CUPS photo printing

[Da Rock]

On Tue, 2008-05-20 at 10:43 -0400, Todd Denniston wrote:
> Da Rock wrote, On 05/19/2008 07:34 PM:
> > I'm just trying to print some photo's which I haven't done since our
> > total changeover to OSS, not something we get time to do on a regular
> > basis anyway, and I'm testing a Samsung 610ND colour laser printer and a
> > Canon MP750 pixma printer.
> > 
> > After some issues with the usb on one laptop (HP - I'd recommend staying
> > clear of), I finally got a couple of samples. I used photo paper one the
> > pixma and high quality colour copy paper in the samsung, and the quality
> > out of the samsung was pretty ordinary (to be expected, it is only a
> > business colour printer) photo wise, but not too bad. When I printed out
> > of the pixma though it was worse! I've seen an bjc3000 print better than
> > that- in fact I haven't seen that quality since the dot matrix days!
> > 
> > Obviously I want to fix this so I can get good quality photos out (and
> > yes, I did try the gutenprint to get this), but I was specifically
> > wondering if anyone knows what the basis for the EFI Fiery filters are?
> > I've worked in the print industry (DOD) as well as the tech support for
> > printers, and I know for a fact that Fiery have released several server
> > types with their software for producing photo quality on laser printers,
> > WINNT, linux, osx. They have also embedded their software on chips. This
> > is why Xerox have specifically used Fiery on the majority of their
> > products for this quality that it gives them, though the cost is higher.
> > 
> > So I'm kinda curious how they do it. They obviously use a more direct
> > connection to the printer itself, but they would use CUPS as the
> > frontend surely?
> > 
> > Besides info on this, I do need to get a good quality photo print out of
> > these printers- why else would we bother with the pixma?
> > 
> > Cheers guys
> > 
> 
> may I suggest you also ask about it at:
> Gimp-print-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gimp-print-devel
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=gimp-print-devel
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=canon+pixma+gimp.print+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fmailarchive%2F&btnG=Search
> 
> I have not been following the cannon development closely of recent, but 
> IIRC[1] what is in the latest (released) gutenprint for the pixmas was reverse 
> engineered, and they are looking for feedback on that list.
> 
> My opinion of which printer to get for pictures, from tracking the 
> gimp-print-devel list, is get an epson (or a newer HP that is supported by 
> hp's driver).
> 
> [1] and I could very well be recalling incorrectly.

No, you are not recalling incorrectly. Epson have been supporting linux
for some time, and canon's foray into this field is fairly recent which
is why I was surprised to find support at all. I might discuss this with
the people at gimp, so thanks for the mailing list info.

BTW are there any XDE or XDNE's out there on this list? Things have
certainly gone a lot further than I had anticipated when I completed
that qualification! But seriously, some discussion on how we could use
the fiery techniques on laser printing particularly would bring OSS into
an even better stance- save thousands as well (instead of buying the EFI
RIP which from my investigations so far seems to be slipping downhill
fast due to lack of support from EFI. I know we can't replace the
connector mind you, but on workgroup level should work) :).