Digital BW, The Print

Steadman,

Of course not being argumantative, I would like to explain to you 
that Professional RIP's that cost in the same range as the Piezo RIP 
in many cases come with a huge number of canned profiles just as 
Piezo does.

For example, the ImagePrint 4.0 software comes with over 30 ink/paper 
combinations and is growing every day.

You are correct that Profiling can cost around $100 / paper/ink 
combination. If you use 30 papers that can become expensive. BUT, 
assuming that at any one time you will be using 4-5 papers, I really 
don't see this as a major problem. Not for the professional, and 
these RIP's are geared toward the professional.

The point being, when a new paper comes out and we want it, we must 
wait for IJM to profile it and publish it. If they were to use ICC 
profiles instead of their proprietary ICQ profiles, you could have a 
profile within a day or two at a reasonable cost.

Believe me, I am a big fan of the Piezography software. We are not 
debating the merits of Piezo vs. Wausatch vs. Best, vs. Image Print 
4.0. I am only suggesting that a bit of flexibility would be a 
positive for the professional user and IJM atthe same time.

Have you ever seen the layout options afforded by the professional 
RIP's? In reading the ImagePrint brochure for example, you can use 
their RIP to print Quadtone images and RGB images on different 
printers at the same time. That is flexability!  If there is an 
inkset that comes out, you just profile it and the RIP will handle 
it. That is flexibility.

In the world of digital photography, things change so fast, that 
flexibility comes in very handy.

Mike