What will you mainly be printing and what type of paper? Are you doing many papers?
The RIP's are not the best option if doing photography or fine art to be honest. They are in the expensive range for a software to work with and won't help on the color output like making a profile to match the paper would be. RIP's are more-less to help with nesting, proofing to a fleet of printers (like Aaron) and what not.
Our suggestion is to either go with X-rite devices that will help calibrate your screen properly (if you haven't already) and depending on which device you get, can create your own profiles (if you do many papers). The one suggestion is to do softproofing that will mimic what you see from screen on the paper you select via profile without testing it via print. This process is pretty simple though and efficient in time.
Our color consultant doesn't recommend a RIP if you're doing photo/fine art unless you have many printers or wanting to nest easily. You can get good quality per the profile upfront through Photoshop or Lightroom.
ImagePrint has the profiles upfront if using their BLACK version, not RED. It's a good software that is somewhat similar to Photoshop with a little extra help on layouts/nesting.
But it depends on how much you want to spend.
Also, what would your preferred hook up between computer and printer be? HP only allows Ethernet while Canon's has USB, Ethernet and WiFi options.
Feel free to contact us to discuss if needed.
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