Digital BW, The Print

You've answered the question yourself. A rip is complicated code, hence
it'll cost a lot. If someone's going to shell out a lot, will they do it
from just B&W? or could the developer spend a few more weeks/months and add
a lot of functionality to help justify the cost and to increase the market
for buyers.

I used the phrase graphics industry because photography is part of the
graphics industry. The most realistic market for RIPs is service bureaus and
they usually service more than just photographers. I'd bet that generally
the photographers they service are the icing on the cake and the ad agencies
they service are what keeps the doors open (opinion - could be wrong).

Since the Mac dominated that industry for a while developers who understand
that industry are likely to want to work/write code for Macs. Since the Mac
is now Unix based you get two platforms that run very similar code (Mac and
Linux) and/or are easy enough port code (compared to port back and forth
with windows - again, an opinion here).

Adobe has dropped support for Mac products that they've let languish and
that Apple has come along and put out a (arguably) better product. (Final
Cut Pro vs. Premiere for example).

Since you've identified no competitors there's an opportunity. Go for it (if
you're a PC developer - sorry didn't save the original email that started
this - that person was a developer).

Now here's the delima. Since the software is complicated (as you point out)
it'll take (guessing here) 6 months to a year (lets say) to develop. Of
course you'll need to target a range of Epson printers (or will you put a
year into a product for a single printer?). What if epson releases a new
printer in that time? What if a competitor ports over to the PC. Will a
product with a single feature survive? By the time you get the core library
done I bet you'll want to widen the market so you'll target more printers
(more cost - buy each printer) and possible add more features (duo tones,
adjustable curves, etc.).

Now, what price will photography "buffs" be willing to pay? Take into
account piracy and that fact that there's a competing free product (granted
not on the PC, but it's GPL so it could be ported during the time period
that you write your product).

To me this is the type of tool that a developer writes because they have an
itch to scratch, and if they make good money off of it that's a bonus. (my
opinion).

Given that the QuadToneRIP is GPL and on sourceforge, a PC developer could
port it. However, since the code base is UNIX based there'll be a lot of
work there (most likely). So, a PC developer's going to put in a lot of work
for free. Hmm.. They're really going to want to scratch that it to do it.

My opinion.

If a B&W RIP is worth around $700 to you, buy an Emac and put quadtonerip on
it for free. Or build a linux box for about $400 and put quadtonerip on it.

Personally I've given up on insisting that one platform do everything. I
find the best tool (software) that'll do what I want, then run it on what
ever platform it's made for. If there's a choice of platforms that it runs
on then I'll pick one that I like, otherwise, why fight what isn't winnable
unless I'm willing to do the work myself (port the GPL code for example)?

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Nelson [mailto:pnweb@...]
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 8:14 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] looking for suggestions on dealing with
metameri sm


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Jonah, Jim"

> My bet is true market for RIPs is very small, 
> hence the price needs to be higher to make it 
> worthwhile for the person/company selling it. 

No, RIPs are expensive because they are big complicated pieces of 
software.   My complaint about RIPs is that their ability to print 
black and white is NOT their raison d'etre but people here act like 
it is.  Buying an entire RIP just to print black and white is like 
buying a new house because you like the carpet in the upstairs guest 
bedroom - it's a lot of trouble and expense to go to to get a piece 
of carpet.


> If you were to write a great tool that graphic pros 
> would love you might find that there's less competition
> in the mac side of the house. Now once you've grown 
> from being a single developer to a true company you might
> consider porting it to the PC side if there's not 
> a lot of competition, for example.

Except that there's NO, ZERO, ZILCH competition in the PC universe 
for this stuff.   Yesterday we identified two separate non-RIP 
products for printing BW on Mac's -vs- none on PC's.

BTW, I notice in your comments that you kept referring to "graphic".  
If you are referring to graphic design, that's an entirely different 
discipline from photography.   Mac's have traditionally been strong 
in graphic design, not photography.   Several of my friends are 
graphic designers and none of those are photographers. 

How come Epson doesn't offer software for making decent BW prints on 
a 2200?  






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