But what software?
So the choice of the printer was easy, but then I had to decide what software to use. We, at Mutoh Europe, sell 5 different types of Rips. First of all, I had in mind that I needed to train my wife on using this machine. It HAD to be simple, since she has no experience whatsoever in graphical design or software. Secondly, Price was an issue. I did not have 2500€ left to buy something additional to the printer. Third, I wanted quality.
In my job, you can’t believe the nightmares I saw coming out of printers due to wrong profiles or bad raster's in software, even on exhibitions, I most certainly wanted to have the best prints available, especially color wise.
The first two demands narrowed my choice to only two software’s. EasySIGN was one of them.
Profiles
I knew EasySIGN already from version 4.5, and I knew that most customers who had it were happy with it. Sure, back then it was not right away my choice when it would come down to photo printing. But two years ago EasySIGN introduced version 5 to us. It was about the same time that we in Mutoh Europe decided to start making profiles with 'Gretag Profilemaker', instead of using the engines build in the Rip. At that time, the printers for which I was responsible were not the ones that were combined with EasySIGN, so I did not knew EasySIGN that well at that time. But I decided to give it a try. If there is any advantage that I have over other end-users, it is that I have the knowledge and the means to make profiles, and I can make them very accurate.
I was first of all surprised by the speed and ease of use in EasySIGN. I could make my profiles very quickly, in combination with Profilemaker 5.0.8 and an Eye-one. My first try was on our own Mutoh Vinyl. The result was truly unbelievable. A rip of this price, that could match the results of rips going 2500€ and even 4000€?
I could not believe this, so I tried to take it up to a higher level, Glossy photo paper. This is a more difficult one, and it is made for a more critical audience. Again, the result was there. Almost identical output. Even more, EasySIGN managed to rip the file faster than one of our high-end Rips!
My choice was made. EasySIGN offered me the control and the output that I needed, and it did not go over my budget.
Training
A few weeks passed by, I bought the machine (I could just fit it in my car) and an EasySIGN License (there was still some room left in my car), and I installed everything at home. The next day was the moment of truth. I had to train my wife. I already started by teaching her a little Photoshop, but only the very basics. So I started, teaching her how to load media, how to perform a nozzle check, cleaning the head, starting the software, opening an image, what profiles are, how to check for good quality, etc…
That evening passed by very fast, but by the end of it (I’m talking about only a two-hour training in total, hands-on included) she managed to do it! She had all the control over the software and the printer (just to compare, it took me two weeks to teach her Microsoft Word). Sure, she does not know everything, I’ve set the profile settings to a default of sRGB and Euroscale coated, but she can start a job. After this one lesson, she started playing around with the software and the printer every now and then, and I must say that I never saw here making any major mistakes. It all seems to be going very automatically.
Up until now, EasySIGN keeps amazing me.
What I specially like very much when I’m printing my photo’s are the Compatibility tools. No need to save and re-open your file. While you are retouching your photo in Photoshop, just click on ‘send to print spooler’ and voila, the image opens up in the EasySIGN Print Server. Choose the correct output profile, click on print now and off you go!
A fantastic discovery was the fact that EasySIGN also has the ability to accept output from Windows™ system drivers. Trough a very simple trick, just right-click the hot folder of your printer and choose “Link with Windows™ Printer” and from that point on, you can send excel and word and even AutoCAD files to the EasySIGN Print Server. This way I managed to print out a large Excel sheet with math exercises that my Wife could use in her class.
My business is now running already for a few months and it’s doing quite fine.
Perfect Black and White
with a 4-color printer
One week ago, a friend in the photo club, Eddy De Groove asked me to enlarge one of his pictures. Ouch, this was a tricky one. He wanted me to make a Black and White picture, with photo quality. This guy has been selected as one of Belgium’s best black and white photographers, and he is used to make his prints on an Epson machine with 8 colors (3 different black inks inside). He has no problem with his small pictures, but he told me that he send his files to almost every large format photo develop service that he could find, but he was never satisfied with the result. I told him right away that I doubt that my 4-color machine will do any better, but just out of curiosity, I wanted to know how much worse my prints would be, compared to professional develop services.
The canvas that Eddy and Willy are holding is not yet on frame, but Eddy was very happy with the quality. Willy and Marc also already placed some orders with me, when they saw my first results.
A colleague of mine remembered reading a white-paper on the Gretag website, about how to make the best BW prints with a 4 color machine. Make your profile with black complete open, and limit the 4 colors to 33% and use the MaxK GCR curve. So naturally I tried this, I made this profile very accurate, loaded it into EasySIGN (by the way, this profile is now free available for download on both the EasySIGN and Mutoh website) and I made Eddy’s prints. I brought them to the photo club the next week, showed them to Eddy, and to my big surprise his answer was: SOLD!
I was amazed to see that the combination of EasySIGN and Valuejet, both low budget, not even meant for photographical prints, could perform better than all the pro’s out there? I was a happy man! Especially that since then, the rest of the photo club seems to follow Eddy, and I’m getting more and more orders for making photo prints now.
And now I’m waiting for the future
If my printer makes me enough money, the next step will be to buy the Mutoh SC-Pro cutter. I’m having quite some demand from people that I know to make small stickers (something like A5 size and smaller).
Print & Cut
Again I am happy that I bought EasySIGN as Rip solution. Print & Cut is one of the great powers of EasySIGN. The other rips that I worked with don’t offer the same control over your cutter, which is essential for this type of application.
If I was to compare my combination of printer and software (an hopefully soon also a cutter) with a car, I would say that it is not the fancy sport car that is the fastest, it is not the big truck that moves heavy loads, it is not the comfortable family car that you use for going on a holiday … . It’s a jeep. A 4x4 that will make sure you can drive on any kind of terrain, and above all, it’s an affordable jeep! And this is just what I wanted, since I am not willing to limit the applications of my hardware due to software!
And designing...
EasySIGN is even offering a huge load of very easy to use design tools, that I’ve skipped the idea of learning my wife illustrator. She will be much more comfortable using the EasySIGN tools.
In fact, EasySIGN does what it promises: it makes the making of signs easy …