Fiery vs. Freeflow Rip

[Yroc]

I've owned a few machines with a fiery and have been mostly happy with it, and I'm very familiar with it. We are a photo shop that needs accurate, consistent color and I have software generating .pdf's from customer images and dropping them into hotfolders which all print multi-up on 12x18.

I have the opportunity to get an XC800 and it has freeflow server on it. Am I going to be able to work with this? Or will I run into problems with it not supporting what I plan to do? Since it's used, I will have limited access to support for the freeflow server and all the software setup. It will be under contract through Xerox, so that will be taken care of.

 

[SteveL]

The FreeFlow RIP has a different way of doing things, but it has consistent and accurate colour, a spot colour editor the same as the Fiery, automatic image enhancement and it has hot folders that can be set up to automatically impose PDF's.
In my opinion, I'd rather have the FreeFlow for the workflow you are describing than the Fiery.
Make sure there is some training thrown into the deal

 

[michaelejahn]

There is a reason that Xerox sells both their FreeFlow RIP and the Firey RIP - all depends on what you need.

Search this forum.

http://printplanet.com/forums/digital-printing-discussion/25563-xerox-freeflow-vs-fiery-issues

http://printplanet.com/forums/digital-printing-discussion/15917-xerox-700-rip-choose

 

[onwsk8r]

The Freeflow has no decent equivalent to Impose or Compose (unless you want to pay exorbitant amounts for Xerox's Makeready software - makeready is the name of the software and don't get confused with how it has nothing to do with a makeready).

Freeflow will work better with Xerox equipment because it can take advantage of proprietary Xerox technology (ie stochastic screening) that they won't share with EFI.

In the words of a former tech, "Nobody really uses freeflow..." so if it has problems, expect issues with getting good technical support.

Not to sound callous, but (we do lab-quality photos) if your customers are satisfied with what they get off a Smearox with a Fiery, they will just be delighted with what they get off a Smearox with a Freeflow.

Also, there is no decent equivalent of CWS for Freeflow.

Make sure they throw in some training. By default, the Freeflow ignores the color profile of the source file. I had no trouble teaching myself Fiery/CWS/Impose/etc, but I worked with Freeflow for two years and never really could get as efficient with it.

The 800 has some wonderful print quality and it can run day in and day out. Enjoy the new machine!

 

[k_graham]

The Freeflow has no decent equivalent to Impose or Compose (unless you want to pay exorbitant amounts for Xerox's Makeready software - makeready is the name of the software and don't get confused with how it has nothing to do with a makeready).

Also, there is no decent equivalent of CWS for Freeflow.
!

I'm not sure where this is coming from - we have the 700i with FreeFlow on Dell computer and it has imposition that seems to be better and easier to use, queues are set up and you can use as hotfolders. At least on the 700i it centers the imposed items (they were always off on the 240 and sometimes the quality of imposed items using Fiery was less than printed single up on the Fiery if I recall) . True there is no CWS but you can run screen sharing on your computer if desired they have provision for that so whats the deal?

I will say training is desirable, you should make sure they've installed a available helper package for cleaning up queues for the variable data, etc. , Also showing use of Filezilla for copying and deleting masses of scans would be nice, we never had that till a 2nd installation. Setting up the remote monitor. Creation of scanner templates a good idea - (you can have a auto color and black to pdf that clicks just as if you had set to color copy with auto switching turned on--on our Fiery all scans were color or all black without this capability though Fiery may have added it later?) Lastly using the included (not optional) Xrite Spectrometer to create profiles and just in case your employees don't know how, using same device for creating monitor profiles. Ideally of course Xerox would have a video disk for refresher of all of the above or post these on Youtube so one could see just how much the FreeFlow has to offer.

Be aware the FreeFlow is licenced and expires yearly which means it does have to be kept under Xerox
Service to keep running where as the Fiery could be under a different service or no service as it doesn't appear to expire.

Ken Graham
CommunityPrinters.com Canada

 

[k_graham]

The Freeflow has no decent equivalent to Impose or Compose (unless you want to pay exorbitant amounts for Xerox's Makeready software - makeready is the name of the software and don't get confused with how it has nothing to do with a makeready).

Also, there is no decent equivalent of CWS for Freeflow.
!

I'm not sure where this is coming from - we have the 700i and it has imposition that seems to be better and easier to use, queues are set up and you can use as hotfolders. At least on the 700i it centers the imposed items (they were always off on the 240 and sometimes the quality of imposed items using Fiery was less than printed single up on the Fiery if I recall) . True there is no CWS but you can run screen sharing on your computer if desired they have provision for that so whats the deal?

I will say training is desirable, you should make sure they've installed a available helper package for cleaning up queues for the variable data, etc. , Also showing use of Filezilla for copying and deleting masses of scans would be nice, we never had that till a 2nd installation. Setting up the remote monitor tool a good idea. Creation of scanner templates a good idea - (you can have a auto color and black to pdf that clicks just as if you had set to color copy with auto switching turned on-on our Fiery all scans were color or all black without this capability though Fiery may have added it later?) Lastly using the included (not optional) Xrite Spectrometer to create profiles and just in case your employees don't know how, using same device for creating monitor profiles. Ideally of course Xerox would have a video disk for refresher of all of the above or post these on Youtube so one could see just how much the FreeFlow has to offer.

Be aware the FreeFlow is licenced and expires yearly which means it does have to be kept under Xerox service to keep running where as the Fiery could be under a different service as it doesn't appear to expire.

Ken Graham
CommunityPrinters.com Canada

 

[onwsk8r]

At least on the 700i it centers the imposed items (they were always off on the 240 and sometimes the quality of imposed items using Fiery was less than printed single up on the Fiery if I recall)

In my experience, automatic centering of the imposed items is not always desirable. What if you want to run business cards through a slitter? What if they just have a solid color background so you can turn off gutters on the slitter if the cards are adjusted to account for bleed on the artwork? My Fiery does this automatically... And if there's an equivalent to the Fiery's "bleed" and "gutters" feature, I'm not aware of it. I would love to hear about it, though - would be good information for this article.

As far as lower quality on imposed items, I've never experienced this with print-ready PDF's. I've had PDF's that were not flattened and had transparency issues that would not work 1-up on a Fiery or a Freeflow but worked fine once imposed.

Ken, I'm guessing you were using the dumbed-down bustled Fiery and not the standalone? The bustled Fiery does have some issues, but it's not really for production printing.