Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

All printers use a RIP (Raster Image Processor) to turn vector-based documents into a
dot pattern so they can be printed. Even bitmapped images consisting solely of pixels
need to be further “rasterized” into a language understood by a printer, making the RIP
an essential and unavoidable component in digital printing. However, the on-board
RIP that comes with the printer can be very inferior, even failing to do justice the
machine’s own ability to lay dots of ink onto paper. For this reason, an industry has
grown up to develop software RIPs that can make a better job of it.
Software RIPs have been so successful they have come to assume greater and greater
responsibilities, even providing last-minute opportunities for a little extra editing. At
the very least they allow you to optimize printing for a specific combination of
printer/paper/ink, for which they are designed to coax every last ounce of quality from
your image files. Their particular role is to fine-tune the image so that you can produce
the perfect fine art print, or the most accurate proof, or clean color separations for screen
printing. Some of them are therefore geared to high productivity with features such as
soft proofing, batch printing, job grouping, color management, image nesting, and
overnight printing. Others are dedicated to generating quality prints one at a time.
RIPs for Photographers
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RIP Software
With increasing frequency, photographers are installing their own printing facilities,
either for proofing purposes to anticipate the appearance of the end product, or else to
create display prints for clients or themselves. Software developers have recognized the
importance of this growing market and have responded with versions of their production
RIPs, or, in some cases, designed a RIP from scratch with photographers in mind.