Software - RIP Software

Wasatch SoftRIP is helping White Meadows Farms, a Canadian-based, family-owned company known for its maple products, keep up with the demand for its delicious homemade treats. Thanks to SoftRIP's versatile Variable Data Printing (VDP) Option, powerful colour management tools, efficient workflow, and easy-to-navigate interface, White Meadows Farms has been able to move the label production for their ever-increasing product line in-house, helping them save time and money.

VDP—The Perfect Solution

Wasatch SoftRIP's VDP Option was the perfect answer to White Meadows' question of how to produce short-run labels, personalised wedding favours, customised gifts, and more. "It is an incredibly powerful tool," says Richard Bering, Director of Marketing and Advertising. "There are so many things we wouldn't be able to do without SoftRIP's VDP Option."

Combined with the iTech AXXIS Digital Label Printer by Allen Datagraph Systems, Inc. that they purchased about a year ago, SoftRIP's VDP gives White Meadows the flexibility to change, adjust, or create new labels in a matter of hours and at a fraction of the cost as when they had to outsource production.

Accurate Colour Matching

In order to accurately match the colours from the labels they used to order offsite, White Meadows turned to SoftRIP's powerful Spot Color Replacement and Correction Curves tools. "Each label we print has a specific colour scheme," explains Richard. "The ability to save our colour settings and easily go back to them has been a big time saver."

Flexible & Powerful

SoftRIP's layout and workflow tools have also played an integral role in ensuring the success of White Meadows' on-site label production. "SoftRIP's Layout screen gives us a lot of flexibility," says Richard. "It's easy to adjust and layout the different sizes of labels to help us get the best use of the media." The Cost Estimator also helps White Meadows control costs by providing an accurate estimate of every job they print before they even start production.

Wasatch SoftRIP is available in the UK and Europe from Tech8

Wasatch SoftRIP has been instrumental in helping Apache Mills, Inc. streamline their workflow and make their production process more efficient. In business since 1970, Apache Mills leads the way in designing and manufacturing quality floor mats, matting, and OEM materials for the home, commercial, and industrial markets.

Apache Mills started using SoftRIP after it was recommended to them by MacDermid Autotype, but Jeff Young, an art director at Apache Mills, has been using Wasatch for nearly 20 years. "I prefer Wasatch because it's easy to set up, easy to use, and has great workflow tools that really make our production process more efficient," said Young.

Apache Mills uses SoftRIP, as well as MacDermid film and a Roland SOLJET PRO III XJ-640, to print the film positives that are used for screen printing on various types of mat material. "The Layout screen in SoftRIP is a time-saving feature I couldn't work without," said Young. "It's so easy to bring files into Wasatch. I simply drag and drop multiple files right into the Layout screen and make sure everything looks right before I RIP and print. And, the Smart Nesting feature allows me to create media- and time-saving layouts automatically."

Apache Mills' broad manufacturing expertise plays an important role in servicing the residential and commercial matting markets. Wasatch SoftRIP is the perfect solution for helping them bring new high qualilty, unique, and innovative mats to market year after year. "Wasatch is powerful and intuitive," said Young. "It also helps us streamline our workflow, which saves us time and money."

 

By participating in the Sign Middle East trade show in Dubai from January 24 to 26 2011, Caldera was looking to increase its presence and support in the African and Middle Eastern markets.  Sign and Graphic Imaging Middle East is a specialised event dedicated to the Middle East’s signage, outdoor media, screen and digital printing industries. It’s the largest and the longest running show in the region and attracts both exhibitors and visitors from across the UAE, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, East Africa etc.

For Pascale Iskandar, Sales Area Manager for MEA, "This venue is the most important for the Middle East and Africa zone. Our presence here is very important in order to give support to partners including Graphic International, System Middle East and Giffin Graphics, but also to present our newest innovations and products to WFP clients."

The Caldera RIP solutions were strongly presented on the show, driving the majority of the printers on the Seiko, HP, Durst and Mutoh booths.

"The presence of Caldera technicians helped us to strengthen bonds with partners and present the new features of the V 8.01, especially the Adobe PDF Print Engine. We are very enthusiastic about the fact that our regional distributors have a strong technical level and an excellent knowledge of Caldera’s solution. This should be highly beneficial to current and future users, " commented Patrick Zimmermann, Training and Support Director

The Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE) is an option of the Caldera RIP, developed in partnership with Adobe, which optimises the previewing and printing of PDF documents at different stages of the professional print workflow.  This option enables native rendering of PDF files, without conversion to Postscript, helping to ensure that complex designs and effects (drop shadows, gradients, transparencies…) are efficiently and reliably reproduced through the PDF standard.

"African and Middle Eastern print professionals appreciate that Caldera solutions are easy to set-up and a reliable production oriented product, even though they are highly technical. Our products give them the autonomy necessary in their geographical context, enabling them to concentrate their efforts on servicing their clients and projects," added Sebastien HANSSENS, VP Marketing.

Caldera Graphics, a French RIP developer specialising in wide format printing applications, has been certified as a Color-Logic partner.  Announcing the certification, Color-Logic Director of Sales and Marketing Mark Geeves said: "The continued growth of the Color-Logic Process Metallic Color System in the wide-format printer market will be greatly enhanced by our Caldera partnership.  The Caldera submissions for certification ranged from a variety of metallic substrates for signage applications, to metallic images output on fabric.  Caldera Graphics is recognised around the world for its wide-format products, and we welcome them as a Color-Logic Certified Partner."

 

EFI today launched the EFI Fiery XF 4.5 advanced RIP solution for inkjet production printing as well as EFI Colorproof XF 4.5 for proofing. Brand owners, packaging printers, sign and display companies, commercial printers, agencies and publishers can benefit from new features in these industry-leading software products to increase workflow productivity and achieve higher quality and accurate colour materials printed on a variety of inkjet printers across many production facilities.

"The new release gives our customers the tools they need to be more profitable", said Stefan Spiegel, general manager of EFI's Inkjet Applications Group in Ratingen, Germany.  "It extends RIP functionality to give customers complete control of colour throughout their supply chain. Colour accuracy is optimal and additional functionality not only improves production productivity but allows printers to offer dedicated cutting and finishing options. With the new XF 4.5 EFI once again demonstrates its commitment to lead the industry in RIP, colour management and production workflow".

Increased productivity

 

• EFI XF 4.5 offers both faster RIP performance and features to cut time and errors in the printing process.
• New native 64-Bit Windows operating system support and multi-threaded halftone production bring faster ripping times. EFI benchmark testing confirmed ripping accelerations of up to 177% and more for PDF files compared to the previous XF 4.1 version.
• A new Job Merge feature allows job printing with variable content by dynamically combining master and content jobs.
• A new EFI Cut Marks Option allows iCut, FOTOBA and Grommet marks as well as Zünd Cut Center connectivity.
• New workflow templates offer significant performance improvements.

 

Colour Accuracy and Control

 

• Already an industry leader in colour management software, EFI XF 4.5 version now gives customers additional capability and control in the colour supply chain including improved control of spot colours, more versatile colour verification, and new support for special white, varnish, and metallic inks.
• Dynamic Wedge technology for verification and on-the-fly optimisation of spot colours, now even available for Lab, RGB, Grey, CMYK, 6-/7-colour jobs and spot colour shades.
• New PANTONE Plus library with new solid and metallic colours.
• A new Color Verifier with updated verification standards and additional controls and options for current and future ISO and house standards.
• A Dynamic Rendering Intent feature that job-specifically and automatically achieves the best possible output quality for photo and production environments. It also gives users better control of colour throughout the supply chain.
• Improved JDF-based server connectivity links EFI Web2Print (Digital StoreFront), MIS and Web Control Center.
• Sophisticated support and handling of specific printer inks such as white, varnish and metallic opens the world of refined packaging mock-ups, labels, decors, posters, banners, signs and fine art prints that incorporate special white, varnish and/or metallic effects.

 

In addition to supporting hundreds of printers in the industry, EFI XF 4.5 now adds 19 more printer drivers for the latest models from Canon, Epson, HP, Roland and Xerox:

 

• Canon (iPF815, iPF825)
• Epson Stylus Pro (7890, 9890, 4900)
• HP (L25500 Designjet, Designjet Z6200)
• Roland (DG SolJET Pro II V SJ-1045EX, SolJET PRO III XC-540MT, Hi-Fi EXPRESS FP-740, VersaUV LEC-540, VersaArt RS-540s, and RS-640s, VersaCAMM VS-300, VS-420, VS-540, and VS-640)
• Xerox (Phaser 7500, 7142)

 

All users of previous versions can purchase an upgrade to EFI XF 4.5. Contact EFI or EFI resellers for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

Caldera, the award winning RIP software company, has launched version 8.01 of its range of RIP products.

Caldera is now shipped with a new, Debian-based, Linux distribution which is highly customisable and is easy to install.

Version 8.01 has been integrated with the recently released Pantone Plus - an upgrade to the PANTONE Color System. Five new colour files are available in the Spot Color editor: PANTONE+ Solid Coated, PANTONE + Solid Uncoated, PANTONE+ Premium Metallics Coated, PANTONE+ Pastels+Neons Coated and PANTONE+ Pastels+Neons Uncoated.

A complete N-Color Printing workflow has also been added and all printer drivers now support the media compensation mechanism.

New Printer Drivers:

 

• Agfa : Anapurna 2500 LED, Anapurna Mw
• HP-Scitex TJ 8600, LX600, LX800, FB500, FB700
• HP Designjet Z5200, Z6200
• Oce Arizona 550GT, 550XT
• Fujifim-Sericol Acuity Advance HS
• Canon IPF 6300, 6350, 8300, 8310, 815, 825
• KIP Color UJV 180j
• Durst Tau 150i, Rho 750, 162 TS, Rhotex 320
• Gerber CAT | UV
• Mutoh Viper 100 TX, Viper TX Extreme, ValueJet 1304W, ValueJet 1604W
• Océ ColorWave 600
• Grapo Manta, Octopus II, Shark
• Roland VS640, VS540, VS420, VS300, RS-640, LEC-300, LEC-330, LEC-540
• Epson Stylus Pro 7890, 9890
• Teckwin TeckPro-H5000, TeckProUV-3200, TeckStar, TeckStorm-TS, Minoteck
• Vutek GS3200, GS5000r
• swissQprint Impala
• d.gen Artrix-GT, Teleios-GT

 

New Cutter Drivers:

 

• GCC: Expert 24, Expert 24 LX, Expert Pro