CompuServe Messages

Charles, there are two DJ500-color drivers now available. One is by Robert Shimbo and is available here on CIS. Still in the beta stages, but very usable. He did a fine thing for the HP500-C users in the world by getting that out there fast! But, Commodore released an 'unofficial' HP500-C driver, which was uploaded here a few days ago. I downloaded it, and it looks very good. It takes advantages of the 500C's ability to use 'shingle' and 'depletion', both of which can substantially improve color print quality. In effect they can make your color's 'truer', and remove the excessive ink that is often applied. Both of these factors are variable, and the Commodore driver allows you to set them individually (via the Threshold and Density settings of the printer driver). I doubt if we'll see a 'better' driver any time soon. The images are coming out pretty good to my eyes! I find PJ paper to give the 'best' look, closely followed by high quality SMOOTH heavy bond. Re 24bit printing. The 500C doesn't support it in particular. It is capable of printing a few colors, and the program/driver must send the correct dither data to get the right colors. I've used the new ADPro 2.0 PrefPrinter Saver with it, printing the same image both in its 24bit version and in an Amiga res image, and there's no doubt that the 24bit original looks better. Let's face it, it's not the same as having thousands of direct colors available, like the real $$$$ color printers! But then again, the 500C costs less than $700. I'm going to be trying IP's 24bit printer routine with it in the next few days. Will let you know how it looks if you want…. I also tried printing a seperation (CYMK) from it (in ADPro), and it looks ok, but what do I do with it now? I was just curious how it worked. –jp–seattle–