i've been searching for a good explanation for the purpose of RIP software for the last two days and i haven't found much.
during my search i've been able to do everything a RIP is suppose to do in photoshop, except for control the thickness of ink the printer puts out.
i can change the contrast and saturation on my printer (epson rx595) though through the windows control panel which does seem to make my prints on normal paper blacker, but it also seems to make the ink bleed slightly more (i don't have any transparencies so i'm just doing tests on normal paper).
but lets say i had an epson 1400 (which i could get for $200 form the epson store). supposedly it has the ability to vary the thickness of the ink, but for some reason you need to spend $500 (eg AccuRIP) on some software to make it do so? how can the software cost 250% what the hardware does? that doesn't make sense to me at all. it seems like the drivers to allow you to control that stuff would come with the hardware if it's capable of doing such things.
i know RIP can do halftones , alignment marks, and all that jazz, but so can photoshop.
i knew nothing about photoshop a few days ago, and now i can seperate a full color photo into 4 layers (CMYK) and do halftones on each at different angles in under 5 minutes. and the process doesn't use the crappy halftone filter either
since i wasn't able to find a good explation of this total process during my searches, i'll gladly make another thread with step by step details if anyone wants me to.
all i want to know is if RIP's have any value other than controlling the thickness of ink and what spray heads get used.
to me it seems like i would be fine just getting some specialized ink (like that BLACKMAX stuff from fastink) that is supposedly more opaque that you standard stuff. even though it is $150 for six cartridges which seems a little steep to me.
i've never screen printed before though so maybe there's something really important i'm missing.
could someone please fill me in on what makes RIP's worth the money if you already have programs like photoshop and illustrator?
thanks
during my search i've been able to do everything a RIP is suppose to do in photoshop, except for control the thickness of ink the printer puts out.
i can change the contrast and saturation on my printer (epson rx595) though through the windows control panel which does seem to make my prints on normal paper blacker, but it also seems to make the ink bleed slightly more (i don't have any transparencies so i'm just doing tests on normal paper).
but lets say i had an epson 1400 (which i could get for $200 form the epson store). supposedly it has the ability to vary the thickness of the ink, but for some reason you need to spend $500 (eg AccuRIP) on some software to make it do so? how can the software cost 250% what the hardware does? that doesn't make sense to me at all. it seems like the drivers to allow you to control that stuff would come with the hardware if it's capable of doing such things.
i know RIP can do halftones , alignment marks, and all that jazz, but so can photoshop.
i knew nothing about photoshop a few days ago, and now i can seperate a full color photo into 4 layers (CMYK) and do halftones on each at different angles in under 5 minutes. and the process doesn't use the crappy halftone filter either
since i wasn't able to find a good explation of this total process during my searches, i'll gladly make another thread with step by step details if anyone wants me to.
all i want to know is if RIP's have any value other than controlling the thickness of ink and what spray heads get used.
to me it seems like i would be fine just getting some specialized ink (like that BLACKMAX stuff from fastink) that is supposedly more opaque that you standard stuff. even though it is $150 for six cartridges which seems a little steep to me.
i've never screen printed before though so maybe there's something really important i'm missing.
could someone please fill me in on what makes RIP's worth the money if you already have programs like photoshop and illustrator?
thanks