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Thread

Print Tool Speed

2016-02-10 by richard@...

I was printing an exhibition for someone over the weekend and was printing proofs from photoshop, and then doubling up the final 16x20s on the 44-roll using PrintTool. There was an extreme difference in the time it took between hitting print and the printer starting to spit ink. Even printing one image from both print tool and photoshop shows the same difference in time it takes to start printing. This is a 3.3 6-core MacPro but the files aren't really all that big. Maybe 236MP flattened tiffs (the layered versions are over 2GB and print relatively quickly from Photoshop)

I've watched activity monitor as it is spooling and can't really see what process is taking so long ("cgpdftoraster" maybe?). Can anyone, or Roy, provide details about what is going on or how to speed it up (aside from using smaller files)

Thank you,

Richard Boutwell

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Print Tool Speed

2016-02-10 by forums@walkerblackwell.com

cgpdftoraster is multithreaded but there is some limit there. I’ve only seen it go to 4 or 5 threads and it’s bandwidth is limited. I’ve filed a bug report w/ Apple but no feedback.

It’s a proprietary Apple cups filter basically. Linux has recently migrated to a faster filter and Apple itself uses something else now (Adobe used that) but not sure if that will be all that good w/ PT.

It’s a huge issue with another program I ran at LightWork community lab called PaperCut. Render times are slow. It’s basically the thing that used to delay Photoshop in the 9600 days . . . .

Roy can confirm this, but I think it’s how we get passed 90” print lengths with PrintTool (I’ve been doing up to 150 inches easily)??

basically, cgpdftoraster is old-school CUPs and it’s slow but super stable . . . .

Actually it might be worth it to suck it up and be ok with spool times . . . 

best,
Walker

Show quoted textHide quoted text

> On Feb 9, 2016, at 7:18 PM, richard@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> cgpdftoraster

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Print Tool Speed

2016-02-10 by Roy Harrington

Richard,

It's hard to tell exactly what you are seeing without the details.

But if you are printing 2 images vs 1 a number of things will take twice as long.

The first thing is a PDF file is created by Print-Tool & OSX to send to the print system.

Then the cgpdftoraster has to rasterize the whole page -- data includes all the white borders.

If you connect via USB direct the printing and cgpdftoraster will work simultaneously

but if you use one of the ethernet connections it buffers up the whole thing before

starting the printing. And of course if these intermediates add up to anything close

to your main memory size, things can get much slower due to disk I/O.

----

Walker,

If you have any info about new or replacing cgpdftoraster I'd be interested in any info.

As far as print lengths I think the only place that limits this is the actual print driver so

I doubt Print-Tool has to do with this. The main example for QTR driver is the

3800/3880 where the Epson driver limits to about 37inches and QTR driver allows much longer.

Usually the issue is because of roll paper support in the hardware.

Roy

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On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 6:49 AM, 'forums@...' forums@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

cgpdftoraster is multithreaded but there is some limit there. I’ve only seen it go to 4 or 5 threads and it’s bandwidth is limited. I’ve filed a bug report w/ Apple but no feedback.

It’s a proprietary Apple cups filter basically. Linux has recently migrated to a faster filter and Apple itself uses something else now (Adobe used that) but not sure if that will be all that good w/ PT.

It’s a huge issue with another program I ran at LightWork community lab called PaperCut. Render times are slow. It’s basically the thing that used to delay Photoshop in the 9600 days . . . .

Roy can confirm this, but I think it’s how we get passed 90” print lengths with PrintTool (I’ve been doing up to 150 inches easily)??

basically, cgpdftoraster is old-school CUPs and it’s slow but super stable . . . .

Actually it might be worth it to suck it up and be ok with spool times . . .

best,
Walker

On Feb 9, 2016, at 7:18 PM, richard@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

cgpdftoraster

Roy Harrington
roy@...
www.harrington.com

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Print Tool Speed

2016-02-10 by forums@walkerblackwell.com

I gave up awhile ago trying to hunt this pdftoraster thing down other than to validate that it can be API-called from external apps and that PS/LR don’t anymore. But will try and find my emails with copious notes.

I decided to drink a really good beer instead and then slow my roll. So far the internal time re-calibration seems to work when dealing with large files and slow rasters. ;)

Best,
W

Show quoted textHide quoted text

> On Feb 10, 2016, at 1:00 PM, Roy Harrington roy@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Richard,
> 
> It's hard to tell exactly what you are seeing without the details.
> But if you are printing 2 images vs 1 a number of things will take twice as long.
> The first thing is a PDF file is created by Print-Tool & OSX to send to the print system. 
> Then the cgpdftoraster has to rasterize the whole page -- data includes all the white borders.
> If you connect via USB direct the printing and cgpdftoraster will work simultaneously
> but if you use one of the ethernet connections it buffers up the whole thing before
> starting the printing.  And of course if these intermediates add up to anything close
> to your main memory size, things can get much slower due to disk I/O.
> 
> ----
> 
> Walker,
> 
> If you have any info about new or replacing cgpdftoraster I'd be interested in any info.
> As far as print lengths I think the only place that limits this is the actual print driver so
> I doubt Print-Tool has to do with this.  The main example for QTR driver is the
> 3800/3880 where the Epson driver limits to about 37inches and QTR driver allows much longer. 
> Usually the issue is because of roll paper support in the hardware.
> 
> Roy
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 6:49 AM, 'forums@... <mailto:forums@...>' forums@... <mailto:forums@...>[QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com <mailto:QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>> wrote:
> 
> 
> cgpdftoraster is multithreaded but there is some limit there. I’ve only seen it go to 4 or 5 threads and it’s bandwidth is limited. I’ve filed a bug report w/ Apple but no feedback.
> 
> It’s a proprietary Apple cups filter basically. Linux has recently migrated to a faster filter and Apple itself uses something else now (Adobe used that) but not sure if that will be all that good w/ PT.
> 
> It’s a huge issue with another program I ran at LightWork community lab called PaperCut. Render times are slow. It’s basically the thing that used to delay Photoshop in the 9600 days . . . .
> 
> Roy can confirm this, but I think it’s how we get passed 90” print lengths with PrintTool (I’ve been doing up to 150 inches easily)??
> 
> basically, cgpdftoraster is old-school CUPs and it’s slow but super stable . . . .
> 
> Actually it might be worth it to suck it up and be ok with spool times . . . 
> 
> best,
> Walker
> 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 9, 2016, at 7:18 PM, richard@... <mailto:richard@...> [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com <mailto:QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> cgpdftoraster
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Roy Harrington
> roy@harrington.com <mailto:roy@...>
> www.harrington.com <http://www.harrington.com/>
> 
>

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Print Tool Speed

2016-02-11 by richard@...

Roy and Walker, thanks for the input. I I really don't mind the extra wait in spooling time, especially when I'm billing by the hour. It really isn't THAT long in the scheme of things, but I was billing by the print this weekend...

I made a couple 44"x108" prints last month, and am making 6 more soon so I wanted to see how/if I could speed it up a bit. it was a good long while watching and managing the paper as it inched its way across the floor for 2 1/2 hours. I'll just buy a six pack and put the godfather saga on I guess.

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Print Tool Speed

2016-02-11 by Roy Harrington

That's a really big print -- never done one that big so these are possibilities.

If it's 2.5 hrs of printing with the head moving at full speed, there's only

bi-directional vs uni-directional -- or lower resolution which I'd not likely recommend.

A couple of ideas if it's taking a lot of time to get going.

Convert to grayscale (not RGB), 8-bit file, rotate in PS so it's a giant tall image.

(printing landscape involves a rotate on the fly).

If you have an ICC that should be grayscale too. Print-Tool optimizes all grayscale.

A USB connection I think is the best.

Roy

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On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 9:13 PM, richard@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Roy and Walker, thanks for the input. I I really don't mind the extra wait in spooling time, especially when I'm billing by the hour. It really isn't THAT long in the scheme of things, but I was billing by the print this weekend...

I made a couple 44"x108" prints last month, and am making 6 more soon so I wanted to see how/if I could speed it up a bit. it was a good long while watching and managing the paper as it inched its way across the floor for 2 1/2 hours. I'll just buy a six pack and put the godfather saga on I guess.

RB

Roy Harrington
roy@...
www.harrington.com

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Print Tool Speed

2016-02-12 by richard@...

These were 16-bit flattened grayscale, but I will rotate in photoshop before printing. Thanks for that suggestion. On the 44x108 I had it printing bi-directional, but i will see what the difference in time is when printing 16 bit compared to 8 bit. On a philosophical level I just hate the idea of throwing away bits...

I usually don't print with ICC profiles and print with no color management from PrintTool, and when I am printing from Photoshop I will just leave it as "printer handles color". Next time I print one of these large ones l will compare the difference between printing through photoshop to see if that internal conversion from graygamma 2.2 to sRGB is causing some of the additional spooling time compared to no color management from PrintTool. This is stuff to keep me occupied when these things take so long, but otherwise I'd never worry about it.

Thanks again,

Richard Boutwell

Re: [QuadtoneRIP] Print Tool Speed

2016-02-12 by Roy Harrington

Converting to 8-bit does seem undesirable but it's not nearly as bad as it might seem.

16-bit is very necessary during all the editing phases but at print time it's not critical.

In Photoshop (Use Dither should be on in Color Settings) and in Print-Tool the conversion

of 16 to 8 bits uses dithering based on the bottom 8 bits. So for instance a K=50 in 16-bit

is halfway between 127 and 128 in 8-bit. The 16-to-8 conversion doesn't pick 127 or 128,

instead it will have half 127 and half 128 using a dither pattern. A gray patch will be

indistinguishable. Another way to look at it is the driver will be converting everything to

just 1-bit -- i.e. a drop of ink or not -- so this is just an intermediate step 16->8->1 vs 16->1.

Try it out.

---

I'm guessing you realize that in PS printing you will get CM conversions -- not just time usage

but tonal changes. Actually I think if you Assign Profile sRGB before printing you may avoid

the tonal change in PS -- but you are in RGB then 3 channels instead of 1.

Roy

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On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 6:06 AM, richard@... [QuadtoneRIP] <QuadtoneRIP@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

These were 16-bit flattened grayscale, but I will rotate in photoshop before printing. Thanks for that suggestion. On the 44x108 I had it printing bi-directional, but i will see what the difference in time is when printing 16 bit compared to 8 bit. On a philosophical level I just hate the idea of throwing away bits...

I usually don't print with ICC profiles and print with no color management from PrintTool, and when I am printing from Photoshop I will just leave it as "printer handles color". Next time I print one of these large ones l will compare the difference between printing through photoshop to see if that internal conversion from graygamma 2.2 to sRGB is causing some of the additional spooling time compared to no color management from PrintTool. This is stuff to keep me occupied when these things take so long, but otherwise I'd never worry about it.

Thanks again,
Richard Boutwell

Roy Harrington
roy@...
www.harrington.com

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