Digital BW, The Print

I see where you're coming from, but if you've worked at a technical 
corporation, you know that the decision-makers are not as savvy as 
the engineers. Do the engineers know that the RIP produces less 
metamerism? Two or three color engineers probably do, and they've 
probably tried to communicate this to their superiors. Where that 
information goes from there is an exercise in beauracracy and the 
ability of less technically inclined business types to directly 
observe what engineers are talking about. The engineers probably had 
a difficult time explaining the situation, and even when they got the 
ears of someone who understood, there was probably disagreement about 
whether it was important.

I was in many such situations when I worked at Quark. I really don't 
think Epson is trying to milk you for all you're worth, or they would 
have marketed the RIP to photographers as well as graphic designers 
(to milk even more of us!). No, I think it's more a case of the right 
hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. If you went to the 
president of Epson and asked, "Why aren't you giving us the 
metamerism-free option right out of the box?" he would probably 
say, "What is metamerism?" If you showed it to him, he'd probably 
say, "Hmm -- Personally, I like the one produced from the standard 
Epson driver better."

Do not understimate your own technical knowledge and high technical 
standards as compared with that of Epson decision-makers. They are 
not evil -- they are simply part of the corporate world, which is not 
a very technically unified place.


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Nelson 
<peter@s...>" <peter@s...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "maracaholics 
> <maracaholics@y...>" <maracaholics@y...> wrote:
> > 
> > "just so their printer can produce a half-decent black-and-
white" --
>  
> > 
> > That statement is off-base. The whole point of the Epson RIP is 
to 
> > allow graphic designers (not photographers) to print brochure 
proofs
>  
> . . . etc.
> 
> No $#!+, Sherlock!  That is exactly my point!!
> Which was that Epson is a strange and eccentric company
> and the example I was using was that they apparently know
> perfectly well how to make the Epson 2200 make decent
> metamerism-free black and white prints, but instead of 
> shipping that capability with the printer they bury it
> in a totally irelevant and disconnected product, which
> as you correctly point out, is not even designed for 
> the purpose!
> 
> Suppose you bought a pickup truck for your ranch in Texas,
> where it gets hot.  And suppose you wanted factory air,
> but the manufacturer said that the only way to get A/C 
> with this truck was to buy the special boat-towing 
> package that includes a special boat-mount, heavy-duty 
> winch, reinforced suspension and intercooler.  Wouldn't
> that seem weird?   You're absolutely right that the
> ability to print in black and white has NOTHING to do 
> with why anyone would normally buy a RIP.   So how
> come Epson didn't built the ability into their regular
> driver?