[savagecat45]

I recently bought an Epson 2200 so I can print larger positives, but is it necessary to have a Raster Image Processor with it to create good separations with gradients? I've looked into Fast Rip Pro and its too costly for my startup business.. are there other cheap alternatives that I can look into?

I have also been experiencing with separating my designs in illustrator through AdobePDF as the printing device, save to file, then reopen with Illustrator to directly print out those designs in separated form through my Epson. Would this do the same thing any RIP program would by just bypassing the program? Or does the RIP actually program the printing job to make gradients screenprintable?

Let me know!

 

[Spot_Worker]

....hmmm from what I've read. You make a design with 100% black some other tints 25% and 50%. At printing time you click some boxes bam film, with a post script printer that is. With a RIP it does it for you like the post script did, and makes the inkjet put down more ink. The RIP also makes a dot for the gray not a mix of color to make it. I'm still looking and reading and also you could look up Accurip as well. It is a little cheaper at $495. Hope that helps

 

[ffokazak]

Im pretty sure that you need a rip with an epson. I sucked it up and bought fastRIP, and it works really well. Im pretty sure any third part RIP would suffice, and it gives you nice dense dark films.

I have often wondered the difference between me running my seps through fastRIP, and me outputting a bitmap image from photoshop straight to the printer.........How dark would the films be.........

But then I realize i have no time for experiments, and I fastrip it.

Hope this helps~

Ghostscript is free, and does the trick. I couldn't figure it out, but if you are software savvy, you may be able to.

 

[out da box]

Search the forums for ghostscript, it works- believe me.