# BLACK RIP Freeware



## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

There is really no software called BLACK RIP but because gutenprint enabled me to print blacker *BLACK*, and to distinguish it from full featured *RIP* capabilities which include separation and halftones (among others), I refer to it as *BLACK RIP*. This is about what it does for now that matters to the screen printer. And to some printers, this alone means a lot. However, I hope someone else find more treasures that gutenprint has to offer.

Gutenprint is a separate printing facility of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). Both are freeware released under the GNU General Public License. This essentially means that we are free to use and distribute these GNU software. To change its source code to make it a more suitable for us if we can.

Gutenprint is the predecessor of GIMP-Print. It has support for quite a large number of printers. A small list of the epson printers supported are:

Epson ME 300
Epson ME Office 70-1100
Epson PictureMate 100-2005
Epson Stylus C20-120
Epson Stylus CX1500-9475
Epson Stylus Office B30/33/40/1100
Epson Stylus Office T30/33/40/1100
Epson Stylus Photo R200-2880
Epson Stylus T20-60
Epson Stylus TX100-659
Epson WorkForce 30-1100

For a complete list of supported printers like _*Apollo, Apple Color StyleWriter, Citizen, Compaq, DEC, Gestetner, IBM, Infotec, Kyocera, Lanier, Lexmark, Minolta, NEC, NRC, OKI, Olympus, PCPI, Panasonic, Raven, Ricoh, Samsung, Savin, Seiko, Sharp, Shinko, Sony, Star, Tally, Tektronix, and Xerox*_, click Gutenprint Supported Printers

 You will definitely have to save your files in a format that GIMP recognizes. This includes BMP, EPS, JPG, PDF, PNG, PS, PSD, TIFF among others. It even lists GZIP and BZIP zipped files as well as SVG vectors as among the files it can open but I have not tried opening these files yet though.

After you installed gutenprint, you can select it from the print menu, attached are the various screen options. Look at them carefully and notice the various options that enabled me to print at 5760x2880dpi, to print transparencies, print at a density of 8 (although I don't know what 8 really represents). Also notice the black curve window.

All these enabled me to print a much blacker black.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

To the right of the attached file is my best black printing from photoshop with the darkest printer settings I can come up with. I use an epson TX200 printer and the actual print on bond paper is a little darker (than the scanned file). I am also using pigment inks and dye ink is said to give a better black. Anyway, notice the image to the left and how much darker it is. Do not mind the lighter shades of black as my printer appears to have clogged nozzles which I have been cleaning almost daily for the past several days. The image was printed a few days ago and my more recent prints gave a much more even coat of black.

Nevertheless, I was able to get a much blacker black. However, printing at 5760x2880dpi took me almost forever. A bond paper size print of the image that you see above took me almost an hour. Perhaps some experimentation will give me a faster printing time.

Can anyone with a RIP give me an idea how long the above image would take to print on a RIP?


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## PositiveDave (Dec 1, 2008)

Interesting, I must have a look.


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## Virtualburn (Mar 24, 2011)

1 word. BRILLIANT! This was an issue with an old HP Laserjet 6MP I have. Can't wait to try this and see the results. I'll post them up. Great find - thanks.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

I just found out that there is another open-source program,http://www.t-shirtforums.com/direct-garment-dtg-inkjet-printing/t154240.html#post918948. with gutenprint built-in. Unlike GIMP which is a graphics program, photoprint is more on the printing side. 



> PhotoPrint is a utility designed to assist in the process of printing digital photographs under Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems.
> 
> PhotoPrint is Free Software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
> PhotoPrint can do the following:
> ...




But then, you do not have to install GIMP and the plugin separately which is OK as I use photoshop for editing anyway and gutenprint (or photoprint) for printing.


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## Virtualburn (Mar 24, 2011)

*Gutenprint & CUPS for Windows*

Only realised after trying to install that this Gimp-Print was only available for the Mac OS and/or Linux.. so no good for us Windblow users.

I found this : Gutenprint & CUPS for Windows - Gutenprint-5.2.0-beta4

It can be used as a plugin for Photoshop and you export the file, I'll be testing it out this morning so will post up some results.

Gutenprint & CUPS for Windows - Install Gutenprint for Adobe Photoshop

Would be really great to get this old HP LJ 6MP to push out good quality prints.

Will try your Photoprint as well - thanks.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

There is a windows version of GIMP. I am using Windows XP. I haven't any luck with photoGP (for photoshoip). 

My gutenprint file(gimpgpui2) which has been working again since my re-download and installation of a later version of gutenprint is having printing tantrums again. Possibly conflict with some dlls.


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## 4-eyed_fabrick (Jun 10, 2009)

bro windows XP ba gamit mong OS? 
san ka nakakuha ng gutenprint na pang windows?


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

I am using windows XP. Gutenprint for windows XP installed on GIMP for windows XP.

Try search for gutenprint or gimp print. I cannot recall the exact url but if you cannot find them, I can search for the files, create a windows installation package, and upload it.


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## jasonsmith (Mar 30, 2011)

I'm assuming this doesn't work for vector files like in CorelDraw?


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

It work for vectors files like SVG. But GIMP does not support corel draw or illustrator. You have to export the files as image files. It supports psd. eps, ps, gif, jpg, png, tif, etc.


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## jasonsmith (Mar 30, 2011)

BroJames said:


> It work for vectors files like SVG. But GIMP does not support corel draw or illustrator. You have to export the files as image files. It supports psd. eps, ps, gif, jpg, png, tif, etc.


It would be nice if it supported CorelDraw. As the whole point of vector formate is to not have pixels like jpeg, etc.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

It would really be nice but gutenprint is essentially a photo printing utility and not for vector files although it supports SVG. The file above is in corel exported to jpg then opened in GIMP and printed by gutenprint plug-in.

They are really a different set of drivers and gives you tremendous control over your printing. You have to try it to see if it suits you. In my case, I was unable to clean my nozzle with the default driver's nozzle cleaning utility. However, just a few days with gutenprint and the nozzle was cleaned. I did not clean them but forced ink through the nozzles cleaned them. I say forced ink because I printed with the highest density option and the highest resolution for my printer (5760x2880dpi). It took me more than an hour to print each page though.

However, I think I've over adjusted and messed up my eeprom settings trying to align my printer perfectly. This exaggerated the vertical white inkless lines of my images. And I still am getting a darker than normal magenta which really messed up my photo printing. But then, when printed via gutenprint, the image has an even tone without these "empty" lines. I don't know how it is done (but except for the off-colored magenta), in a way, it fills my images with contiguous ink where the default driver can't. 

And for transparencies, it may interest you to know that a 1440x720dpi resolution setting prints slower than the best photo setting using the default driver. I am not really sure what that means but I am thinking, does the faster printing with the default driver means that they are really printing at less than 1440x720dpi? Or maybe our drivers were written to print more economically sacrificing quality?

Not everyone has the same printing needs though. So I think it is for us to judge the pros and cons of the gutenprint drivers individually vs the default printer driver it was designed to exceed, and how bad we need it.


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## jasonsmith (Mar 30, 2011)

I had downloaded the trial version of AccuRIP. And I set it to "heavy". The print that came out had ink running down the film. And I printed test pages to clean up the excess ink, and kept getting ink on my pages for a while. I did a test, and one of the nozzles were clogged. So, I had to do a head cleaning.

After getting all that fixed. I printed another film on "medium", and it came out real light. Way lighter than just printing it normal without AccuRIP. Though, I only had one black ink cartridge instead of all black. Which may be why the "medium" setting printed so light.

With gutenprint, did you use just a single black cart? Or were all the carts black and pulling from all of them?


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

I use a single black cart.


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## Virtualburn (Mar 24, 2011)

BroJames said:


> ..I can search for the files, create a windows installation package, and upload it.


If you would be willing to do that James I would really appreciate that. I've tried getting the Photoshop plugin to work from the Russain site but can't seem to get anything to export.

Can I just confirm that this is going to help me achieve my objective. I have an old HP LJ 6MP that prints fine at the moment but just too light on the toner. I'm suing Translucnet Acetate and there are no extra settings for the most recent (very old) postscript driver. If does say this printer is supported so I'm hoping to lay down a nice layer of toner with this program to produce the perfect seps.

Thanks.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

The HP LJ 6MP is supported. The files I have includes photoGP which is for photoshop but I have been unsuccessful in getting it to work at the moment. Give me a few days otherwise I'll just just provide the files for a manual install.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

Here is the Gutenprint for Windows Install Package. Please let me know if there are any problems so I can modify the install package.

*GutenPrint for Windows Download Link - T-Shirt Forums

*_ Sorry for the blog and mediafire runaround. The blog link makes it easier to direct others to the download link. I will also try create an install file for PhotoPrint which requires +GTK installation for users without GIMP and link via the blog. 

I was unable to upload the zip to TSF in so many tries._


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## colorfinger (Mar 30, 2009)

I wrote an article on how to print to an R1400 using all black carts using QTR and imageprinter. If your graphic application prints separations and you are printing spot colors without halftones then this is the trick... I printed a yellow sep using Accumark film and it came out VERY black.

If you need to print an image with halftones then the only answer that I have at the moment is printing a file from a postscript printer, opening the file with GSView and using GSView to print your separation.

Bob ?;O)


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

I took a look at QTR earlier but unfortunately my printer is not supported. I have not tried imageprinter so I would love to hear a little more about it.

For image with halftone do you mean separating and printing to a postscript driver and using gsview to print the halftone. Anyway, that is what I have been doing. What about separating and printing to pdf files?


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## colorfinger (Mar 30, 2009)

BroJames said:


> I took a look at QTR earlier but unfortunately my printer is not supported. I have not tried imageprinter so I would love to hear a little more about it.
> 
> For image with halftone do you mean separating and printing to a postscript driver and using gsview to print the halftone. Anyway, that is what I have been doing. What about separating and printing to pdf files?


Yes, what you said. I've thought about printing to pdf files and converting them to tiff images but haven't gotten around to trying it. My goal is to reduce the number of steps to printing separations in color to the R1400. With all black carts if I print color I will be maximizing the use of the carts.

As it is I can only print with a postscript driver and then use Gsview to print my separations in black using the one black cart. I have managed to print spot colors using QTR and can use all my carts but my method is useless if I need to print halftones.

Now, I have printed GSView black seps to Imageprinter but the halftones are lacking... I know I'll figure out a method soon enough... Working on it.

Bob ?;O)


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## tabletop (Mar 1, 2011)

I was also just reading about "magicfilter" that automatically creates your postscript file and feeds it directly to ghostscript automatically which make for automatic printing instead of opening this program and that program to do everything . I little different then this but related to the finished product .


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

what is the url of magicfilter?


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## ScreenFoo (Aug 9, 2011)

I think he's talking on linux-- if you're running XP I'm not sure what the equivalent is... Or maybe I do. 

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/redmon/en/redmon.htm

Never used it past Win98, but if it works in XP, it could be fantastically useful to someone doing the whole GS thing.


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## BroJames (Jul 8, 2008)

I have redmon on my xp.


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## casperboy77 (May 20, 2009)

I just wanted to comment on this old post. My business started out with a T-jet2 and then last October we fully purchased all new screen printing equipment. Right down to an $87.00 exposure calculator. But of all the details we covered we didn't realize the importance of dark films. We used a trial version of AccuRIP and actually almost bought it. It worked well. We then figured out how to use Ghostscript. Ghostscript worked but we had to print over the film twice to get it dark enough.

We too knew about Gutenprint for Mac and Linux. But all of our work was mostly on PC's and we needed to print films from a Windows PC. We are currently using Gutenprint on a Windows 7 PC and printing our films onto an Epson Workforce 1100. This works flawlessly for us! Also most of our artwork is all in CorelDraw. We can easily print our CorelDraw artwork as well as Photoshop artwork easily with Gutenprint. The films are perfect and so dark the light cannot penatrate the black. Our films are equivalent to what AccuRIP produced. We have compared the films side by side.

One issue that I need a little help with: Halftones. Lets say I make an image in Photoshop and manually do separations etc. Which I have done already. How do I convert and/or create halftones that can be printed instead of a gray scale output? This has been my only hurdle so far.

I will also post in steps how to setup and configure Gutenprint on Windows 7 as soon as I get off from 4th of July vacation and if anyone is interested.

-Jim


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

YouTube. Here just 1 of many videos for halftones. This will work for Pre CS5. After there is a diffrent procedures to set your LPI and angle.


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## casperboy77 (May 20, 2009)

sben763 said:


> YouTube. Here just 1 of many videos for halftones. This will work for Pre CS5. After there is a diffrent procedures to set your LPI and angle.


Hi Sean, Thank you for posting this video. First I want to point out that the video links didn't want to work with Firefox but I got them to work perfectly in IE. Now while watching the video no matter how I tried to view the video the top menu bar of Photoshop in your video is cut off and I just couldn't follow the video too well. Lastly, I am running Photoshop CS5 & CS6 on nearly all of my machines. I think that I do have one machine running either CS3 or CS4, but that machine is used for our engraver and Photoshop is never run on it.

Do you still have this video without the top of the screen cut off? Are you able to make a whole new video showing this in CS5/CS6? What you are showing in this video is *exactly* what I want to do, but I just cannot follow your video. Thanks so much for the help!

-Jim


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## sben763 (May 17, 2009)

That actually isn't my video. The links don't work cause mobile links don't work in Firefox and I posted from my ipad. Google. Here is a google search with some video pertaining to cs 5. You may have to filter a few. I quit converting a few years back with photoshop and either use my rip or Simple Seps in Corel draw and all my converting was done in cs4.


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## casperboy77 (May 20, 2009)

sben763 said:


> That actually isn't my video. The links don't work cause mobile links don't work in Firefox and I posted from my ipad. Google. Here is a google search with some video pertaining to cs 5. You may have to filter a few. I quit converting a few years back with photoshop and either use my rip or Simple Seps in Corel draw and all my converting was done in cs4.


Sean, Thanks. There was actually a video below the link you sent that was much better and explained it. I did get it to work. However this might not be proper for what I am trying to do. I am trying to take a color photo of someone and convert it to greyscale and then half tone it so that the photo can be printed with just one screen in white ink. 

Just doing a 2 second Google image search I found a shirt that is kind of like what I want to do. See image below:


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## SterlingPrinting (Nov 18, 2011)

Has anyone been able to use Gutenprint with Halftone Color Separations?


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## casperboy77 (May 20, 2009)

Hi K,

I have been doing my own separations and halftones in Photoshop and then printing with Gutenprint. This has been working out very well. People are amazed at my work.


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## SterlingPrinting (Nov 18, 2011)

casperboy77 said:


> Hi K,
> 
> I have been doing my own separations and halftones in Photoshop and then printing with Gutenprint. This has been working out very well. People are amazed at my work.


Jim...you are saying to create the halftone separtations in Photoshop and print those through Gutenprint, right? Are you using Gutenprint directly with Photoshop, or transfering your files into Gimp before printing?


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## casperboy77 (May 20, 2009)

Hi K,

Yes, I print directly from Photoshop with Gutenprint. The Windows Gutenprint comes with a Photoshop plugin. I am using Photoshop CS6. I will be honest though: 99.9% of our work is done in CorelDraw. So in CorelDraw I print to a PS file(s) and open that file in GimpShop and print with Gutenprint. Here is a screenshot of how I print in Photoshop:


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