Printing Grey Scale Images in 4.1.1
David N. Goodchild
scale photographs from 4.1.1. Imagine my astonishment then when the
other day I printed the proof copies of two books and the grey scale
images were absolutely superb; high-resolution, no dot pattern visible
and all the greys in place. The next day however, when I went to repeat
the task the images were back to their old muddy pattern with a very
visible dot pattern. What did I do to get the good reproduction and how
can I do it again? The images are the same the publication is the same
the printer is the same. A puzzlement? Any ideas anyone?
David N. Goodchild
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Eric Weber [C_TECH]
given image (see 9-38 through 9-42 in the V4.1.1 manual) and how you have it set
for your printer driver -- as well as whether the driver is PS or non-PS.
-- Eric
[C_TECH Volunteer]
Alex Gray [C_Tech]
> scale photographs from 4.1.1. Imagine my astonishment then when the
> other day I printed the proof copies of two books and the grey scale
> images were absolutely superb; high-resolution, no dot pattern visible
> and all the greys in place. The next day however, when I went to repeat
> the task the images were back to their old muddy pattern with a very
> visible dot pattern. What did I do to get the good reproduction and how
> can I do it again? The images are the same the publication is the same
> the printer is the same. A puzzlement? Any ideas anyone?
> David N. Goodchild
4.1.1 can produce just as superb and sharp images as any version up to and
including the current v8.
Assuming you hadn't in the meantime played with the screening settings
applied to the pictures in Ventura, the most likely answer for the change is
that you used a different printer driver, or had altered the resolution
settings in the driver.
You don't say what printer you are using, but pretty well all have options
in the driver to control the resolution for graphics, and if you have left
the screening settings in Ventura at default, then the printer driver will
be in control.
Alex Gray [C_Tech]
Corel User magazine
www.coreluser.com
David N. Goodchild
Thank's for your help. I have never played with the settings for the
screening because as far as I could tell they had absolutely no effect
on the output. After I saw this good resolution (like you say as good as
V.8) and posted the problem here, I did play with the settings, again
without any success. No change to these produces any visible change in
the output. The printer on this machine is an HP 820Cse and changing the
resolution on this printer also had no effect. The one time the output
was good it equalled V.8. All other times the output is course with a
very visible dot pattern. I don't have a lot of books with photographs
due to their age but this one did and that's why the problem came to the
forefront. I would like to be able to use the 4.1.1 machines in addition
to the V.8 machine for these books but cannot with the poor resolution.
I am at a loss!
Regards,
Peter Bennett
done by the printer? HP 800 series colour printers have two possible halftone
settings, pattern (which is really halftone) and scatter (which is really
stochastic). Selecting scatter yields a photo-like print, selecting pattern
yields a print that usually shows a visible dot pattern.
The setting is buried in the printer settings dialog. Select Manual, then
Options. Hope this helps.
In article <38FC417B...@philly.infi.net>, bbla...@philly.infi.net
wrote:
>Alex:
>
>Thank's for your help. I have never played with the settings for the
>screening because as far as I could tell they had absolutely no effect
>on the output. After I saw this good resolution (like you say as good as
>V.8) and posted the problem here, I did play with the settings, again
>without any success. No change to these produces any visible change in
>the output. The printer on this machine is an HP 820Cse and changing the
>resolution on this printer also had no effect. The one time the output
>was good it equalled V.8. All other times the output is course with a
>very visible dot pattern. I don't have a lot of books with photographs
>due to their age but this one did and that's why the problem came to the
>forefront. I would like to be able to use the 4.1.1 machines in addition
>to the V.8 machine for these books but cannot with the poor resolution.
>I am at a loss!
>
>Regards,
>
>David N. Goodchild
>
Peter Bennett MVS Solutions, Inc.
pben...@mvssol.com http://www.mvssol.com
David N. Goodchild
Thank's for your help. I didn't know about this and as far as I know I
didn't change anything. I knew only of the "draft", "normal" and "best"
settings for the printer. They didn't do anything either when I
experimented with them. I have for years thought that 4.1.1. could not
do very good photographic images. Now I find that it can and this would
mean a very great deal to me now. It did it once on two different books,
so I know it can do it as everyone tells me. Now, if I could just get
back there. That machine is printing right now (no photos) and as soon
as it is finished I will look for these other settings that you
mentioned. I'll report back, and thank's again for your help.
Cheers,
David N. Goodchild
I tried your fix and the printer option was already set to scatter. No
problem there. Here is a little more background.
4.1.1. is running on five machines and v8 is running on one machine.
Four of the five machines are 486's running Win 3.1 and one is a
Pentium II running Win95. All exhibit the same poor grey scale
reproduction even the Win95 machine. I also have 4.2 from Corel and that
also exhibits the same poor grey scale reproduction. I was playing
around with 4.2 to see if that offered anything different from 4.1.1 at
the time of the great reproduction event but when I went back to it the
same poor reproduction was present and I don't think I was using it at
the time anyway.. The printers involved are 3 820Cse's and one 1000C.
All printers can reproduce fine .jpg's in both color and black and white
with perfect grey scale reproduction; just as I got from 4.1.1 on that
ONE occasion. I am convinced that there is some setting in 4.1.1 that I
don't know about that is causing this problem. But, if it could do it
once it can do it again and you have all assured me that 4.1.1 can
reproduce good greyscale. I just can't make it do it! Can anyone step me
through what I might do to solve this problem. It would mean a lot to me
since I could keep my 4.1.1 machines running a little longer without the
trouble and expense of converting to Win95 and V8 on all machines.
Please?
Regards,
Eric Weber [C_TECH]
I still think this is probably an an issue of the halftone line screen you have
set for any given image (see 9-38 through 9-42 in the V4.1.1 manual) and how you
have it set for your printer driver. Since it sounds like you have a non-PS
printer, try setting your printer driver to a fine screen pattern rather than
scatter.
-- Eric
[C_TECH Volunteer]
David N. Goodchild
Thank's for your help as always!
That's what I thought too. The examples of the images on p. 9-42 of the
manual are exactly what I am seeing. Figure 9-22 is what I always get
and Figure 9-23 is what I got the one time the system output really good
grey-scale images. However, when I try to adjust this it is not enabled
and there is a message at the top which says that there is "No Gray
Scale Info." I thought that this might be because I use .img files and
the manual says this works only with .tif files, but when I changed a
sample image to .tif there was no change in the option. Still not
enabled, still "No Gray Scale Info."
As to the printers, I have tried going from "Normal" to "Best" and again
no change. The printer is not going to reproduce anything better than it
receives and the evidence is that it is 4.1.1 that is sending the poor
quality images.
Eric Weber [C_TECH]
Based on what you have said so far I suspect that the problem here has to do
with the image itself. You say that the Image settings are not available. THat
makes me suspect that the images you have are not actually grayscale. Rather
they are B&W halftoned. This means that the image was actually stored as B&W
with the halftone as part of the image -- therefore, no amount of program or
printer adjustment can change the image.
You can verify this by opening the image in Photo-Paint or some other program
and see what the mode is.
I can send you a sample grayscale image (TIF) to test if you want me to. Keep in
mind that the image settings will not have any effect when printing to a non-PS
printer. The printer driver settings will completely control the quality of
output.
-- Eric
[C_TECH Volunteer]
David N. Goodchild
What you say makes eminent sense and logic, except that I have tried it with .tifs as well with the same result. The photos are scanned with paint-shop pro and then saved to .img format so that Ventura doesn't have to convert everything itself and leave the other files hanging about. I could see that there might be a problem if they were not grey-scaled but the whole thing hinges on the fact that the program printed these two proof copies of books with excellent grey scale images; as good s v.8. But it only did it this one time. Now I'm back to mediocre again. My view is that if it can do it once it can do it again; the only problem is how.
Eric Weber [C_TECH]
<bbla...@philly.infi.net> wrote:
>
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>Eric:
>
>What you say makes eminent sense and logic, except that I have tried it
>with .tifs as well with the same result.
TIFs can be B&W, or grayscale, or RGB, or CMYK, so just the fact that it is a
TIF is unimportant. In fact, you can save a B&W TIF as a grayscale or RGB and
you won't get any better results than if it were B&W. You need to examine the
pixels to ensure that there is actually some gray there.
>I could see that there might be a problem if they were not
>grey-scaled but the whole thing hinges on the fact that the program
>printed these two proof copies of books with excellent grey scale
>images; as good s v.8. But it only did it this one time. Now I'm back to
>mediocre again. My view is that if it can do it once it can do it again;
>the only problem is how.
That much I would agree with, but I am totally puzzled as to why it would print
better only once. We've already explored all the variables I know of, so unless
you want to play around a bit with your bitmap files, I'm not sure there's much
more help I can offer. If you want, I can send you a small TIF for testing that
I know is grayscale.
-- Eric
[C_TECH Volunteer]
David N. Goodchild
You think you're puzzled!?!
I would appreciate the .tif to try it out. Send it at your convenience.