Digital BW, The Print

I OFFER THE BELOW AS A FYI.  I just learned about their new software 
in a color management user group at the Washington School of 
Photography.  Color Burst was not a name I was familiar with.
I used the Cone software, Image Print, and the open printer/profiler 
from Bowhaus.  All have given me some degree satisfaction.

I have been printing Quadtones and Hextones for over 3 1/2 years.   I 
have tried Cone and Mis inks.  At the present I am using MIS 
Ultratones in my Epson 7600 using the open printer and profiler from 
Bowhaus. I have been struggling on what I would do with my Epson 
2200when empty cartridge became avaiable.  

Just recently I met the development team of Color Burst Software.  I 
took my prints and files over to their office to see what their Epson 
7600 RIP could do.  After printing several of my files using their 
ColorBurst RIP, we compared my prints to theirs. On close examination 
the two prints were very close.  A densitometer reading of the 
blackest black showed that although the MIS ink was blacker.  The 
Epson Ultratone printed with the colorburst software produced a black 
that was perceptually the same.  the difference between the MIS black 
and Ultratone black was so small that the human eye could not detect 
the difference. All this was very exciting, but I was not ready to 
dump my 7000 yet.  Just a few weeks later they announced the same RIP 
for the Epson 2200.  This caught my attention.

I also do color panoramics.  Keeping 2 machines one dedicated to color 
and the other to black and white has bee alittle bit of a pain, but 
now I feel I have some options.

The new RIP for the Epson 2200 is built on the same platform as there 
other RIP for the 7600.

some of the features include:

Highlights dead neutral in black and white.

A very good dither that is equal to or better then the Epson dither.

Can produce a higher Dmax then the epson driver.

They have a way to limit ink so that the best density of ink is put on 
the paper .  More ink dose not mean deeper blacks.  At some point the 
black will go no blacker and you are just wasting ink, and loading the 
paper with solvent.

A few steps to set up and configure.

Alot of profiles. 

If you have a paper  they have not profiled.  Send them four sheet and 
they will profile free and post on their site.

Tons of controls for the expert user

I noticed better shadow detail.

All this for $395 for the epson 2200 RIP.   $795 for the 7600 RIP 
which also includes the Epson 2200 RIP .

Their RIP is  interesting because it is a cmyk driven RIP rather then 
an RGB driven RIP. 

It will RIP on the fly and archive the file for later use.

If you are looking to print both black and white, and also color 
without having to run two systems this new software RIP from 
ColorBurst may be your solution.

A demo copy can be downloaded at 
http://www.compatsys.com/mac_osx/index.html

If you have any questions about the Rip  give Color Burst a 
call(703)404-1795 

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