Digital BW, The Print

> Then it could be done from Qimage as well I think which would 
> be a an even better setup.

Yes, any application that can print from windows would do fine.

> Does it handle printer files up to 500 MB ?

I don't think the size of the print matters - I've printed 300-400mb
files from Photoshop to QTR, but it's very slow compared to printing
locally with the Epson driver. This is partly because I'm running my
Linux server inside a virtual PC on my Windows computer, which is much
slower than a real PC.

> So you also have 
> Ghostscript or something else in between for the 
> interpretation of the PS files on the Linux box.

I think all printing with CUPS is handled by Ghostscript regardless of
where the input is coming from or what type of file you're printing, but
I may be wrong.

> It then 
> becomes a long chain, I'm not so keen about that. I guess 
> part of Qimage's better interpolation will not survive that 
> translation either. Isn't there a possibility to throw a raw 
> (tiff) directly from Qimage that the driver can handle ? 
> Print from Qimage to a hot map or something like that. 

You certainly could set up a Perl script or something that continously
checked a folder for incoming files and processed them once they
arrived, that's easy. The question is how do you want them to be
processed?

> Postscript isn't always the best way on colour management either

In this case I think that's uncharted territory. I haven't read about
anyone who specifically tested printing from a color-managed application
in Windows to CUPS on Linux.

Since you mention color management, are you thinking about using this as
a color RIP? or are you talking about quadtone profiling? If you were to
use QTR I would assume you'd want to switch off all color management and
leave that to the QTR curves/profiles?

> Wonder whether my friend can add something to Roy's concept 
> so the whole becomes a bit more "salon faehig". Reading Roy's 
> latest additions it is at its core better than anything else. 
> But Roy's time will be limited.

Agreed, what's needed is usability, ease-of-use and interface
improvements, other than that it's got pretty much everything we want.

--
Daniel Staver
http://daniel.staver.no