Please comment on trueflow 3,apogee x3,prinergy evo,rampage

[color_prepress]

anyone have any experience on these workflow?
Please tell me about its strength and weakness (eg, user friendly, stable, fast processing,cheap .....)
You like which workflow?

1)apogee x3
2) trueflow 3
3) prinergy evo
4) rampage

[mattbeals]

1, Prinergy Evo
2 Apogee
2 Rampage

[T]

Why RAMpage last?

[mattbeals]

I didn't put it last. I put Apogee and Rampage as 2. It was TrueFlow I didn't include. I think Evo is the best of the three and that Apogee and Ramppage are about tied with each other as they are both good systems.

[BrisqueMan]

If I had to work with a PDF workflow I would not get any work done. We have customers that can't even get a proper Quark file together. PDFs are a nightmare to edit much less a crappy PDF. What you want is a Creo Brisque! A Brisque workflow will still let you use .PS, PDF, and all the usual page layout programs. Rip once print many!!


www.creo.com

[mattbeals]

Brisque is great, I've worked with it since 2.8. But like any workflow, you have to feet it good files or the whole thing is crap. All workflows basically do the same thing with little variation other than the interface. Which is how most people look at their workflows. A good file on any workflow will work. A bad file on any workflow will still be bad.

[detric_1]

For me to organize this list, it would depend on what kind of printing you do. If your a pub printer or deal with alot of "book" type, then I'd agree with the printergy. It is a nice workflow for consistant work. Commercial, I would pick rampage or artworks. I personally don't like Apology, I think Agfa is behind the curve in handling customers. As to brisque, brisque will be dead in a few years and will be merged (forced) into printergy. Not to mention the unbelieveably high cost of ownership of anything from creo.

I kinda relate working with creo like an abusive relationship. They are the fat boyfriend that sits all day on your sofa, takes all your money from you then tells you how you screwed up so many things and he's gotta fix them for you. And then says you're lucky to have him around. You get used to getting the crap kicked out of you, until you realize that there is something better out there without all the pain.

Just my opinion.

Dave

[Mjetz]

Boy never had those experiences with Creo. We do have a Full Service Contract, expensive yes. However, compared to lost dollars from down equipment it's nothing. I'd have to say Brisque over all of them then Prinergy.

I have researched Rampage and Agfa, while they have great features they always seemed to me to fit the small printshops.

I like Brisque because it's got a well established, solid workflow and 8000 installs world wide. It's got it's problems, but they all do.

My best advice is to look at the type of work you do the most. We do packaging, magazines and catalogs. Most of the work is 4/c process standard Sears type catalogs and People like magazines. If you're a flexo printer or do lots of Spot color work Brisque may not be the best choice.

Brisque isn't that strong for packaging, but it works.

Whatever you choose, get the best servicer contract you can afford then go one better. We have never had piece of equipment down for more than 12 hours and was only when it died at 9pm and the tech wasn't available until morning.

Most of the Rips out there are all very comparable, to me it comes down to service and how well the strengths of the Rip match our work and workflow.

[jbuggy]

I have used both Creo PSM 7 and Rampage. I would not label rampage a small mom and pop rip.

First of all a rampage box is very expensive. Second I haved worked for two huge Printing Co. that use rampage. One of them is a huge printing chain called Nationwide graphics that owns several print companies thru out US.

The other is where Im at now, we feed four 6 color 40 inch Heidelburg presses and two heat-set web presses 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. These companies both rely heavily on rampage. What I like about rampage is its ability to incorporate and control your whole prepress department everything from preflight, proofing, and plate-making. You can control the queue from your workstation. The only downside of this system is probably trapping. It can give you funky trapping on text. It has its work-arounds like any other rip.

I didnt find any trapping issues in Creo PSM. But it lacks over-all prepress control.

[edgar]

Hi buddies!

I see that I'm the first that talk about trueflow.

I can't talk about the other workflows but the new version of trueflow 3.03 comes with good functionality and works well as its ctp does.

If you need a lot of interactivity and an intelligent workflow, I suggest the FlowDrive workflow from Esko-graphics. FlowDrive has almost anything you need for work as fast as you can and the flexibility that everybody want. I'm not an esko-graphics sales person but our production was optimized more than ever working with it.

I put FlowDrive on 1st. place.