Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
virtually any size they wish from the vector data. Photoshop can be a
useful quick and dirty RIP, yet I wouldn't recommend its use for those
that need to output multiple pages from a QuarkXPress or InDesign doc-
ument. For occasional use, simply save the page from a QuarkXPress or
InDesign document as an EPS or PDF and then open/rasterize that doc-
ument in Photoshop.
There's more to a RIP than just rasterizing data. In some cases, a RIP
can be a much better print engine than those supplied by the printer
manufacturer. For example, the driver setting that produces the widest
gamut data from an Epson (
No Color Adjustment
) happens to produce very
nonlinear, poorly behaved ink delivery. Substituting the native print
driver with a third-party RIP like
ImagePrint
from ColorByte Software
allows a much better ink delivery and added control over the printing
process. Many RIPs are able to provide added pipeline capabilities over
standard print drivers, such as the ability to produce package prints or
allow a user to gang up a great deal of images on a virtual canvas. If you
have a 44-inch ink-jet printer that requires you to build a huge Photo-
shop file to layout images, this can slow the print process down. Most
RIPs allow images to be handled outside of Photoshop in a much more
robust and time-saving fashion. The RIP will produce different behavior
from the printer than the standard print driver. Profiling this behavior
can be very easy or quite difficult, depending on the RIP and whether it
supports ICC color management.
When working with a third-party RIP and attempting to profile a
device, find out if the RIP supports ICC profiles. If so, the next step is to
find the correct settings that will allow the data in a profile target to be
sent through the RIP without applying any color management. Most of
the newer RIPs on the market have some provisions for turning off all
color management for printing a target, then allow the resulting profile
to be used later. Since RIPs do not have the limitations of the GDI or
Quickdraw drivers, a user can profile the output devices either as a CMYK
or RGB device. The question becomes which is better. This is somewhat
debatable. Some experts suggest that is preferable to profile a printer as
a CMYK device. Others suggest that RGB is a better way to handle the
printer and RIP combo. Some RIPs will allow only RGB data to be used
to profile the device since, like the Quickdraw and GDI drivers, some pro-
prietary conversions are still taking place. However, in such a case, CMYK
data can still be sent through the RIP if necessary. The ImagePrint RIP
requires users who wish to build custom profiles to do so using RGB data.
However, once an RGB paper profile has been created, a user can load
and print CMYK documents unlike the Quickdraw and GDI drivers,
which can't deal with CMYK data. The best approach is to discuss this
with the RIP manufacturer and find out what color space they recom-
mend for building an output profile.
Another popular third-party RIP is
X-Proof/X-Photo
from ColorBurst.
This product also allows the creation of custom ICC profiles but in this
