StudioPrint RIP
Winner of many awards, StudioPrint is a powerful, open-architecture color management system that provides a high level of control over job layout and image management and acts as a dedicated print server. Described succinctly by the vendor as being like "a high definition tuner, only for your inkjet printer," it integrates with the vendor's award winning integrated ICC profiler, ColorGPS.
StudioPrint supports RGB, CMYK, sRGB, and LAB color spaces. Its image processing functions include scaling, rotation, tiling, cropping and color/brightness correction. Among its "extras" are spot color support via the Photoshop spot color channels.
Comment
Highly favored by photographers for its excellent image quality and color accuracy, StudioPrint is not hard to use. It supports density and ICC profiles for CMYK and several other configurations including CMYK + 8 additional inks, also combined with light inks.
For black-and-white, a specially developed dithering method allows printing in up to seven shades of black. As a result StudioPrint achieves exhibition-quality tonal gradation on good quality printers. It contains over 200 different printer drivers.
Tech info
- OS: Windows 2000 onward
- Price level: (small format) $850; (medium format) $1,300; (large format) $2,300 (all approx.)
ErgoSoft
Founded in Switzerland in the 1980s by Hans-Peter Tobler, ErgoSoft AG developed PosterPrint for large format graphics and TexPrint RIP for digital textile printing. American subsidiary ErgoSoft US (founded in 2001) chose from the start to target digital photography and fine art printmaking, and offers the StudioPrint RIP to give photographers "the highest level of control over the printing process."
From the same vendor:
- PosterPrint (large format graphics)
- TexPrint (digital textile printing)
©trl