ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

I have seen a few references here to using a RIP device for printing. I have to admit I have only the foggiest notion of what it is or how it works.

Could someone please describe it and answer how/why it prints better? -- or just what is its advantage?

I use an Epson 3800, usually printing Black/White on various good, matte, papers, using Photoshop with Nik and luminosity masks. The prints come out very good -- most of the time :-) .

Thanks in advance.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Faster, better ink economy, better control over color and tone, more consistent and better printing quality- a decent alternative is Qimage.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Raster Image Processors are dedicated computer systems (or software running on a general purpose computer). They speed up the processing of image files, typically Adobe PostScript or PDF files. In photography, they allow accurate color management and often lay out multiple images for optimum paper usage on roll-fed inkjet printers.

Usually, unless you are doing serious volume inkjet printing, or need to do very accurate pre-press proofing of pages destined for offset press printing, or you need to drive a color copier as if it were a high speed laser printer, you don’t need a RIP.

When I worked in a photo lab, we had two RIPs on Canon and Konica-Minolta color copiers. We were generating TIFF and JPEG files of school portrait proof pages with Kodak DP2 lab software, encapsulating them in PDF pages with Planet Press, and printing them at maximum machine speed on the copier-printers. The RIPs made that possible in the early 2000s.

ygelman Loc: new -- North of Poughkeepsie!

That's what I hoped to hear/see to put my mind at rest!

Thank you(!) for casting light (no pun intended, but not bad anyway) on something that's been bugging me ever since I came across one in my early printing days.

rb61 Loc: Maple Grove, MN

Very good explanation.

"In the beginning" I had customers who built "RIP Buster" files to try to show that the RIPs we manufactured were not as great as we advertised.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

10-20 years ago, there were lots of RIPs with PostScript emulators in them... i.e.; the manufacturers didn’t want to license genuine Adobe PostScript. The point of those RIP-buster files was usually to test compatibility with the real thing.

Most emulators were very good. I had two that only differed in their treatment of certain special characters. We found suitable workarounds...