Digital BW, The Print

>
>
>  The Epson package has a version of Colorburst that does not allow
>  the profiling of additional ink and paper combinations

don't buy that one

>  but one can
>  upgrade to the full version. 

buy that one

>  It seemed to be very attractively
>  priced vs what I had heard Imageprint was priced at.  What are
>  people's thoughts re Colorburst in general?  (Colour or B&W - if
>  more appropriate please respond off list.) 

I'm getting great color prints using Colorburst with Fotonics and 
Darkroom Gloss on a 7600.  I do my own profiling.  Black and white is 
another story.  I'm working with another list member to come up with an 
IP-like linearization for Colorburst for black and white. After going 
through the initial rounds of the project, the b&w prints made with the 
new linearization and profile were very close to being neutral in 
color.  But, there were some weird artifacts of a type I've never seen. 
  In going to their site to post an e mail to their support, I saw where 
there was a version upgrade to the RIP, so I downloaded it.  In 
trashing the old app and installing the new one, the artifacts were 
gone.  And my regular color profile worked fine in terms of image 
quality.  But the color is not neutral for black and white.  And when I 
tried to load the linearization we had made, the new software version 
gave me a new error message:  inks too low.  So I can't even try the 
adjustments for black and white that we've worked out.  Consultation 
with Colorburst is needed.  They've been pretty taciturn in the past. I 
may have to go back to the older version if CB doesn't respond.  In the 
past they've responded with one-sentence, cryptic answers that didn't 
help any.
>
>  The President of Colorburst made a comment to me that I did not
>  understand.  He said that Imageprint treats the printer as an RGB
>  printer whereas they treat it as the CMYK printer it is designed to
>  be.  Can someone please explain what he meant by this?

He means that CB allows discrete control of the inks- you can send a 
CMYK file to it, whereas with IP, you can't (well, you can, but all the 
lights on the front of the printer will just flash like mad).  IP does 
a good job, though. Colorbyte (IP) refuses to create a "recipe" for you 
for black and white if you're not using the UCs, though.

James