External RIPs, Color Management

[mattmurphy23]

We are looking into either a Xerox 700 or KM6500. I have read the forums and viewed all the back and forth between the two machines - no need to rehash that here. My question is more about the front end RIPs. What have been you experiences with an external Fiery vs CREO vs Splash? Most of our prints are for presentations or creating packaging comps where color is critical. Do I have to hand-hold the Color Management everyday, once a week, or is it a once and done workflow?

 

[X33]

whatever you select, get an Spectrophotometer. For good calibration, spot on, etc.

I think all RIPs are very capable today and probably all of them have the same features. It's more about how confortable you feel with one or the other.

Color Management is critical, as the machines print several thousand of pages, as you change components like drums or fuser, you are basically changing the xerographics in the print engine. Color management, especifically calibration, is recommended to do either daily/weekly/monthly. It really depends on how picky the eye of your customer is. Some people never do it and they are ok with it.

 

[mattbeals]

I worked with a KM unit that had the Fiery SJ-300 RIP ($15k). We had all sorts of color problems. They, KM, told us to upgrade the RIP with the Graphics Arts Kit for about $6k. We "happen to find out about" the Creo unit for $21k. We tried that and bought it after trying it out for a short while. In the mean time between hearing about the GA kit and the Creo we blew a bunch of money on the Fiery by having to reprint jobs. Get the Creo unit and forget the Fiery.

 

[Craig]

Matt,
Could it be that you had a preconceived notion that the Creo is automatically "better" than the Fiery? Just wondering because I have been running Fiery's for the better part of 10 years now and do not have color problems. Granted the old ones had their troubles, but our current one, EX8000AP is solid.

It seem to be a lot like the Mac vs PC debate.

 

[mattbeals]

No, I'm pretty well convinced that they are as useful as a wet sack of leather is sharp...I've been using them since the original Fiery 125. We thought we were having machine problems with KM unit. Every Fiery we dropped in (our Fiery's seemed to mysteriously stop working) had the same color consistency problems. We got a hold of the Creo, did the calibration, created the queues and started production. Same as the Fiery's we brought in. Over the week we re-ran jobs where we had samples from the multitude of Fiery's. We couldn't get consistent color off the Fiery's. We re-ran Fiery jobs on the Creo at the beginning and end of the week. The color was consistent with the Creo after a week. And we're still talking about the exact same KM unit we were having color consistency problems with. It's not even a matter of good or bad quality of printed material. We couldn't get consistent anything. With the Creo is was consistently good. Be consistently good, or be consistently bad. Just be consistent. In my experiences the Fiery was not consistent.

I'll never run a Fiery again, I'll. Never suggest one again unless I can physically see one running consistently well. I haven't had that happen since the Fiery 125, and that goes way back before Creo. Like I said, if it can be demonstrated to me that my almost 15 years or so of experience is wrong then I'd be happy to change my tune and whole heartedly suggest them. But so far I haven't seen that happen. I'm still waiting.

It's kind of like Quark versus Adobe. Quark is a geat tool, just that there are a lot of flaws that consistenly cause problems. I loved Quark 4, but every version since has consistently been disappointing.

As for the Mac versus PC debate, I'm of the mind that it both platforms are solid environments to work in. The idea that "Macs are better for grapics work" is irrelevant now and has been for years. You can just as easily create a quality design on a Mac as you can a PC. That, Mac vs. PC is a religious war, pure and simple. The Fiery's, that's my historical experience...

 

[UberTech]

Sounds like Matt had the earlier version of the Fiery. The first couple of versions (software) that came out were a bit of a disaster. So much so that the Fiery rep came in and fesses up that they did a pretty poor job on the first versions.

Too late for them unfortunately as were on a selling drive and the reps ditched the Fiery and pushed creo so now 90% of our customers run Creo. Now they (reps) won't even consider a fiery as the creo's just seem to do the job.

Don't know how good or bad the fierys are now as I only have a few and those customers aren't that picky when it comes to consistency.

My personal feeling is they thought the c6500 wasn't going to go anywhere as the c500 was such an appalling product. So they made a half arsed attempt at the software. When they finally worked out that machine was actually a mover and shaker that put some effort in, too late for Matt and too late for the product.

 

[saeba ryo]

Hi Matte,

Regarding to your topics that mentioned about RIP. In my perception, I though "SPLASH" is the best one following Creo & Fiery respectively.

Why SPLASH? After I tested it by myself. I got the best experience to run with SPLASH even though I was the amateur of MAC user. It come up with the great Rip performance which depend on how much you need because new SPLASH is software base that can be installed it on the powerful 2 Quad core MAC. All color feature are easy to use such as color tweak, color tuner. This RIP fully support PDF-X3 workflow with 1 click.

Creo is the good rip as well. It come up with Fusion board technology & easy to RIP while print. Fully support VDP application with VPS format.

This is my roughly idea on 700 DCP RIP.