Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: PeterAit on December 23, 2008, 10:30:17 am
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All I know about RIP software is that it's related to printing. For example, I can pay $500 more for the Epson 4880 printer and get the ColorBurst RIP software along with it. I would like to know what I would be able to do with this or other RIP software that I cannot do with PhotoShop and Lightroom.
Thanks,
Peter
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In the case of the bundled Epson versions of ColorBurst, you can easily gang up multiple prints on one piece of paper. That's basically all the RIP does for general photographic use. Great use for $500, right? (You can also relinearize the provided profiles if you drop the cash on a UV-cut i1 Pro, but that looks less useful with every generation of Stylus Pro.) Most of the features are lost on you if you're making photographic prints for exhibition or sale.
Speaking more generally, a RIP may provide better print quality, interpolate more transparently, offer more exacting control over ink amounts and color mixing, kick butt at B&Ws, allow prints to be made by simply dropping files into a folder... Print quality's largely a wash today, though, with manufacturers providing considerably better driver output than they used to.
Most of the popular RIPs are available in functional trial versions, so if you're particularly interested in one, grab the demo and check it out once you have the printer. Because their primary market is in networked production environments and proofing, though, the price:feature ratio is decidedly skewed when it comes to an individual photographer making his own prints.
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High end RIPs enable you to linearize your printer, create profiles and have their own methods of producing colors from the printer (gross simplification). They also provide placement of images to make printing much easier.
For a number of us something like Qimage (http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/) is all we'll need. Excellent interpolation and placement features. Some will complain that the UI isn't intuitive. The funny thing is that they always say this after spending years learning Photoshop's incredibly intuitive UI and feature set.
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All I know about RIP software is that it's related to printing. For example, I can pay $500 more for the Epson 4880 printer and get the ColorBurst RIP software along with it. I would like to know what I would be able to do with this or other RIP software that I cannot do with PhotoShop and Lightroom.
Unless you're printing complex pages with CMYK data, you don't need it.
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Unless you're printing complex pages with CMYK data...
Or if you need image tiling, nesting, long print lengths, or the ability to customize total ink limits and calibrate unusual 3rd party media...
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Or if you need image tiling, nesting, long print lengths, or the ability to customize total ink limits and calibrate unusual 3rd party media...
I'm doing tiling and nesting in Lightroom.
Haven't yet found the need to customize ink limits.
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http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/lofive...php/t16013.html (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t16013.html)
Ernst Dinkla
Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers/)
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I'm doing tiling and nesting in Lightroom.
Lightroom does basic nesting and picture packaging, but will it *tile* an image over multiple pages?
Haven't yet found the need to customize ink limits.
Maybe you should venture out and play with some unusual media then :-]