HighWater Products is proud to announce the release of Cascade RIP v9, based on Harlequin Server RIP v9.0. This is the latest major upgrade of our multi award winning RIP solution with outstanding price performance benefits for all users. Read on to discover the benefits of upgrading to Cascade RIP v9 for existing Torrent and Cascade RIP users.

What's new in Cascade Harlequin RIP v9.0?

Improved Colour Accuracy and FOGRA certification

Cascade RIP v9.0 brings significant colour improvements for proofing, CtP plate production and digital press output with new and improved ColorPro^TM ICC colour management system. Harlequin Server RIP v9.0 reduces colour errors for any given printer, ink, media, screening and resolution combination and optimises use of the printer's colour gamut. As a result Harlequin RIP v9.0 has been formally certified by FOGRA for Epson 7890 colour proofing against seven different popular print characterisations suitable for both European and North American commercial and news print standards.

Pantone Plus

Cascade Harlequin RIP v9.0 fully supports the new Pantone Plus library ensuring the Pantone colours are represented as accurately as possible when converting to CMYK process colours.

Increased Performance for PDF Files with Live Transparency

The Harlequin RIP has rendered live transparency in PDF files since 2002, ensuring compatibility with the widest range of files possible. But this has always carried a heavy processing overhead slowing down the interpretation of pages with transparency effects as they are rendered into output bitmaps.

Building on previous improvements in Cascade Harlequin RIP v8, v9.0 significantly accelerates the processing of these transparent pages. This is especially important as the use of live transparency is steadily increasing in the market. With today's design application it's quite common that a designer will use transparency effects without even realising it, for example by applying a drop shadow.

New Platform Support

Harlequin RIP v9.0 now officially supports Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 and Windows 7.

Roaming Negative Pages

The Cascade Harlequin RIP has always provided separation preview on screen, either individually, or re-combined for a composite preview. While this composite view has always worked well for positive RIPed pages, those processed negative for negative film output, or negative working CTP plates have been much harder to preview in this way.

Now Cascade RIP v9.0 makes inspection of pages rendered negative faster, easier and less error prone by allowing the operator to view them in positive mode, as shown below.

Extended PDF/X Support

New in Cascade Harlequin RIP v9.0 we extend support to the latest PDF/X standards. The RIP will honour and apply colour management and overprint control as required by PDF/X-4p:2008; PDF/X-4:2-1-; PDF/X-4p:2010; PDF/X-5g and PDF/X5-pg. It can also be configured to reject jobs which do not conform to a specific standard or collections of standards including these latest additions.

Extended Try Before You Buy

Now as well as the ability of previous version of the Cascade Harlequin RIP to trial options such as TrapPro in-RIP trapping, HDS stochastic screening, ColorPro colour management and more, v9.0 adds the ability to use your existing HighWater Cascade or Torrent RIP dongle for an earlier version to trial Cascade RIP v9.0 for a limited period at no cost.

For further information on the benefits or to order your copy of Cascade Harlequin RIP v9.0 please contact HighWater Sales