Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel 
Staver" <daniel@p...> wrote:
> > > Actually 1.1 works fine for this as well. I've had god results 
with
> > > that
> > > version, the only problem is speed. I can make 20 prints 
> > with the Epson
> > > driver in the time it takes QuadToneRIP to do one print. 
That's not
> > > specifically a problem with QTR though, but Gimp-Print in 
general.
> > 
> >  From what I understand from Roy, you need version 2 to get 
away from 
> > Epson's partitioning.
> 
> No, 1.1 also partitions the inks any way you want them, but two 
inks at
> a time. That is, you have one curve for black+light black, 
another for
> cyan + light cyan, a last one for magenta + light magenta (and 
also
> yellow of course). Since gimp-print allows you to print with 
either 4, 6
> or 7 inks with the 2100 you can effectively get rid of the 
additional
> inks and reduce the printer to a 4 or 6 color printer. Sometimes 
that
> makes the profiling easier.

In a sense, you're both right.  With 1.1 black & light-black are
tied together -- and I think it does well in the transition from
a density point of view.  But the color change from light to
dark is somewhat abrupt.  This make the toning curve more
difficult to design but it should be possible.  With 2.0 you
can control the transition better and the toning curve is very
simple.

> 
> > Also, not sure it is a gimp-print problem...because I think 
> > that's more 
> > or less what the OPM driver is based on...and the prints sail 
out of 
> > the 2200 with OPM.

The speed issue is really surprising since they both use the
same underlying gimp-print code.  There are a lot of options
that can be selected so I suspect it's a matter of trying
different ones.   With my 7500 I get what seems to me to be
decent speed -- about 12 min for a full size 16x20.

> 
> I'm running my printer from windows, shared over tcp/ip to a 
virtual
> linux machine on the same windows computer, and then 
shared back again
> to windows with adobe postscript - a fairly complicated setup. 
There
> might be some significant implications for printing speed in 
that setup.
> The advantage is that I can print directly from Photoshop in 
windows to
> QTR and keep the printer connected to my windows machine 
for printing
> with the Epson driver. If I connected the printer to linux VMware 
would
> take over the USB port and I wouldn't be able to print with the 
Epson
> driver anymore.

This sounds pretty cool.  One of the reasons I took my
approach for QuadToneRIP is that using the standard
printer workflow opens up lots of never even thought about
possibilities. As some point maybe it'll be worth
documenting it for others.

Roy

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