Well I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the negative reactions to my post. It seems most people assume the worst of everyone, until proven otherwise. (I'm sure this post will elicit some colorful responses.)
Since customer service is generally a joke nowadays, I thought it appropriate to praise a company that provides, what to me is great customer service for a product I haven't even purchased yet - and I didn't even need to buy an extended warranty or service contract.
Unfortunately, I'm not a commercial poster. My Name is Andrew Herman and I live in La Pine, Oregon - a small town roughly 24 miles south of Bend, Oregon. I'm semi-retired having spent almost 40 years in the Aviation consulting business.
I've been into photography since I bought my first Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F around 1973/74 - way before the public had ever heard of the internet, forums, etc. I moved up the Pentax chain and eventually switched to the Canon - AE1. That system got stolen on a vacation in Seattle @ 1982. Years later I bought a Canon EOS 20D when my job enabled me to go to Juneau, AK for six months (an incredible experience and probably one of the best I've had), which I still have and use constantly. Alaska is everything it's made up to be and more (I'd previously been to Anchorage working on their Airport Master Plan and took some time on one of my trips to spend a long weekend on the Kenai Peninsula - taking the tour of Kenai Fjords National Monument - again awesome.)
Needless to say I've owned a lot of cameras over the years and eventually bought a Contax 645 system, which I had always dreamed about. Two years ago I bought the Nikon D800.
My first large format printer was a Canon iPF5000 I bought from ColoHQ back in 2007. I donated the 5000 and upgraded to the Canon iPF 6300 @ 2010.
Yes I was excited about the Shiraz RIP because I'm in the process of demoing RIPs, including ColorBurst Overdrive, and Mirage. Mirage has been the easiest to "learn". My experience with ColorBurst tech support was pretty abysmal - presumably because I'm on the demo? and when I contacted Shiraz support and got immediate one-on-one support I'm sorry but I was duly impressed.
While I just joined Luminous Landscape, I've been a visitor for years. I also frequent Fred Miranda, Ken Rockwell, DPReview, Northlight images, FLAAR, RonMart blog and any number of other sites that have information, reviews, etc. I find useful.
With regard to some of these replies - no offense but maybe you're getting too old to get excited about anything anymore and have become jaded?
I guess when you joined LL you had already somehow posted tons of threads - before ever joining? To say you wouldn't go to a manufacturer's site because of my post sounds pretty insular. (BTW, I found out about Shiraz via the Canon-Europe web site. I've been a member of the Canon iPF wiki since 2007 and members there often refer other members to the Canon-Europe site for the latest drivers/software, etc. Shiraz is an imagePROGRAF Alliance Partner although USA Canon has never heard of them and suggested I shouldn't use their software - or ANY Canon software from the Canon Europe site stating that Canon Europe software is different from US software, which makes absolutely no sense to me.)
With regard to Mr. Indeblanc, from my limited experience with Shiraz, you can adjust the color ink level, but that is way beyond my actual level of knowledge. Based on my limited knowledge, ink level adjustment is primarily used in offset printing. Shiraz does provide the option of three different icc profiles for each paper - draft, normal, and high. In speaking with the tech I was told that high for LF printers is just a waste of ink.
In any event, if someone doesn't want to try a product, that's their choice. I still believe it would be useful to review Shiraz and any other RIP so the impression wouldn't appear to be so "commercial".
I've included the content of the e-mail I received from Shiraz after I downloaded the trial of their software below (notice that it states they will provide a one-to-one remote session, which is what they did for me) -
Hi Andrew
Thank you for downloading a Shiraz RIP product and hope that you have managed to install and run the software. Your software should now be fully enabled and include full printing access.
Please note after the installation of the software to enable the 15 days free trial, you have to activate a trial license through License Manager by selecting Activate option at the start of the program. If for any reason you are not able to activate the trial to print and test the software please let us know and we shall do our best to make it work.
If required, we can also offer a free online introduction session through remote Internet connection to demonstrate the software and provide basic initial training.
If you would like to have a one-to-one remote session with one of our product specialists or need any additional information about Shiraz Software products, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards
Monika
Online Sales Executive
info@shiraz-software.comwww.shiraz-software.com*******************
Shiraz Software
www.shiraz-software.com