Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "John Vitollo" 
<jvlist@...> wrote:
> But seriously will StudioPrint be able to outperform or match the 
Epson driver with Bill 
> Atkinson's new 4000+ target profiles?
> 
> John V.
>

Well, if you are using CMYK output profiles, then yes it might as you 
now have some control over the black generation. Running through the 
Epson "black box" driver will only let you control as much as they 
allow you to control. With the past Epson drivers, when you print 
black, you get a mix of C, M, Y, and K. If you print through a RIP 
with CMYK output profiles, you can customize the black generation so 
that when you feed it RGB 0,0,0 you get only K as the output. No 
matter how many patches you use, you can only do that with the Epson 
driver if it allows you to do that, and I don't think it does allow 
that. Same can be said for the other neutral RGB tones. This assumes 
that you have a neutral set of K inks, with the Epson inks you will 
always be using some color component to produce neutral tones since 
the Epson K inks are not completely neutral.

Most of the decent RIPs also have a different (custom) dither that 
may give you a more desired result. Then there is the ink limit 
feature of a RIP that will help you use any paper or fabric that you 
can safely send through the printer. Some textiles need a lot of ink, 
far more than the Epson driver will allow. Other papers need far less 
than the Epson driver allows, which will give you a low gamut and 
possible puddles on the paper. Then of course there is the maximum 
print length limit of the Epson driver (but that has nothing to do 
with the color accuracy).

A RIP isn't for everyone, but I still feel the benefits are worth the 
money for me (at least for the older printers). The benefits are 
certainly getting smaller as the printer hardware improves...