measekite <inkystinky@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
>> measekite <inkystinky@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>> Re: Gimp 2.4 and Linux
>>>
>>> Has anybody had any luck with Borderless Printing of Photos?
>>>
>>> If Yes then what printer and print driver are you using?
>>
>> Using an Epson R1800 printer and the Gutenprint drivers.
>>
>Do you get the high resolution that the printer is capable of?
Sure! Errr, maybe... ahhhh, I can't tell!
Actually it's enough to drive a person bonkers.
Sometimes it is possible to get, positively, the super
results that it can do. Other times it isn't, and a lot
of the time it is really hard to tell just exactly what
it is or is not doing.
There is no way to determine positively what the
firmware of the R1800 has done, or not done. For
example, it is impossible to determine Pixels Per Inch.
That is, numbers like 120 PPI, 180 PPI, 240 PPI, 300 PPI
or 360 PPI, all of which the printer is apparently
capable of using. The Dots Per Inch numbers very
definitely can be set, and given that it takes
significantly longer to print with something like
5760x2880 as opposed to 2880x1440, there is little doubt
that the settings are changing the way the print is
produced.
However, using ImageMagick tools, with commands like this:
convert image.ppm -density 300 -resize 2550x3300 image.ps
convert image.ppm -density 120 -resize 1030x1320 image.ps
or doing the same thing with these commands:
convert image.ppm -resize 2550x3300 -page 612x792 image.ps
convert image.ppm -resize 1030x1320 -page 612x792 image.ps
Those should produce PostScript files that print at 300
PPI in the first case and at 120 PPI in the second case,
when sent to the printer do not result in images that
look significantly different! (I haven't done a lot of
experimenting with that, and it is possible that the
particular images that I did it with were odd examples
that did not show the difference.) It appears to me as
if the printer firmware might be deciding to rescale the
image to 300 PPI printing, and doing a very good job of
rescaling too! (I've printed a lot of images at 120
PPI, and there is simply no way that the resulting
quality is anything near a poor as one would expect with
a 120 PPI printer.)
There is another problem. The driver crashes, in at
least two different ways, on some images and not on
others (apparently smaller or less complex images do not
crash). What I do is set the "Color Precision" to
"Best", the resolution to 2880x2880 usually, but
sometimes to 5760x2880 (which takes much longer to
print), and the "Print Quality" to "Best". I try that,
and it usually but not always will crash in the
"rastertoepson" module. If it crashes, I start backing
off on each of the other parameters. I haven't had
anything crash when "Color Precision" is "Normal",
"Print Quality" is "Photo", and "Resolution is
2880x1440".
But, for example, I have no idea what the real
differences are in various "Print Quality" options.
These are the options (for photographs):
Photo
Super Photo
Ultra Photo
Best
One thing I have noticed is that setting almost anything
to "Automatic" results in obviously degraded quality
compared to what I get when setting specific parameters!
The Epson R1800 may or may not feed non-Epson papers well.
I've had no problem with Epson paper, and have fits with
almost any non-Epson paper I've tried.
Of course using non-Espon ink is insane.
--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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