What does a Rip Printer driver do?
1. We have control over the amount of ink being laid down per ink channel and all ink channels together. A a results we are able to avoid over inking problems on certain types of media and as a consequence we are able to reduce the differential of sheen so often seen with the use of pigment inks on certain types of media.
see how this is done!
2. This level of control allows us to find the point at which we can reach the maximum possible colour gamut and density, whilst using the least amount of ink. Over-inking usually will lead to a deterioration of colour gamut and no improvement of the maximum density.
3. Instead of choosing a pre-defined linearization (usually called media type settings in the printer drivers) we can build ourselves from scratch a linearization, which is of course more accurate than a generic one. What is a linearization? In simple words: Defining which amount of ink is going to be our maximum and making sure that we get a smooth and gradual transition in even steps from 0 (no ink) to 100% (our maximum setting). In other words: the difference between 0% and 10% should be the same as the difference between 10% and 20% etc. This will lead to far better tonal transitions.
4. We can build CMYK profiles (and in some cases even multi-colour / hexachrome for multi colour printers), with the advantage having control over the balance between the colour channels and the black channel. For this reason we are able to build a workflow in which we can optimise a profile for B&W with a reduced metamerism: Prints will stay fairly neutral under various viewing conditions.
see how this is done
5. Hexachrome and CMYK: If we made a CMYK profile for a Hexachrome printer: the colour gamut was not much better compared with a CMYK printer using a CMYK profile, but once we made a multicolour hexachrome profile for the Hexachrome printer, we could see a massive improvement in de colour gamut: the primary colours from the colour spectrum were far more fibrant using such profiles.
6. A good Rip is able to handle many type's of files in both RGB as well in CMYK mode. Is able to proper colour manage not only jpg and tiff files but also pdf and eps files . The advantage is that files prepared for press printing (like a magazine) with combined text and images can be properly colour managed for printing on an inkjet printer, which is not possible using the standard Epson (RGB)printer driver. The Epson RGB printer driver converts the file from RGB to CMYK. Sending a CMYK file to the Epson driver will lead to a double conversion and as a result to incorrect colour handling of the digital file. Files prepared for press are always in CMYK mode. Usually a rip allows us not only to apply a (CMYK) printer profile, but simultaniously is able to apply a so called reference profile from the another printing device. This allows us to ‘proof’ simulate many other printing devices like offset press. Because the colour gamut of offset press is smaller than from an inkjet printer and we are able to apply the offset press reference profile simultaniously with using the profile for the inkjet printer we are able to make the inkjet printer match the final press.
