[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

on: January 21, 2022 at 4:58 pm

HI Elliot,

RIPs have a lot of layout and print organization features we don’t get elsewhere, so if you need those, it’s advantageous; and in the case ImagePrint Black Edition you have access to a huge number of profiles and other services. Best is to consult their websites for details. Kevin is an ardent ImagePrint user, so he may wish to pitch-in with a comment.

If you know someone with a P900 or you are near a photography dealer who happens to carry them and have one set-up, perhaps you can get some first-hand experience with several of your files that way.

The print quality improvements of these Epson professional printers from one model to the next tend to be “incremental”, not revolutionary, over at least the past decade. For example, if you were to compare a P900 with a 3880 you’d see obvious improvement. If you compared a P900 with a P800 it’s less obvious. And again it depends on the character of the photos you are comparing. Much of what the P900 offers over the P800 are features and usability improvements, more options and depending on the settings selected, some technical improvement of output, but as I say, evolutionary.

Andrew’s evidence of consistency from unit to unit of a model is reassuring, and tends to confirm other statements I’ve heard that the professional printers (which includes P800, P900, P5000 etc) are calibrated to a very high degree of uniformity before they leave the factory.

[Andrew Rodney Participant Posts: 428]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #1 on: January 21, 2022 at 5:01 pm

I think a definition of RIP is in order here.

Let me start: http://digitaldog.net/files/ToRIPorNotoRIP.pdf

So Lightroom Classic is a RIP because it has layout and print organization? What about Epson Print Layout? Or Qimage?

What are they all Rasterizing?

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)”

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #2 on: January 21, 2022 at 5:28 pm

As far as I recall the key difference between a RIP and alternative driver software is that the former rasterize the photo and bypass the OEM printer driver.

What is the date of the ppmg article Andrew – I think it’s from some years ago – that in itself isn’t important except to know whether your observations related to the comparison between IP and the Epson driver, especially in regard to handling of dark tonal appearance, may have evolved since then.

[Andrew Rodney Participant Posts: 428]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #3 on: January 21, 2022 at 5:38 pm

As far as I recall the key difference between a RIP and alternative driver software is that the former rasterize the photo and bypass the OEM printer driver.

RIP: Raster Image Processor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_image_processor : A raster image processor (RIP) is a component used in a printing system which produces a raster image also known as a bitmap

And in the past, ImagePrint came with a Postscript RIP functionality at an extra fee. I don’t see that it does any longer.

All the alternative print drivers I mentioned are not RIPs. The data is a bitmap, it is rasterized. They don’t RIP anything.

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)”

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #4 on: January 21, 2022 at 5:49 pm

Fine – so moving ahead from definitions and language, the crunch issue is what value added – either in terms of print quality or other features the 3rd-party applications provide to make it worthwhile buying them, and the answer to that of course would vary depending on user perceptions and needs. Which raises the question again about whether you have up-dated observations related to image quality differences say between using your P800 with versus without ImagePrint, especially in regard to shadow detail.

I agree with Elliot that if the trial versions of an application paste large labels over the page that interfere with appreciating quality differences, the trials aren’t too useful. I don’t know whether IP does that.

[Andrew Rodney Participant Posts: 428]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #5 on: January 21, 2022 at 5:59 pm

I haven’t used ImagePrint since version 6; zero need for me, no value added for me. At the time, as Elliot indicated, prints made during the trial period did have an identifying logo across the print. I agree, not useful.

I do see some value in Qimage One in terms of resampling and output sharpening compared to the Epson driver; for me, a visible difference.

I’m ready to move on, now that an accurate definition of what a Custom ICC printer Profile vs. Canned ICC printer Profile is and what a RIP is and isn’t.

The date of the PPMG article is very old indeed Mark. Nothing has changed in terms of what a RIP is and does. There are still expensive actual RIPs for Epson printers and others available today as there were when ImagePrint could also RIP Postscript data. At the time of that article, IP shined at doing something anyone with a modern Epson can now do; print really good B&W images without metameric errors. This was prior to Epson’s Advanced B&W mode.

This hasn’t change either, As the Chinese proverb says: “The first step towards genius is calling things by their proper name.”

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)”

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #6 on: January 21, 2022 at 6:02 pm

Thanks Andrew, that’s helpful.

[Elliot Puritz Silver Member Posts: 77]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #7 on: January 21, 2022 at 6:26 pm

Rasterizing:  Might I have the temerity to ask a question of those whose expertise is obviously far above mine:

In the day- to- day quotidian printing of images by those who seek to produce a “fine art print” will the “Rasterizing work-

flow” have any real- world impact?

“To be….or not to be…IS the question”……

 

Elliot

[Elliot Puritz Silver Member Posts: 77]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #8 on: January 21, 2022 at 6:31 pm

I see that the last few posts have apparently moved Rasterizing to what some might consider the proper place…..

 

And BTW, I completely agree with Andrew about Qimage.

Thanks for all who have helped all of us hoping to learn from those who are much better informed.

 

 

 

 

[Kevin Raber Silver Member Posts: 1327]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #9 on: January 21, 2022 at 6:33 pm

Looks like next week I’ll publish the first of two videos on Colorbyte’s ImagePrint.  I have been using ImagePrint for a very long time and it is my workflow, it works and I am too old and stubborn to try anything else.  The whole process just works and if you are in any kind of production environment, IP has all sorts of tools to help you.  Bottom line, use what works for you and just make prints.  It doesn’t have to be hard.

Kevin Raber
Owner and Publisher of photoPXL

[Andrew Rodney Participant Posts: 428]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #10 on: January 21, 2022 at 7:23 pm

In the day- to- day quotidian printing of images by those who seek to produce a “fine art print” will the “Rasterizing work-

flow” have any real- world impact?

Sorry, I can’t answer that as it makes no sense to me. All our images are rasterized. Even the raws. But when it comes to ‘fine art‘ printing, there’s a world of BS out there; like Giclee Printing.

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)”

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Mark’s Excellent Review of the Epson P900

Reply #11 on: January 21, 2022 at 7:33 pm

Yes of course, the raw files need to be rasterized on the fly, say printing from Lightroom, because the print module in the colour management system and the printer driver need bit-mapped files for interpreting the colour information so that the driver knows which colour droplets to spray where. This is “workflow” the user doesn’t see. All happens under the hood. We only control certain settings that direct how it should happen.

As for fine-art printing – yes tons of BS. I would tend to dismiss the term altogether and just focus on the things you need to do to produce top quality prints. If that’s “fine-art printing”, so be it.

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