Digital BW, The Print

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lloyd O'Daniel" <lodaniel@...>


> Fiddling with the tiny and expensive 2200
> carts would only be tolerated if there was a clear and present
> improvement in print quality.

For B&W, I think quad inks will still beat the 2200/IP.

> I'm wondering if using IP with 2 1280's,
> one quad and one Gen4 or 5, is a viable option. I think to have to pay
> $375 to add a duplicate of the same printer model just with different
> inks is outrageous.

I was mistaken.  The price for additional desktop printers is $200.
Although, I did get a reply from John at Colorbyte regarding pricing.  He
said they realize desktop printers need to be supported at a reasonable
price and that they're working on that now.

> Does IP5 just key into the model and port of the
> registered printer, or does it get some serial number info from the
> printer itself? IOW, I would put up with swapping the 2 printers into
> the same USB port (having only 1 connected at a time) to avoid what
> amounts to extortion by Colorbyte. Do you think that would work?
> (Surely, that doesn't violate the license. What if a printer died and
> you had to replace it?)

I can't see why swapping identical printers out on the same port wouldn't
work, but I can't say for certain.  When you purchase the software you get a
USB dongle and an encryption code.  You have to use their install program to
setup a printer/port combination with your encryption code.  Unless it
obtains some unique ID from your printer (which I doubt), I can't see how
swapping identical printers on the same port wouldn't work.  You can
uninstall and reinstall the printer/port whenever you want -- which I did
several times while I was trying to get my 2200 working, so if a printer
dies, you're covered.  I'm pretty sure that the encryption code you get is
only good for a particular printer model though.  My understanding is if you
add a second printer, they give you another encryption code for you to
install it.

> I realize Colorbyte has said that they would not support 3rd party color
> inks. But, if you bought IP5 and sent them a 1280 color target printed
> with Gen4, they'd have to profile it for you, right?

I don't know that they would.  My impression was the profiling service was
only for papers that they hadn't profiled yet.  Daniel in tech support did
tell me that you can generate your own color profiles and use them with IP.
Their color profiles appear to be standard icc files, but their gray
profiles are not.

> Second, I read the find print on Colobyte's site which stated that Auto
> print, print tiling, and color correction is disabled on the desktop
> version of IP. The first two features are clearly explained and I could
> do without them. But it's unclear just exactly what is meant by disabled
> color correction. That sounds ominous. I would certainly want
> clarification of exactly what limitation that imposes because that could
> be a deal-killer. Can y'all elaborate on what is meant by that on the
> web page?

Color correction refers to the tools they provide within IP such as
tone/cast, histogram adjustment, and overall color adjustments that you can
(can't) make to your images.  An alternative is to make your color
adjustments in photoshop before you go to IP.  You can still use the various
profiles that are tuned to daylight, tungsten, or flourescent when you
print, and if you are using the 2200, the tint picker is still available
when printing B&W prints.

Page tiling allows you to print a large image across multiple pages.  An
alternative is to slice your image in photoshop and print each slice
individually.

Package printing is another name for templates.  According to their
documentation, "Using templates, you can create professional packages that
mix wallet sized images, 4x5s, 8x10s, or any custom size you specify."  An
alternative on the PC is to use Qimage Pro for $40.

Auto Print is a tool that allows you to create a "hot folder" that anyone on
a network can drop images into and they will automatically print according
to templates that you specify.

--Tom