March 27, 2008 - Hamillroad Software, a world leader in pre-press products for Harlequin RIPs, is pleased to announce the release of Lightning TIFF. Lightning TIFF is a high performance TIFF output plug-in for the Harlequin RIP that is designed to replace the standard TIFF plug-in. As well as providing a significant number of additional features, its main benefit is its lightning fast performance; users should see anything from a 2 - 4x overall improvement in performance and throughput when it is used, depending on output mode, compression mode, resolution, screening, job content and platform.

The high performance that the Lightning TIFF output plug-in achieves is obtained through a unique method for implementing CCITT compression, along with a significant number of code optimisation techniques that have been applied to all the various compression modes. In addition, Hamillroad engineers have built in the use of advanced multi-threading software techniques, which when used with the latest multi-core CPUs, such as the Intel Core [2] Duo, provide a near linear additional increase in performance.

The results of this are the creation of TIFF files at lightning fast speeds, allowing for both greatly increased throughput (less idle image setter or CtP devices) and faster last minute production of time critical plates.
For further details, please see our web site at: http://www.hamillroad.com/main/products/lightningtiff.htm.

 "The Harlequin RIP has always been one of the fastest RIPs around" comments Andy Cave, Hamillroad Software's CEO, "building it's reputation on high-performance processing of PostScript and PDF files. With the release of Lightning TIFF, we're pleased to be able to significantly increase that and offer Harlequin RIP users producing TIFF files unprecedented levels of performance. For companies with fast performance requirements, such as newspapers or large format devices, the benefits of Lightning TIFF should be significant in terms of saving time and meeting deadlines".

Available immediately at a special introductory price of £295, Lightning TIFF provides a significant and welcome speed boost for any Harlequin RIP version 5, 6, 7 or 8.