New member, need help

[darthbronco]

Hi. Just discovered this board. maybe this has already been discussed. My office is looking at getting a large format printer finally more specifically the: </div>
Epson Stylus Pro 9600 Print Engine with UltraChrome™ Ink C473001UCM</div>
anybody have any experience or advice with this printer?</div>
thanks http://graphicdesignforum.com/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif </div>

Post Edited (darthbronco) : 4/22/2004 7:27:52 PM GMT

[PrintDriver]

Heard of it. Don't own one.
Check out www.flaar.org >
wide format printers>Epson 9600.

They give it a glowing report on print quality but a quick scan of the article didn't say if it was as notoriously slow as all the other Epson wides I've looked at... could'a missed it though. Time to go home bell just rang.
Ta.
Good luck!
And welcome to the forum.

Specialization is for insects...

R.H.

[darthbronco]

thanks for the link PrintDriver. this quote has me nervous though:</div>
Epson makes outstanding printer drivers so you don't need a RIP unless you desire advanced features of color management such as linearization or ICC color profiles, or unless you print text (which requires PostScript to remove the jaggies of alphanumeric symbols which requires a RIP). </div>
won't affect our photographer, but most of the stuff i would be printing on it would be .ai files chopped full of text. I can just convert the text to outlines and eliminate the PostScript problems correct??http://graphicdesignforum.com/emoticons/icon_question.gif </div>

[PrintDriver]

What exactly are you using the printer for?
If you are going to be doing any kind of large format stuff on different kinds of media you will definitely need the rip because you will probably want the ICC profiles for all the stuff you are printing on. It's a way of color management.

Epson also used to offer a pretty affordable standalone rip for their printers. Not quite sure they still do. For second party rips, Postershop is a good one and some people like Fiery. There are a few others out there too.

What you should really do is ask the Epson sales rep if there is anyone in your area with one that you could see. Or if there was a tech that is out of your area that could answer your questions on the rip. I would really recommend seeing one in action before buying and maybe asking the tech who runs it what he likes and dislikes about it. Epson should accommodate you in this somehow.

Specialization is for insects...

R.H.

Post Edited (PrintDriver) : 5/10/2004 11:41:11 PM GMT

[darthbronco]

well, we got the 9600 and it works great for printing large photos and some smaller illustrator files. However I can not print any of my large format posters through illustrator. It seems like the file sizes are just too big for it to spool to the printer. Let me guess, I'm screwed and need a RIP??

[PrintDriver]

Save the illy files as high res photoshop or try pdf.
Do you have images linked or are they embedded?
What file format are your images?

PrintDriver is a large format digital print dude. His advice/opinions may not apply to the 4color/offset/web world of printing