Digital BW, The Print

Tyler,

Thanks for filling me in on StudioPrint RIP. I had sent e-mail to Robert
Eversole asking for documentation, but never obtained a response. I
appreciate your perspectives.

I keep pretty close tabs on what is happening in color management and I
don¹t think the companies are being obstructionist at all, they just have
their plates full to meet the demand for color solutions and try to get a
leg up on the competition.

Unfortunately I do not see the B&W RIP solutions as being particularly
viable for the prosumer market, at least as they are presently configured.
Nor do I see  what a RIP supports as a viable solution to extending CM
capabilities to cover B&W printing. That¹s not because I don¹t believe what
you say about how it can be done. It has more to do with inherent
limitations which inhibit growth to a critical mass of consumers that would
allow a price structure that won¹t inhibit sales growth.

I also have a bit of personal inhibition, considering StudioPrint only
supports Windoze. I was exclusively Windows for almost 10 years myself, even
was founding editor of PC Graphics & Video magazine which was produced on
Windows in a publishing house with 13 other magazines all produced on Macs!
After Redmond released Windows 2000 without the planned ICM 3.0 upgrade I
soon became so frustrated I bought my first Mac.  My shop now has just one
lone, seldom used IBM graphics system and five Macs.

Regards, David B. Brooks
Shutterbug Magazine
E-mail: fotografx@mindspring.com






On 10/15/04 11:02 PM, "Tyler Boley" <tyler@...> wrote:

> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "David B. Brooks"
> <fotografx@m...> wrote:
>> > Steve M.,
>> > 
>> > Not according to the documentation that is published in the Ergosoft web
>> > site.  They state specifically that it is not ICC compliant. As far
> as I can
>> > establish all of the available, commercial RIPS for black and white
> printing
>> > are intentionally proprietary, except of course for the Linux GIMP based
>> > solution. From my perspective it is a technical solution dictated by a
>> > business model. That model essentially assumes a delimited market
> potential,
>> > in part reflected by the printers supported, and which offers
> limited user
>> > control or independence. It¹s the Polaroid philosophy now perpetuated as
>> > much as they can by Epson.
> 
> This requires some clarification, which might effect some of your
> views. What StudioPrint does for quads is really just an extremely
> well executed expansion of features expected in any good RIP. All
> these drivers, even the OEM ones, have the ability to partition. They
> do it from light cyan to cyan, light magenta to magenta, and with the
> UC printers light K to K as well. The good RIPs offer more user
> control, not less, by giving the user options in controling those
> partitions and other controls as well. All good RIPs offer the user
> the ability to linearize each channel, including those made up of a
> light and dark component. This is simply density tuning of the driver
> per channel, not in the icc data path, also a user control not part of
> OEM drivers. ICC profiling is done AFTER the RIP is tuned in this
> manner for the particular printer, inkset, and paper being used.
> All StudioPrint did was add a user selectable monochrome mode, and add
> two more (for now) partitions, a very light black and a very very
> light black. And of course like any good RIP, this channel is also
> hardware linearizable. This has little to do with any color management
> yet. It can be compared to the K only mode in the Epson driver, but
> with that K channel partitionable into multiple inks. As you know,
> when you select K only in the Epson driver, color management in the
> driver is disabled, only gamma adjustments are offered. This makes
> sense as the entire data path is single channel.
> So actually, all that has been done is an expansion of features
> already expected in good RIPs, perhaps what is proprietory is how well
> it has been implemented.
> In fact, the whole system is so user adjustable, it can be made to
> work with practically any inkset on any supported printer. You could
> even, in CMYK mode, used a 4 part quad inkset for K, and still have C,
> M, and Y, inks for toning in a 7 ink printer, or the same with a 3
> part K in a 6 ink printer. All kinds of things are possible, and all
> icc compatable in multichannel modes. It couldn't be more open.
> These are not confinements dictated by a business model, we expect
> these features from all good RIPs. The one that is a bit of a black
> box with little user control, and a lot of secret "magic", is
> ImagePrint, but it's users are quite happy and not complaining, and
> even it is fully icc compliant.
> 
>> > I am not being critical in terms of what it does, or for that matter
> what
>> > several other competitors also do. What I am suggesting is that it
> does not
>> > parallel for instance what color management companies do like Monaco,
>> > Gretag-Macbeth or ColorVision, which is base their solutions on a
> standard
>> > which interfaces seamlessly with  OS based CMS¹s¹ supporting full user
>> > independence after purchasing the software/hardware.
> 
> Actually David, these companies are what are standing in our way of
> placing color management in our single channel monochromatic data
> path. They offer no way of building single channel luminosity only
> profiling. Single channel icc compliant profiles are possible, but not
> yet a feature of these apps. I have one obscure app that will make
> them, but the printed percentage curves have to be entered by hand,
> not measured in. It will also make what it calls a rich black profile
> from measured color profiles, paper white, K point, the whole deal,
> but this is not what we need.
> As soon as one of these profiling apps allows us to build single
> channel icc profiles made with our measurement devices, we can profile
> any grayscale output device/driver/inkset/paper/etc., and if outputing
> from photoshop, select it as our printer profile and be on our way. If
> printing to a RIP, not out of an app, we'd simply have to convert and
> save before printing, if the RIP or driver is in a currentaly non-icc
> compliant single channel mode, as most of these special monochrome
> drivers are, or SP in quad mode.
> I hope all that makes sense, and if I have misunderstood and gone off
> on a tangent, please accept my apology in advance.
> Tyler
> 
> 
> 
> 
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