had to deal with images described in pixels later on. Pixels however have a 24 bit RGB or more description of that single entity. That has to be translated to a formation of CMYK(+cmkkkrgb) dots in printer specific frequencies and/or dot sizes. The color representation in print of that single pixel is quite different to the pixel in the image description. Even the display on your screen needs some form of (re)rasterisation of the original Tiff or whatever image format. Less complex path than to the print though.

99 percent of jobs can be done with the normal printer driver these days. Use the Postscript interpretation of for example Adobe software to get PDFs etc printed.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/

[Crying Saul]

Thanks a lot for sorting this out for me. Dank u wel !

[Craig Murphy]

What does Lightroom 3 have different than version 2 as far as printing abilities?

[eleanorbrown]

The ability to completely customize printing templates, drag and drop many images on the same page and resize on the page as you wish.  These are the main things I look for.  You can send off many jobs to be printed and they will be printed automatically on different templates, etc.  Keep in mind that I haven't been printing through Lightroom until 3 beta was released so not totally sure that previous versions offer but 3 beta is highly customizable.  Printing through the epson driver with good profiles is all as good as using Imageprint. Eleanor

What does Lightroom 3 have different than version 2 as far as printing abilities?

[Scott Martin]

While a RIP is really helpful in CMYK press proofing workflows, photographers are usually better off without them these days. Years ago geeks could get better color out of a RIP then from poorly optimized drivers, but those days are gone. Today's drivers are well linearized with smart ink limiting for most media types. RIPs are occasionally helpful to photographers for the following reasons:

1) Layout and nesting. Products like Lightroom, ImageNest and Qimage are the modern tools that are providing these capabilities.

2) Long print support. RIP's and printing plug-ins often support printing lengths that are far longer than what a printer driver (and OS printing API) allows for.

3) 3rd party ink support and optimization. 3rd party inks often have different characteristics to them so setting ink limits and linearizing in a RIP is important for optimal quality.

4) Eccentric media support. If you are printing on very unusual media (silk, metal, wood, etc) then the media settings in the driver can be less than optimal. For these extremely unusual medias, manually setting ink limits and linearizing allows one to get the best results possible.