Rasterlink V Shiraz V6

[Jon Marshall]

The Hybrid/Mimaki guys are correct.

[David Rowland]

shiraz will print graduations (if they are drawn correct)

[coolinshot]

I never had a problem with graduations when I used Shiraz on the Mimaki JV3

[Jon Marshall]

quote Dave Rowland:

shiraz will print graduations (if they are drawn correct)

Can you post a ‘corectly drawn’ graduation? i’d like to try it.

[Martin Grimmer]

I have shiraz and JV3 – and similarly have problems with graduations. I have to rasterise some of them which can be a pain – especially large files.

Any top tips to avoid having to rasterise much appreciated. Is there a setting/tick box on Shiraz I can tweak?

Thanks

Martin

[David Rowland]

here is a thread that we discussed the same issue
https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … de&start=0

[John Childs]

My experience is that RasterLink is better than Shiraz on gradients.

Although Shiraz may be the cleverer RIP, we never used a fraction of it’s functions.

RasterLink is a lot more user friendly and, for that reason, we will continue to use it.

[Martin Grimmer]

Hi Dave,

thanks for the link – tried the ‘PureBlend’ option a moment ago but still no joy. Am on CS4 and Shiraz 6.4. Will have another try later. Thanks anyway.

Martin

[Jon Marshall]

I think Rasterlink has a terrible interface but there’s no doubt it prints a better graduation than Shiraz, which produces results that are, frankly unacceptable.

[Russell Huffer]

We have a JV33 running through Wasatch great rip and it prints graduations really well.

regards

russell.

[David Rowland]

Russell, thats useful to know

Martin, just so u know i transfer using PDFs 99% of the time, EPS or printing directly to shiraz may work.

[Andre Woodcock]

Like Roland ColorRip, Rasterlink is a limited verson Wasatch Softrip.
We have Wasatch 6.6 and Shiraz V6.6 server plus. If I were to compare, overall I would say Rasterlink being a Wasatch Softrip is much better than Shiraz. Eg: Cropping an image in Shiraz is a pain compare Softrip. The only advantage for us is that Shiraz being able to install on a Mac.

[David Rowland]

interesting comment Andre, currently looking at Wasatch and our JV3 is driven by Shiraz 6.4 but is shiraz 6.6 the new code like Shiraz Signature is?

[Richard Daniel]

We are currently looking to upgrade our Rip.

We currently use 6.4 Shiraz, and have been giving a lot of thought to switching to Wasatch.

We are looking for a new printer, possibly one that prints white, Wasatch has some pretty cool new features for White printing.

To upgrade my Shiraz with the new Adobe plug in for gradients is going to set me back a grand.

A new version of Wasatch about £1500, I’m hoping to re-coup some of the money from Shiraz by selling it on ebay.

I am a big fan of the Mimaki Fine cut plug in for illustrator, If I set the register marks in illustrator before printing I cant see it making ay difference what Rip I use as the marks are on there already.

I dont really want to change from Shiraz as I have been using it for 4 years, I just think its a bit of a con having to pay another £250.00 for the Adobe plug in so I can print gradients and fades, when imo I should be able to from the off.

I appreciate what Dave is saying re setting up the gradients correctly, however most of our artwork comes directly to us & I dont want to waste time with outlined fonts etc.

[John Childs]

quote Richard Daniel:

I am a big fan of the Mimaki Fine cut plug in for illustrator, If I set the register marks in illustrator before printing I cant see it making ay difference what Rip I use as the marks are on there already.

I’m a big fan too Richard.

And no, it doesn’t matter which RIP you use. I went for three years using Shiraz to print and FineCut for registration marks and to cut.

Now on RasterLink Pro and FineCut.

[Jon Marshall]

quote Richard Daniel:

We are currently looking to upgrade our Rip.

I dont really want to change from Shiraz as I have been using it for 4 years, I just think its a bit of a con having to pay another £250.00 for the Adobe plug in so I can print gradients and fades, when imo I should be able to from the off.

Totally agree, as it stands, Shiraz is ‘broken’ in my opinion.

I’m not sure it’s the plug-in that fixes the gradient issue anyway, the core program is being fixed to try and sort out the problem.

[Richard Daniel]

Jon.

This is true about the versions, I opened up a thread very similar to this some time ago, in it I mentioned the AIT refused to be drawn in on wether the new version could print gradients, all they repeatedly said was, ‘its compatible with all new Adobe software’.

I do have a contact (ex AIT who repairs mimakis etc, very reasonably priced too) he has offered to install the latest version and if it still doesn’t print correctly, he would remove the latest version and re-install the existing & leave it as it was (if anyone wants the guy’s details, drop me a pm)

John.

Since you switched from Shiraz to Rasterlink, would you say you have missed any features from Shiraz, I only ask as we have the option to get Rasterlink for free if we upgrade our Mimaki, which could save me a decent sum all together.

[John Childs]

Richard,

I believe that Shiraz has more features and control over output than RasterLink. The thing is that I didn’t use any of them, so they were a bit pointless.

For instance, control over output colour. My issue is consistency over a long period of time so, if colours need adjusting, I want to do that in my design package once. From then on all we have to do on the RIP is open the file and press the print button. Time after time.

Personally I prefer RasterLink. It does everything I need, and is simpler and quicker to use. The simpler bit is especially important when trying to train new staff in it’s use.

Oh, and you get 16 bit gradients right out of the box. 😀

[Richard Daniel]

Sounds pretty good to me mate.

How about Tiling does it have teh same features? We have a lot of problems with joins lining up & being slightly different colours (I am aware this could be both the rip & printer)

What machine are you using?

[John Childs]

I don’t know about the same features, but certainly RasterLink does several different types of tiling, although they call it panelling. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that because that’s another feature we don’t use. 😀

If something needs printing larger than the printer size then we tend to cut it up in Illustrator and print as separate sections. Most of our work is on vans so we need the repeatability. Also, by having van panel sized prints, it lets us supply single panels for accident damage repair. An important part of our business.

Currently using a JV33 with which we are absolutely delighted.

[Jon Marshall]

Rasterlink is fine for just "open file, set profile, print" but Shiraz does at least have a very nice interface. Cropping, tiling, overlaps etc are far simpler to use.

[John Childs]

quote Jon Marshall:

Rasterlink is fine for just “open file, set profile, print” but Shiraz does at least have a very nice interface..

I think we’ll have to disagree there Jon.

I found the Shiraz interface too busy and unnecessarily complicated, and much prefer the simpler RasterLink one.

That is important to me because, although I appreciate that a one or two man band will know their own software and have no problems with the more complex programmes, all that changes when you get employees. Then ease of operation becomes a deciding factor if you want to minimise mistakes and wasteage. The same is even true for occasional users like myself.

This is the same reasoning for cutting with something complex like Flexi or straightforward like Finecut. A discussion I think we have had before. 😀

[Richard Daniel]

We switched at the start of this month (raster came with our new jv33)

I think I will always prefer Shiraz as its what I’ve always used until now, however Rasterlink comes with free updates for life and prints every tone, curve, gradient that I throw at it (shiraz simply couldn’t, unless I spent another £1000 to upgrade, still then with no guarantee)

For me its a no brainer, Rasterlink is free and will never go out of date, you cant get a better deal then that I’m afraid, unless someone wants to offer me a fcompleetly free upgrade to Shiraz v7. 🙂

[Stafford Cox]

Hi guys. I’ve been off the forum for a time and this post definitely makes interesting reading.

Shiraz v6.7, from what I have seen so far, appears to be very good with graduations, blends and transparencies. The way I have been led to believe it is that Adobe have changed the way that their PDF’s are made and have done so with out any warning to RIP vendors. As a result, Shiraz needed to have a plug-in that enables the Adobe language to be understood correctly. Now this, unfortunately, means paying a license to Adobe for every single version of Shiraz. Quite costly for Shiraz? You bet it is.

V6.7 has the Adobe engine as standard and as a result is slightly more expensive than v6.6. But is does appear to work very well. Anybody in their right mind would want to see it working before committing to the upgrade price so the best thing to do is to contact the vendor and arrange for a free demo version of v6.7 to be sent out. Once you see for yourself that it works, make your own decision on what RIP to use from there.

I hope this is of use.

Stafford

[David Rowland]

Hi Stafford, are you still working with Ramin?

Also I am on 6.4, it is on occasion failing with newer PDFs etc and still not 100% certain if we should stay with Shiraz as we are getting a new machine delivered.

I am pleased that shiraz have gone to Adobe for their engine, so presuming JAWs engine has been completely replaced.

If I recall correctly AIT released Shiraz Signature which was a smaller product but it was very well developed, a big improvement over shiraz server for usability and bugs. So is Shiraz Server 6.7 been handled by the same software development team as Shiraz Signature?

We use mainly Corel X3 PDF output

p.s. btw John Childs (posts above) has sadly passed away

[Stafford Cox]

Dave. As mentioned here:

https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.p … ht=#381175

Shiraz v6.4 (depending on build number) is in some cases over 3 years old, and can’t be expected to support what is a constantly changing format. Adobe have changed the coding for their PDF format and we are constantly playing catch-up. You are right that the latest version is 100% Adobe and no longer has the JAWS engine running beneath it (a great move as you suggested).

Shiraz Signature now has the Adobe plug-in too (the last release was JAWS only) and is geared up as a standalone alternative to the ‘full-fat’ Shiraz Server version which, as you know, will run multiple printers from a single machine and supports input from multiple clients. Signature is a single user, single output application and is by no means a replacement for the full version. it has been developed by the same team and is a very good piece of software (even if I do say so myself 😀 )

What new machine are you getting and what software is tempting you away from your Shiraz? It might be worth getting a demo copy of the latest version and see if it’s any better than your existing copy? That way you can be sure if ditching Shiraz is the right move

On a much sadder note, I’m very sorry to hear about John Childs.

Stafford