Which RIP (if) for Epson 2100 ?

[-fruity-]

My Mac@home Sys:
MacOs 9.2 on G4 450 with 1GB Ram.
Using Freehand 9, Photoshop 6 and Xpress 4.
Printing from Freehand (90%) and Xpress (10%).

Im doing mostly DTP at about 50 A3 pages/month. A4 even less.

My 2000P (printhead) died today and repairing desnt make sense.
I was using PowerRIP 2000 (dunno version but bought it in '01, for 2000P).
PR2K was fine but very CPU-hungry, rendering the old Mac almost useless while printing. The missing INK indicator in PR2K was pretty annoying compared to the epson driver.

My EPSON 2100 is ordered and i wonder if i still need the RIP.
If i get a RIP, would you suggest EPSON RIP or Update of PowerRIP (costs are about the same)??? :rolleyes:

Thanks,
:cheers:

[easternherp]

I didn't realise that epson do a rip. I thought that it was the power rip.

[NRA]

Ime trying ImagePrint RIP at the moment and when I can get it to work I will let you know what ive found. Ime in daily contact with MWORDS about the installation of it at the moment. 175 page manual is a bit daunting but if its as good as it says it is it should transform the 2100.

Nigel

[-fruity-]

@easternherp:
I dunno. I've never seen it. No info on web also. So i thought someone in here might know. It is sold as Epson Stylus Rip Professional at around 250 EUR.
Not exactly killer-marketing.

@NRA:
Imageprint is certainly a wonderful thing but at 790 USD ... whooo :eek: .
Btw, i dont do fineart prints. I just want the rip to provide stable results with either freehand or xpress documents with embedded images.

With the 2000P (driver or hardware, whatever) i always had troubles.
But maybe the native driver/hardware is much better now. Thats what im curious about.

cheers :cheers:

[NRA]

The 2100 drivers are OK although I had trouble with the USB connections and it would often stop printing after 50% done. This was rectified by using the firewire. ImagePrint is very costly, but you do get all the profiles you will ever want included in the package.

I am waiting for someone to produce a 7 ink Black/Gray bulk inkset and then I would experiment a lot more.

Nigel

[HulaMike]

I am waiting for someone to produce a 7 ink Black/Gray bulk inkset and then I would experiment a lot more.

Nigel

www.inkjetmall.com has it I believe. Good people and products. I use their custom ICCs for my 1280's and get dead on prints.

[NRA]

Mike

There are a number of Small Gamutt colour inksets available for the 2100 but nothing as yet that is all grey.

The 1280 and 1290 are better served with inks at the moment due to them using a different ink type.

Nigel

[NRA]

Finally got the ImagePrint RIP to work by the "piggyback" method. This utilises the Epson drivers to some extent and has printed some tests on to Hahnemuhle Rag.

Ime not happy though. The RIP does not monitor the ink cart status, so you are unaware of the levels of ink. Some A3 paper at £6 a sheet, 95% complete with expensive ink is a costly way to find out that the magenta has just run out !!.

Nigel

[-fruity-]

Finally got the ImagePrint RIP to work by the "piggyback" method. This utilises the Epson drivers to some extent and has printed some tests on to Hahnemuhle Rag.

Ime not happy though. The RIP does not monitor the ink cart status, so you are unaware of the levels of ink. Some A3 paper at £6 a sheet, 95% complete with expensive ink is a costly way to find out that the magenta has just run out !!.

Nigel

Sorry to hear that.
That's exactly what drives me nuts with PowerRip 2000 v5 (dunno about later versions). My printjobs often contain 5-10 A3 pages. Since my ol G4 doesnt allow to work while printing its a game of sit and watch or risk the pot.
:guzzle:

[easternherp]

Nigel,

I just came across this thread while clearing out my emails and thought that you might like to know that I have the Epson Stylus Rip pro for the 2100 (Mac Version) It works fairly well although a bit slow as it processes one page, prints one page then processes the next page. It is a shame that it can't process while it is printing.

[NRA]

Its the time of year for a clean out isnt it. I trashed loads of old film and paper the other day and made acres of space of shelves.

I still use my 2100, although I fitted a set of quad tone inks and it works fine for B&W now. No tinting, bronzing, just perfect images that I can control the tonality on with the Lyson suplied Channel Mixer files.

I can even leave the printer settings to Auto - Quality and they look fine, using anything from Fine Art papers, to Epson Archival Matt to Glossy.

For once I am happy with my B&W prin set up. I do need a colour printer and will get a Kodak 1400 soon.

Nigel