Jump to content


Lightroom as Print RIP


  • You cannot reply to this topic
1 reply to this topic

#1 Walker Blackwell

    Rookie

  • Member
  • Pip
  • 2 posts

Posted 15 April 2007 - 02:03 PM

Hey everyone. I just got Lightroom in the other day and I've been using it as a first-step print-rip for the last few days. It's pretty amazing and FAST! I can rip a 30x40 inch print in under a minute to any driver RGB, Quadtone, ColorBurst, etc. It's a background task as well so I can be doing other stuff (setting up more prints to run) while it's processing the print request. So far I've got QTR set up with it and ColorBurst for the 3800. I don't know why Photoshop takes so long to spool prints if Lightroom does it in 1/20th the time. The fact that I can spool it to ColorBurst and do full CMYK printing using Lightroom as my "tile" application is pretty sweet, especially because the software is way cheap compared to full-fledged rips. That's another plus for ColorBurst too because it provides that print queue right in OS X.

Wondering if anyone else has experimented with it. The only problem with this thing is the 10,000 pixel limit. I figure that's such a huge issue (or will be) that they will take the limit off in the future. I hope . . . It's the first good printing solution I've seen for the mac yet.

Take care, Walker

#2 adiallo

    List Owner

  • Super Admin
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 119 posts

Posted 16 April 2007 - 09:39 AM

Walker,
Thanks for the info. I have tried LR and in addition to the 10K pixel limit you mentioned the whole pixel-based approach to sizing throws a wrench in it for me, as far as scanned tiffs. There is no easy way to set the native print size and you still have to create a new page size in the printer driver. For DSLR files it is really hip and I know Adobe is getting a lot of feedback that PS should work more like LR for printing.
Amadou Diallo
Author "Mastering Digital Black and White"
www.diallophotography.com