Color DeskJet Printing
30 messages in this thread
Help! I just bought the color Deskjet and have been trying to get decent
printouts from the Amiga. Using the SoftLogik driver in PageStream 2.2, the
colors leave much to be desired. The similarities between a printout frfrom
my color Citizen dot-matrix and the color DeskJet of the same graphic are
not very close. Using any of several drivers downloaded from the printer
llibrary here, the colors are way too dark and the process is unbelievably
slow. Perhaps 2 hours for a full page graphic printout.
I was hoping someone else using the color DeskJet could give me
some clues. Is there a better driver somewhere? Is every color DeskJet user
experiencing the same dilemma?
Using the color DeskJet with my IBM, the printouts are gorgeous
and the time is reasonable. Even using Windows, the speed is blazing
compared to Amiga times.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
………………Roger
I've used the Deskjet 500C and PageStream pretty well, actually. No heavy
color work though.
Is it just PageStream that you want to use the printer under? There is now
a Commodore supplied driver for the DeskJet500C that you can install under
preferences. It works pretty darn well, offering control over the density,
ink depletion, and shingling of the printer. You might try using that
driver from within PageStream?
That driver is available here on CIS, in the printer drivers library in
AmigaUser. Get it. Install it.
I've done some pretty dynamite color printouts using the DJ500C using that
driver. I've been using ADPro 2.0 for most of my color printing, because
it allows very accurate control over the positioning and quality of the
image. Pretty fast too.
–jp–seattle–
jp, I found that driver last night on GEnie and have been using it all dday
today with great output. It looks really sharp and like you say it has
great control features.
The one problem (and a big one) I'm having is the speed. It is
literally taking me hours to get a full page graphic printout. That's with
either driver, too (PageStream or that "beta" Commodore). I gather you're
not suffering from speed problems? I was just reading messages on GEnie
about the 500c and not one person complained about lack of speed. I've run
Micrografx Designer on my 386sx and got great printouts, too, but
speed-wise printouts take minutes not hours.
On the IBM, the included HP driver pops-up a requester with many
selections concerning the speed vs. quality, but even picking quality over
speed the printouts are on the order of 50 times as fast.
I had planned on using the Amiga mostly, but now I might just convert
graphic formats and print the Amiga graphics I make on the IBM.
……………..Roger
Yeah, I've found the Commdore supplied driver (for the HP DJ500C) pretty
good too. They took pretty good advantage of the 'features' of the
printer; made it easy to control via the threshold and density settings
too.
Re speed. I commonly print about 6"x4" (or less) printouts from ADPro, of
768×480 24bit source, and they print in a few minutes. Four or five at the
most. Smaller take a lot less time, of course.
I've used the DJ500C PageStream driver, but so far only to add 'spot' color
to otherwise b&w output. Frankly, I don't see much use for the DP500C
involving PgS, since all the text would really be the dark green, rather
than BLACK. The way I've used it so far is to print the doc in b&w, and
then overprint the spot color I wanted. Alignment hasn't been any serious
problem yet.
Now, the machine I'm using is a 28mzh 68030, with fast ram. I'd expect
ADPro or PgS to take longer to print if you had a stock amiga. But
certainly not hours. Weird.
If you use PgS and any Deskjet, then there is a program you should be aware
of. It's called 'FastJet'. Shareware (freeware?), it should be avail here
on CIS. If not, let me know and I'll upload it for you. FastJet speeds up
printing to the DJ several times, by using the data compressing that the DJ
understands. The way I use FastJet with PgS is to 1) print the document to
disk, using the Deskjet driver, 2) then send that file to the DJ using
FastJet. Much faster than printing direct from within PgS. I haven't used
it yet with the color driver, but would expect it to work. Good luck.
–jp–seattle–
Thanks jp, I bought the color deskjet two days ago and have just tried
printing out large color graphics using PageStream and DPIII to see the
quality.
I am using just a 500 with 5 megs/80 meg HD, 512k Agnus and would be
considerably slower than you. I've got fastjet, but never tried it before
even on the B/W deskjet I have. I guess I will now. Thanks for the
suggestion. Also, that tip about text color is right on too. Hadn't even
considered that yet. I'll print everything in red text and make it real
gaudy.
I just switched the cable over to my B/w deskjet leaving everything
identical and it was easily three times as fast. Maybe the color is a lemon
inside?
thanks for the help.
………….Roger
Roger,
One question which might be the answer to your problems. Are you using
the serial port or the parallel port to your Deskjet? If you're using your
serial port, expect it to be at least 6-7 times slower than your parallel
port. Serial port only sends data one bit at a time instead of 8 bits that
parallel does. Hope this helps.
– Byrt Martinez
Byrt, It's a parallel hookup. I've been using a b/w deskjet up until two
days ago when I bought the color deskjet. I expected slower printouts
because of the extra load of color but this is ridiculous. I'm porting my
printouts over to my IBM under windows (HP supplies an excellent driver for
that) and hope to try and get printouts with my Mac LC, too.
That looks even more dismal since I get hit-or-miss color printouts on
that platform with a 24 pin dot matrix. With the Mac, I've got a serial to
parallel interface and that only works with certain programs. That's the
main reason I've lost interest in the Mac.
……..Thanks for the help, Roger.
Did you try installing the HPDeskJet500C driver from CBM, then selecting
the Preferences driver in PageStream? I believe that SL supplied the
Preferences driver for someone who prefered the CBM supplied drivers to
theirs. Might be worth a try.
Thanks Wayne, I didn't try that particular approach. I tried using the CBM
driver from DPIII, and the results were pretty much identical. That's the
part that worries me. If it were only one driver, I'd be less worried than
the same results from two different drivers. I also tried one other driver
from the library here. It expands into "HP_500C" (9092-size) and that one
gives me an instant guru.
I would just chalk it up to slow cpu speed, but the printer gives pretty
good speed considering from my 386sx under windows, using the HP supplied
driver. Sure puts a damper on my enthusiasm.
Thanks for the help……………….Roger
Roger, I *THINK* I have it! Your slow printing speeds, that is.
Do you have the docs for the Commdore supplied driver? If so, read the
section on 'Density Settings for Shingling and Depletion'. In a nutshell,
Commodore used the DENSITY settings of the preferences printer driver to
control more than DPI. For example, if you have a density setting of -7-,
(like I used to; after all you figure that will give you the best quality,
right?) then you will slow down printing (both B&W and Color) by about 4
times, about what. Here's the table from the docs:
DENSITY SETTING EFFECT
1 No depletion, No shingling, 75 DPI
2 No depletion, No shingling, 100 DPI
3 No depletion, No shingline, 150 DPI
4 25% depletion, No shingling, 300 DPI
5 25% depletion, 50% shingling, 300 DPI
6 25% depletion, 25% shingling, 300 DPI
7 No depletion, 25% shingling, 300 DPI
Depletion has mimimal effect on speed, but shingling has a major effect. No
shingling is 100% speed, 50% shingline is twice as SLOW, and 25% shingling
is four times as SLOW. If your DENSITY setting is 5,6,7 then no wonder you
are slow!
Just FYI, 25% depletion removes 1/4 of the dots from your printed image (in
an attempt to be intelligent sort of way). This can improve the look of
the printout when there are lots of solid areas, for instance; by cutting
down bleeding and such.
Shingling works by increasing the horizontal resolution and overprinting
the line. 50% would make two passes; 25% takes four passes. It increases
the accuracy and resolution, at a cost of time.
There is another control in the preferences driver that you may not know
about. The THESHOLD usually applies to just B&W printouts. On the DJ500C
driver, if you have color output selected, it also controls a brightness
correction on the printing. Really helps too!
It sounds like the IBM version of the DJ500C support doesn't give you full
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control over the printer like the Amiga preferences driver does? Curious.
Hope above helps you get this all straitened out!
–jp–seattle–
jp, you sure sound like you hit the nail on the head! I just checked my
density setting….6. I just got home from work and I'll try experimenting
with those settings. Like you said, I remember setting the density high
because I wanted the best looking printout possible.
…………….Thank you for taking the time and trouble to help.
……..Roger
Well, color printing being three times as slow as black would make sense,
actually. Example: say you have a PgS page that is supposed to be all
black text. If you use the black ink cartridge and driver, it only
requires one pass of the printhead for each line. If you use the color
cartridge/driver, it requires -3- passes of the printhead to print the
'black'. At least three times as slow, probably more.
The way the color cartridge makes 'black' is to overprint all three colors.
This results in a dark dark green, rather than BLACK too.
I suppose it depends on what type of color you are using? If you are just
using spot color (either color hilighting on borders, adding a color
bitmap, a color headline, etc) and the rest is black, then I'd suggest
doing the multi-pass. Create two pages; one with all the pure black stuff,
and print that. Then the color stuff, and overprint. So long as the
registration can be a few dots off (that's REAL small) I've found that to
work like a champ. Worth a shot anyway.
–jp–seattle–
jp, I knew that message about three times as fast was bogus as soon as i
posted it. I meant to say b/w printing between my old "original" deskjet
and the new color deskjet was being compared. Even printing theidentical
b/w page between printers, the color was about three times slower when it,
too, was using the b/w mode and black cartridge.
By the way, I tried using Fastjet as you suggested and the printing of
a color page was even slower. Also, each line of printing was seperated by
a 1/2 inch space. Should have checked the results with b/w, but forgot.
The cartridge and print head seem to return to their parked position
and wait after each pass. I'm taking a breather from the problem for a
while. It's too frustrating.
Thanks………………….Roger
John, I just tried your density setting suggestion and voila! I really
can't thank you enough for your time and effort on *my* problem. I did read
the docs that came with that driver and it says set the density to 6, so I
did. Now I'll just have to keep it to 4 and under.
When I read those docs, I didn't have the slightest idea what
"shingling and depletion" were. My faith in my Amiga is restored.
Again, thank you very much,…………Roger.
You're welcome. I like a sticky problem like that. I have my driver set
to DENSITY 4 for normal stuff, but then do set it to #5/6/7 when I'm doing
a 'final' quality print on good paper. I usually use the Depletion ON,
again unless using a better paper; otherwise I find too much ink ruins the
image.
It's nice to have it both ways; fast and decent looking, or slow and great
looking 🙂
–jp–seattle–
John, thanks again. I'm still spoiled by the driver HP supplies for
Windows. It, too, gives 5 ink density settings, 8 or unlimited colors,
Draft-Normal-Presentation settings, three settings similar to dithering.
The printouts look far better than the Amiga's. I hope a better driver
comes along.
………………..Roger
Though I don't have a laser printer, have you tried setting the baud rate
in Preferences for your printer (ie; to a high rate) ?
– Using Whap! (from Southern Illinois)
Jim, this is a parallel hook-up. Baud set-up is with serial only isn't it.
This printer is the HP DeskJet 500c, just a color inkjet. Couldn't afford
any color lasers, so I settled for this.
I also have a Mac LC, but I don't dare try printing from that until I
get some results from the Amiga. I hope I can print with the Mac through
its serial port and then I will have to set the baud rate, etc.
……….Thanks, Roger
The Deskjet 500C is rated at 8 minutes per full page color, if provided
with data at full rate. The compression might help speed
wise (although I've seen the "compressed" mode of HP/GL-2 on the
LJIII take LONGER than the uncompressed, original HP-GL to the
same printer…). I've just finished writing a driver for the
500C for a program running on the IBM, and I would think the amiga
should be able to keep up with the horsepower involved, if the
driver is written right. One possibility "trap" that driver
writers can fall into on the deskjets is sending an end of graphics
command after each dot line. This triggers printhead movement,
even if the printer has lots of buffer left to hold more lines
before printing. Watch the printer closely on a sample printout.
If it prints very little per printhead pass, but the printhead is
moving almost continuously, this is probably the cause of the
problem. If the printhead has long delays between passes and
prints maybe 1/8th inch each pass, the problem is slow code in
other parts of the driver. Good Luck.
P.S. – HP does have a suggested formula for adjusting colors in
the driver to make blacks not so greenish, but it wouldn't work well
for fine lines, only solid areas. (The lines would end up fuzzy.)
Thanks Brad, the printhead does seem to sit idle in its parked position
after each pass. The thing that troubles me is that the printer does pretty
much the same thing using two different drivers. Both PageStream and
Commodore "beta" driver seem to take the same "great" length of time.
I've asked for ideas in the HP forum, but doubt if they'll worry too
much with Amiga usage.
Thanks……………Roger
Hmm – guess I can't really be of much help to you. I use the parallel port
for a 24 pin printer. Hopefully somebody else will already have left you
more information, or will grab onto this thread and help you out. But it
sure sounds like some kind of baud rate/speed mismatch problem.
Just out of curiosity, have you tried running the laser through your Amiga
serial port? You mention that you would use a serial port on a Mac. Would
that work with a device that needs to be hooked up to your Amiga parallel
port?? Usually, the Centronics interface (industry standard) is a parallel
type of connector, but then, I don't know anything about Mac serial ports.
– Using Whap! (from Southern Illinois) (Internet: ca0008@siucvmb.siu.edu)
Thanks Jim. This printer, Hewlett-Packard Deskjet, comes with both parallel
and serial ports. I do use the parallel with my Amiga and IBM, but must use
the serial with the Mac(or use a serial to parallel converter cable, which
is what I do).
I've just gotten this printer. I had an older version that prints b/w
and it's been superb. Now I purchased this model that prints color but uses
different driver. I think the problem is in the driver and I think a
previous message from "jp in seattle" is pointing me in the right
direction.
……..Thanks for the help…………Roger
john, what's up? and what's 'shingling?
john, what's up and what's 'shingling'? i'll be at AmiExpo on saturday.
see you at AmigaWorld booth at 1pm. that is if you make it!
I'm afraid I won't be there 🙁 (AmiExpo that is)
Sure wish I could. Be sure to drop in CIS on Sat/Sun and tell me all about
it.
–jp–seattle–
sorry you can't make it. will fill you in.
Daniel, things are going pretty good. I have your set of disks here to
return to you RSN; sorry I've taken so long. I wanted to include some good
HP DJ500C color printouts from FractalPro 5.0 (a great program, folks!) for
you to check out as well, and have just been…. well, busy.
Shingling? It's a way of increasing the accuracy/resolution of the
printing. The DJ is actually capable of *600DPI* (horizontally), but the
print head is limited to moving only 1/300th while printing the line.. The
DJ500C supports printing the line at 300DPI, then overprinting the same
line (with same, or different data) after moving the printhead 1/600th of a
dot. This gives you 600DPI horizontally. It supports -0shinging, 50%
shinging (overprinting twice) and 25% shingling (overprinting four times).
The cost is TIME, since each overprint takes time. Works for both B&W and
color printing.
Nice thing about this is that it is automatic. You send it the data, and
it will deal with it the way you want, rather than you having to massage
your print data in a particular way.
Shingling is supported in the new Commodore driver too! You control them
by setting the DENSITY settings to above -4-. See my message here to the
other fellow for more info on this if you're interested!
–jp–seattle–
john, thanks. see you at amiexpo on saturday 1pm at amigaworld booth.
bring the disks! ha! AND the commodore DJ500C driver! thanks – got some
terrific 24-bit pics on disk for you @ 1024×482 res from experimental
version of FP5 for firecracker board's max res. very weird in HAM since it
tries to do a 512 wide HAM screen (resulting in horizontally distorted
pics) but the 24-bit Firecracker results are spectacular!!!
I'll get the disks, and some DJ500C printouts in the mail to you over the
weekend. I think you'll be impressed at the quality of the printouts.
Pretty darn good for a $700 printer. Will send you a mailer and maybe you
can send me a couple of those 1024×482 pics?
–jp–seattle–