Horrible print quality

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Promise TX4000 SATA controller &...

Carlos E. R.

1 Jul 2004 1 Jul '04

11:24

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, Using CUPs, the test print page comes out with very good text, but the photo is printed in horrible quality, like a posterized filter with few colours. This is SuSE 9.1, but same thing happened on 8.2 and 8.1, but not on 7.3 or 7.1 - all tests on the same machine, and all except 9.1 on the same day. That is, this is a persistent problem with CUPS. For comparison, windows prints perfect quality. This was already reported to "feedback" time ago, no comments given. I could scan and email the print page, I suppose - my bandwidth is very limited, but if somebody can solve this, I would gladly email it (or even snail-mail it). Details (hand copied from the test page): Model: Canon BJC-4000 PPD file: Canon BJC-4000 Foomatic/bjc600 Options: (the ones that seems to work best) Color Mode: Colour Colour Model: Four-Color CMYK GS. Bits per pixel: CMYK with FS dithering (24 bpp) Media Type: Plain paper Page Size: A4 Print Quality: High Quality Resolution: 360 DPI Sheet Feeder. Automatic Colours to be used: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black Before anybody tells me to use the gimp-print driver, I did. It prints much slower (2 or 3 minutes per page, perhaps), and the quality is not good enough, just passable, for personal use. Text comes out worse, greyish. Photo is usable, but grainy and low in ink (ink is probably adjustable) - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFA4/RytTMYHG2NR9URAjl9AJsFYqQwlF1rEUDxbaJ/KZTuhNptswCfQLfS 8Zxia3CsbshvQ7dkL6XZp5U= =9P7W -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Marshall Heartley

1 Jul 1 Jul

13:12

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

On Thursday 01 July 2004 07:24 am, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Hi,

Hello

...

Using CUPs, the test print page comes out with very good text, but the photo is printed in horrible quality, like a posterized filter with few colours. This is SuSE 9.1, but same thing happened on 8.2 and 8.1, but not on 7.3 or 7.1 - all tests on the same machine, and all except 9.1 on the same day. That is, this is a persistent problem with CUPS. For comparison, windows prints perfect quality. This was already reported to "feedback" time ago, no comments given.

I could scan and email the print page, I suppose - my bandwidth is very limited, but if somebody can solve this, I would gladly email it (or even snail-mail it).

Well I am not sure how to solve this. Does the gs version of the file look OK when you tell the system to print to a file? If so, then it is something wrong with the way the inks are being mixed for that printer. Some but not all of CUPS drivers allow for you to adjust how much ink hits the paper. This may be available in the web-based interface of CUPS. I know that this is a commercial offering but have you tried the demo version of Turbo Print? I think that it supports your printer. Maybe it is worth a look? Marshall

Graham Smith

23:26

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 21:24, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Hi,

Using CUPs, the test print page comes out with very good text, but the photo is printed in horrible quality, like a posterized filter with few colours. This is SuSE 9.1, but same thing happened on 8.2 and 8.1, but not on 7.3 or 7.1 - all tests on the same machine, and all except 9.1 on the same day. That is, this is a persistent problem with CUPS. For comparison, windows prints perfect quality. This was already reported to "feedback" time ago, no comments given.

I could scan and email the print page, I suppose - my bandwidth is very limited, but if somebody can solve this, I would gladly email it (or even snail-mail it).

Details (hand copied from the test page):

Model: Canon BJC-4000 PPD file: Canon BJC-4000 Foomatic/bjc600 Options: (the ones that seems to work best) Color Mode: Colour Colour Model: Four-Color CMYK GS. Bits per pixel: CMYK with FS dithering (24 bpp) Media Type: Plain paper Page Size: A4 Print Quality: High Quality Resolution: 360 DPI Sheet Feeder. Automatic Colours to be used: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black

Before anybody tells me to use the gimp-print driver, I did. It prints much slower (2 or 3 minutes per page, perhaps), and the quality is not good enough, just passable, for personal use. Text comes out worse, greyish. Photo is usable, but grainy and low in ink (ink is probably adjustable)

The first bit of advice I would give is not to buy Canon. The company does not support open source, therefore you are relying on someone reverse engineering the window drivers. That said have you looked at http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Canon-BJC-4000 Maybe your best bet is to try out TurboPrint http://www.irseesoft.de/linux/english.html -- Regards, Graham Smith ---------------------------------------------------------

Carlos E. R.

2 Jul 2 Jul

00:06

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

The Thursday 2004-07-01 at 09:12 -0400, Marshall Heartley wrote:

...

Well I am not sure how to solve this. Does the gs version of the file look OK when you tell the system to print to a file?

I haven't tried with the test page from cups, but I have tried from OpenOffice and other apps, printing to a postscript file. Perfect. Then I print the ps file, and the photo parts are horrible. Mind, only the photos! Text is perfect, and the SuSE logo and the circular colour graphs (100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5% 6.25%) are perfect.

...

If so, then it is something wrong with the way the inks are being mixed for that printer. Some but not all of CUPS drivers allow for you to adjust how much ink hits the paper. This may be available in the web-based interface of CUPS.

No, no, that's not the effect I see. How can I explain... it is as if the driver is using 2 bits per colour. The gecko animal on the photo at the right is just a few blotches of the same green colour, and some yellows. It is similar to using the posterize filter in gimp. I would post it on "my" web page, which I have just activated somewhere in tiscali, but... I don't know where it is! They damm well hide that information! I have no idea of where have they placed it, there is no documentation whatsoever that mentions things like the address of the ftp server or the web server :-/

...

I know that this is a commercial offering but have you tried the demo version of Turbo Print? I think that it supports your printer. Maybe it is worth a look?

Mmm.... what I do, usually, is print to ps, and switch to windows. Or use OO there. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Carlos E. R.

00:32

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

The Friday 2004-07-02 at 09:26 +1000, Graham Smith wrote:

...

The first bit of advice I would give is not to buy Canon. The company does not support open source, therefore you are relying on someone reverse engineering the window drivers.

True, I concur with that; but: 1) I bought it in 1995, before I started with Linux. This printer worked in plain Dos. It is similar (compatible) to current models of the same series (4300 etc), and I do have some programming information for it published years ago. 2) Before CUPS, it worked much better (SuSE 7.3). 3) The gimp-print driver prints much better than the foomatic. 4) This is a bug, has nothing to do on knowing how to send info to the printer. It has to do with the internal rendering, previous to sending, a big error somewhere. 5) Only photos are printed wrong, text and other images (not dithered) are ok. Very good, in fact. You really would have to see the page to see what I mean as "horrible".

...

That said have you looked at http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Canon-BJC-4000

I think I did many months ago. But the info seemed to me so complicated (to build cups and all from scratch) that I fleed in haste. I'll have another look...

...

Maybe your best bet is to try out TurboPrint http://www.irseesoft.de/linux/english.html

Ugh. :-? -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Graham Smith

01:30

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

...

1) I bought it in 1995, before I started with Linux. This printer worked in plain Dos. It is similar (compatible) to current models of the same series (4300 etc), and I do have some programming information for it published years ago.

2) Before CUPS, it worked much better (SuSE 7.3).

3) The gimp-print driver prints much better than the foomatic. What may-be a solution is to setup two printer queues, one for plain text and

On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 10:32, Carlos E. R. wrote: the other for photos, using the different drivers.

...

4) This is a bug, has nothing to do on knowing how to send info to the printer. It has to do with the internal rendering, previous to sending, a big error somewhere.

5) Only photos are printed wrong, text and other images (not dithered) are ok. Very good, in fact.

You really would have to see the page to see what I mean as "horrible".

...
That said have you looked at http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Canon-BJC-4000

I think I did many months ago. But the info seemed to me so complicated (to build cups and all from scratch) that I fleed in haste.

I'll have another look...

Also have a look at the Canon Forum on linuxprinting.org and see if there are any solutions posted regarding your problem. http://www.linuxprinting.org/forums.cgi?group=linuxprinting.canon.general

...

...
Maybe your best bet is to try out TurboPrint http://www.irseesoft.de/linux/english.html

Ugh.

:-?

At least have a look at this site. Although commercial, the price is not that high, given the results I have seen using these drivers. -- Regards, Graham Smith ---------------------------------------------------------

Patrick Shanahan

01:38

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

* Carlos E. R. [07-01-04 19:56]:

...

The Friday 2004-07-02 at 09:26 +1000, Graham Smith wrote:

...
That said have you looked at http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Canon-BJC-4000

I think I did many months ago. But the info seemed to me so complicated (to build cups and all from scratch) that I fleed in haste.

I'll have another look...

Rebuilding cups is not necessary. Redefine your printer to use the ppd file from linuxprinting. What ppd file are you presently using with gimp-print? I do not see a gimp-print ppd file for the bjc4000. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/photos

Michael Nelson

01:38

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Friday 2004-07-02 at 09:26 +1000, Graham Smith wrote:

...
Maybe your best bet is to try out TurboPrint http://www.irseesoft.de/linux/english.html

Ugh.

I've been using TurboPrint for a couple years with first a Canon S800, now with a Canon S900. It works great, it's regularly updated, and prints MUCH faster than the gimp-print or foomatic drivers, and with much better quality. As good quality as the native Windows drivers from Canon. -- Visit my Street SuperMoto Info site: http://home.comcast.net/~michaelnel

Carlos E. R.

01:49

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

The Friday 2004-07-02 at 11:30 +1000, Graham Smith wrote:

...

...
3) The gimp-print driver prints much better than the foomatic. What may-be a solution is to setup two printer queues, one for plain text and the other for photos, using the different drivers.

I do that, of course :-) I have to queues: 'lp' and 'lpg' - the lpg one uses the gimp driver. In fact, some times I have half a dozen, like BW, draft, whatever. The draft queue was automatically defined on the old SuSE 7.3 and older print systems (lp-draft, etc), but not now in CUPS.

...

...
I'll have another look...

Also have a look at the Canon Forum on linuxprinting.org and see if there are any solutions posted regarding your problem. http://www.linuxprinting.org/forums.cgi?group=linuxprinting.canon.general

Ok, I will. :-)

...

...
...
Maybe your best bet is to try out TurboPrint http://www.irseesoft.de/linux/english.html

Ugh.

:-?

At least have a look at this site. Although commercial, the price is not that high, given the results I have seen using these drivers.

Ok, ok, I'll have a peep :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Johannes Meixner

07:08

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

Hello, I didn't follow the whole thread in detail. On Jul 2 02:32 Carlos E. R. wrote (shortened):

...

5) Only photos are printed wrong, text and other images (not dithered) are ok. Very good, in fact.

If you use the GimPrint driver isn't there an option to choose the dithering algorithm (see "lpoptions -p <queue> -l")? At least the PPDs /usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz /usr/share/cups/model/stp/bjc-4300.ppd.gz /usr/share/cups/model/stp/bjc-4400.ppd.gz have something like: --------------------------------------------------------------- *OpenUI *Dither/Dither Algorithm: PickOne ... *Dither Adaptive/Adaptive Hybrid: ... *Dither EvenTone/EvenTone: ... *Dither Fast/Fast: ... *Dither Floyd/Hybrid Floyd-Steinberg: ... *Dither Ordered/Ordered: ... *Dither VeryFast/Very Fast: ... *CloseUI: *Dither --------------------------------------------------------------- Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE LINUX AG, Maxfeldstrasse 5 Mail: jsmeix@suse.de 90409 Nuernberg, Germany WWW: http://www.suse.de/

Fred Miller

07:48

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

On Friday July 2 2004 3:08 am, Johannes Meixner wrote:

...

Hello,

I didn't follow the whole thread in detail.

On Jul 2 02:32 Carlos E. R. wrote (shortened):

...
5) Only photos are printed wrong, text and other images (not dithered) are ok. Very good, in fact.

If you use the GimPrint driver isn't there an option to choose the dithering algorithm (see "lpoptions -p <queue> -l")?

At least the PPDs /usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz /usr/share/cups/model/stp/bjc-4300.ppd.gz /usr/share/cups/model/stp/bjc-4400.ppd.gz have something like:

He also needs to choose the cups/Gimprint combo, NOT Foomatic for that printer. Fred -- "Ballmer is no more designed for the art of persuasion than the Abrams tank is for delivering meals on wheels."

Catimimi

09:51

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

...

-----Message d'origine----- De : Carlos E. R. [mailto:robin1.listas@tiscali.es] Envoye : vendredi 2 juillet 2004 03:49 A : suse-linux-e@suse.com Objet : Re: [SLE] Horrible print quality

The Friday 2004-07-02 at 11:30 +1000, Graham Smith wrote:

...
...
3) The gimp-print driver prints much better than the foomatic. What may-be a solution is to setup two printer queues, one for plain text and the other for photos, using the different drivers.

I do that, of course :-)

I have to queues: 'lp' and 'lpg' - the lpg one uses the gimp driver. In fact, some times I have half a dozen, like BW, draft, whatever. The draft queue was automatically defined on the old SuSE 7.3 and older print systems (lp-draft, etc), but not now in CUPS.

...
...
I'll have another look...

Also have a look at the Canon Forum on linuxprinting.org and see if there are any solutions posted regarding your problem.

http://www.linuxprinting.org/forums.cgi?group=linuxprinting.canon.general

Ok, I will. :-)

...
...
...
Maybe your best bet is to try out TurboPrint http://www.irseesoft.de/linux/english.html

Ugh.

:-?

At least have a look at this site. Although commercial, the

price is not that

...
high, given the results I have seen using these drivers.

Ok, ok, I'll have a peep :-)

I'd the same problem with three Canon printers, I solved it with the printing filter configuration, try to set : Cyan level -> 2 Magenta level -> 2 Yellow level -> 2 Density -> 2 Printout Mode -> High Quality Quality -> 600x600 DPI It works very well at me. Michel.

...

-- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Carlos E. R.

10:55

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2004-07-02 at 09:08 +0200, Johannes Meixner wrote:

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I didn't follow the whole thread in detail.

Then I'll write a brief explanation: the photos printed when using the recommended "driver", the "Canon BJC-4000 Foomatic/bjc600 (recommended)" (/usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-bjc600.ppd.gz) yields perfect text and some graphics, but the photographs (for example, the one on the cups test page) are horrible. It can be explained as a 16 colours or less posterize in gimp. This has been occurring since I switched to CUPS with 8.1. Text is perfect, some graphics are perfect (non dithered ones, I guess), printing is pretty fast, but photographs come out horrible. I also got an off-list email from user86, with a scanned page printed with a Canon S600 (S600-bj8pa06n.upp.ppd.gz) and the result is very similar to what I get. Er... allow me, I'll send to you just the photo part of the test page (the rest of the page is perfect), scanned at 400 dpi (printer is 360 dpi) as a 195Kb PrintTest_20040701.jpg file. I think you need to see for your self what the problem is, and I suppose you know about printing internals far better than me :-) (unfortunately, I'm unable to post that to "my" tiscali web page)

...

On Jul 2 02:32 Carlos E. R. wrote (shortened):

...
5) Only photos are printed wrong, text and other images (not dithered) are ok. Very good, in fact.

If you use the GimPrint driver isn't there an option to choose the dithering algorithm (see "lpoptions -p <queue> -l")?

Yes, I have played a bit with that using the cups configuration web page. The gimp-print gets acceptable output - very slow, though. I'll play again with that.

...

At least the PPDs /usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz

Yes, that's the one I have to use. But for quality printing, I have to go to windows, print to a file, and then go back to Linux and print raw that file. I'll try again playing with inks densities and dithering algorithms. Thank you for your interest :-) - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFA5T8ntTMYHG2NR9URAsc1AKCNPzcoOF1a64gkHh2JTNpbtBCChgCfRaCW DO8U9+VS/u+zAkzd/i8Unj0= =r+Lh -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Carlos E. R.

11:06

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

The Thursday 2004-07-01 at 20:38 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

...
I'll have another look...

Rebuilding cups is not necessary. Redefine your printer to use the ppd file from linuxprinting. What ppd file are you presently using with gimp-print? I do not see a gimp-print ppd file for the bjc4000.

The "Canon BJC-4000 Foomatic/bjc600 (recommended)" printer uses the /usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-bjc600.ppd.gz file. The gimp-print is "/usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz" -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

Fred Miller

19:12

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

On Friday July 2 2004 7:06 am, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Thursday 2004-07-01 at 20:38 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...
...
I'll have another look...

Rebuilding cups is not necessary. Redefine your printer to use the ppd file from linuxprinting. What ppd file are you presently using with gimp-print? I do not see a gimp-print ppd file for the bjc4000.

The "Canon BJC-4000 Foomatic/bjc600 (recommended)" printer uses the /usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-bjc600.ppd.gz file. The gimp-print is "/usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz"

Once again, try to CUPS/Gimprint combo. and NOT Foomatic/Gimprint. Fred -- "Ballmer is no more designed for the art of persuasion than the Abrams tank is for delivering meals on wheels."

Carlos E. R.

5 Jul 5 Jul

20:24

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2004-07-02 at 15:12 -0400, Fred Miller wrote:

...

...
The "Canon BJC-4000 Foomatic/bjc600 (recommended)" printer uses the /usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-bjc600.ppd.gz file. The gimp-print is "/usr/share/cups/model/Canon/BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz"

Once again, try to CUPS/Gimprint combo. and NOT Foomatic/Gimprint.

Please, explain. Do you mean the BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz or another one? The pppd files available as Canon, in "/usr/share/cups/model/Canon/" are: BJC-4000-bjc600.ppd.gz BJC-4000-gimp-print-ijs.ppd.gz BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz Those are the only ones ofered by Yast. The first one is the "recomended" one, that works well and reasonably fast, except on photos, that are simply horrible. The other two work well, but very slow, like seven minutes per A4 page. Johannes M. thinks it could be a "broken dithering algorithm". I think I agree. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFA6bkItTMYHG2NR9URAiIBAJ0SxnrcGsxYzE06qJwOeuJVYWbtRgCfbBkX IHnxWu6WwKTCMO8PmHEvWGc= =srOo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Patrick Shanahan

6 Jul 6 Jul

03:01

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

* Carlos E. R. [07-05-04 15:25]:

...

Please, explain. Do you mean the BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz or another one?

The pppd files available as Canon, in "/usr/share/cups/model/Canon/" are:

BJC-4000-bjc600.ppd.gz BJC-4000-gimp-print-ijs.ppd.gz BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz

/usr/share/cups/model/gimp-print/4.3/en/ ||| your version may be different but there are *no* bjc-4000 ppd files. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/photos

Carlos E. R.

14:11

New subject: [SLE] Horrible print quality

The Monday 2004-07-05 at 22:01 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Carlos E. R. [07-05-04 15:25]:

...
Please, explain. Do you mean the BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz or another one?

The pppd files available as Canon, in "/usr/share/cups/model/Canon/" are:

BJC-4000-bjc600.ppd.gz BJC-4000-gimp-print-ijs.ppd.gz BJC-4000-gimp-print.ppd.gz

/usr/share/cups/model/gimp-print/4.3/en/ ||| your version may be different

but there are *no* bjc-4000 ppd files.

cer@nimrodel:~> ls /usr/share/cups/model/gimp-print/ /bin/ls: /usr/share/cups/model/gimp-print/: No such file or directory And "pin" doesn't find the directory either. That explains my problem understanding what I was being told O:-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson

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participants (8)

Carlos E. R.
Catimimi
Fred Miller
Graham Smith
Johannes Meixner
Marshall Heartley
Michael Nelson
Patrick Shanahan