SignWarehouse technical support agents can give you good advice for the best use of your equipment. Their years of experience working with customers to resolve problems can help you to make good choices to hopefully prevent you from having many technical issues with products you purchased from SignWarehouse.
Today we will discuss RIP software. What is it, and how can it be an asset to your sign making?
RIP Software (Raster Image Processor) Software
RIP software is essential for operating large-format eco-solvent, DTG, DTF, UV, and Toner Transfer printers. These printers convert digital images from pixels into ink droplets, which necessitates the use of RIP software. "RIP" refers to Raster Image Processing, where an image file is processed through a color management routine before being sent to the printer.
However, many RIP solutions have additional features that enhance productivity and quality in digital printing applications like textile printing, wide format printing, and fine art reproduction.
To convert your digital designs into appealing large-format graphics or colorful t-shirt transfers, RIP software is a must. While there are many brands of RIP software, SignWarehouse currently offers and supports Vinyl Express LXI RIP and FLEXI Complete.
Advice for Using Your RIP Software to the Fullest
Let's talk to SignWarehouse support technicians about their advice regarding RIP software. Leif, Dave, and Jerry provided their answers for these questions:
- Not correlating parameters between auxiliary software and the RIP production manager
- Never emptying print queues, which causes the transfer to lag or crash
- Users copying and pasting from Google Images and expecting them to print clearly in a large format, only to be disappointed with the output.
- It's a "garbage in, garbage out" scenario either way. We see similar problems occur when users import files straight from Corel, Adobe, and Etc. software to the RIP without running it through the designer first.
What do you wish more of our customers knew about their RIP software?
- There are additional tools within the software that most folks never use - cost estimates, invoices, templates, job log, etc. Those have quite valuable uses.
- The software will not improve images of poor quality, so a user cannot make a low-quality image look good, no matter what.
- There are limitations to the the size (both physically and digitally) of what can be printed. Some of these limitations are imposed by the software, but some are all on the hardware -- the computer and the equipment they are trying to run.
- Some customers are actually designing at 100% of the intended print size, and at high resolution. This can cause errors in the print because the RIP cannot handle the amount of data they're trying to cram in there.
- It is important to have a good understanding of basic color management principles. Users should know about color space and the differences between the gamut of their digital devices and that of their inkjet printers. What you see on your monitor is often impossible to reproduce on your printer. We offer more info here.
Tips:
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Design your file size at half the size of the intended print, not at 100%.
- For a 4 x 8 foot banner, the art file should be no larger than 2 x 4 feet and no higher than 300dpi. RIP the image at 200% of the file size. It will look just as good and won't put as much stress on your computer's resources.
- If you must print super-sized, high-resolution images, don't use the RIP & Print setting in the software. RIP or process the file first. Then send it to the printer. This can reduce the strain on your PC's resources and reduce random errors.
- Consider the relationship between resolution and image dimensions. For example, an image with small dimensions can have a much higher resolution and equal the same overall file size of an image with large dimensions would need a much lower resolution to match that same file size. This is typically only an issue when folks want to print extremely large images.
- Only keep the files in the logs that are needed by clearing out the queue. Keep your print and cut queues clear of clutter, and export your huge files at a lower DPI to help manage the data.
- Many customers leave printed jobs stored in their queue and they build up month after month. This too, hogs resources because the RIP software has to keep track of ALL that data while it's trying to process another ginormous, high-resolution print. And it causes random errors, including incomplete prints.
Tip: Clean out your printer queues regularly! Quarterly, if not more often.
SignWarehouse is happy to support our customers both before and after their purchases. We are happy to have you as our loyal customer!
