Caldera has brought to market a new edition of its pioneering RIP software, Caldera V9, which harnesses the latest version of the Adobe print engine, APPE 2.5, to deliver additional productivity features and refinements. Enhanced colour options, improved transparency handling and faster previewing join with practical additions to provide Caldera's world-wide user base with the broadest functionality available in this market.

Recognising the need for increased control over the print environment, Caldera V9 brings two significant updates to its already advanced Spooler module. Operators can now double-click a job within Spooler to reopen it within the Print window, allowing them to verify parameters or resubmit it with modified settings. LiveSpooler, meanwhile, introduces a new XML exchange protocol which allows for the monitoring of offline devices within the print environment, thereby improving workflow management – especially for owners of Caldera's popular Flow+ package.

Users will also discover significant developments in colour control and correction in Caldera V9, specifically engineered to save time and improve accuracy. Amongst these is the ability to make last-minute adjustments to contrast, luminosity and colour balances within the main Print window, avoiding the need to jump between modules for minor alterations. The operator can also save the current Print window configuration in a named file, allowing for rapid switching between different workflow options. Color Books of swatches are also generated on-demand by V9, providing a multi-page PDF file of reference colours so that operators can more easily match desired brand colours with those available within the given print configuration.

Implementations of the Caldera RIP with the EasyMedia profiling module will also be able to take advantage of i1Prism V2, now integrated within Caldera V9 to provide excellent smoothness in colour rendering and more fine-tune settings, such as contrast and saturation control. EasyMedia users will also note a new function allowing them to report on ink density and resynchronise ICC profiles if required, correcting linearisation curves to compensate for current printing conditions, such as head changes and remaining ink volume.

Memory management, font support and Xobjects are significantly better supported by the new APPE 2.5 integration, which also provides smaller fixes, such as more consistent direct colour substitution and the ability to replace spot colours in RGB mode. The primary advantage for Caldera V9 users, who have (own) the APPE option, is the improved RIPping speeds, especially for files with transparent elements, which will see 20% of the RIP time shaved off on average. In tandem, the new Global Rasterisation option allows for the preview of more complex documents, such as those with transparency or overprint information.

A totally new option in V9 is the fruit of Caldera's partnership with colour management specialists Alwan, InkPerformer. This module, which requires a special license key, calculates new levels of black ink to reduce the use of other inks while reproducing faithfully the hues intended from the original file. While vastly increased black laydown produces more graininess, InkPerformer allows print providers to use their professional judgment and take control of their ink costs – especially for situations where exceptional quality is not necessarily required, such as applications with long viewing distances.

"Each release of Caldera brings with it a new generation of upgrades which understand the pressures of modern wide-format production properly and gives print houses the tools to streamline production and improve quality", states Sebastien Hanssens, Vice President Marketing at Caldera.

"This ranges from broader innovations, such as advanced colour control options, to productivity-orientated measures, like the creation of reconfigurable, automatic print gutters to avoid density variations and nozzle clogging and, therefore, the expense of head strikes. Ultimately, we believe that Caldera V9 continues to offer the most comprehensive, feature-heavy option on the print software market today."

Caldera V9 also brings Turkish and Chinese language speakers into the fold, in the latter case by incorporating Pinyin input, with text also rendered anti-aliased for better readability. This increases the number of languages supported by Caldera to 10, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Portuguese and Polish, amongst others.