Digital BW, The Print

Good report Mike. Sure sounds nice.

Hope you don't mind if I throw a few questions at you.

Are you saying that the RIP comes with profiles for quadtone (Hextone?)
printing from both grayscale and RGB mode? I assume you are using it with
piezo inks for grayscale printing, not color inks?

Are ink separation curves required?

Do you get dots in highlights?

Do you like it's dither better than the Epson driver?

Is it Mac compatible?

Todd


> Earlier I mentioned that I purchsed the Colorbyte Software ImagePrint
> 4.0 software RIP to run one of the color printers in my office. By
> coincidence I found out the the RIP also supports Lyson and Cone Quad
> inksets. As a result of the matched densities, the RIP also will work
> with the MIS Full Spectrum inks.
> 
> The RIP was designed as a large format color printing RIP. It is
> available as a modular software package. That is you can buy ot to
> support a single printer, multiple printers, with or without
> postsrcipt support. The RIP starts at approx. $1,550.00 US, but from
> what I have been told a desktop printer version is just about ready
> for release at $750.00 US. The desktop version lacks the image layout
> features of the full RIP.
> 
> Out of the box the RIP comes with approximately 30 paper ICC
> profiles. All of the popular Hahnemuhle papers are there but they are
> under the Lyson tradename such as Lyson Standard Fine Art. The
> developer is adding papers all the time and they are placed on his
> website in a download area for customer use. They will also profile
> papers that you may need but have not been previously profiled.
> 
> A great asset of this RIP is that you can print a quadtone image to
> one printer and then print a second image to your color printer using
> the same software RIP. The RIP will print both single channel
> grayscale images as the Piezo driver, or it will print multi-channel
> RGB images in grayscale and do the conversion on the fly.
> 
> The biggest change in my workflow that I noticed, is that the printed
> image truly matches the printed image. The WYSIWYG aspect of this
> program is a great asset. The print quality is superb. Grayscale
> tones appear to have a special smooth flannel like appearance.
> Comparing this RIP to the Piezo driver is unfair and perhaps
> subjective because they both have different dither patterns. One
> thing that I did notice is that I am seeing shadow detail in my
> prints that I never saw before. The tones are smooth and do not
> exhibit any kind of banding. The best part of using this RIP is (and
> I will capitalize) THE BLACKS ARE THE BEST I HAVE SEEN! Yes, that is
> right, this RIP produces the deepest black densities that I have
> seen. A subjective comment as I have not measured the blacks, but I
> must say that they are superb. Finishing up a print recently I had to
> back off on the black density a bit.
> 
> The ImagePrint 4.0 RIP is a new entry into the grayscale quadtone
> market. It provides a new option to a market that lacks options.
> Comeptition in the long run is healthy and will mean that all of the
> players must develop new. better, and high quality products to stay
> ahead of the curve.
> 
> My best to all for a healthy, happy and above peace in the new year.
> 
> Mike