ijsgimpprint
provides Ghostscript with a Gimp-Print driver, supporting all printers
supported by libgimpprint.
IJS is an initiative to improve the quality and ease of use of printing with
Ghostscript. It permits adding or upgrading drivers without recompiling
Ghostscript. An IJS driver runs in a separate process that communicates with
Ghostscript via an IPC channel. The Gimp-Print IJS driver may be used with
AFPL Ghostscript, as it runs in a separate process.
The options for this driver are very complex. We strongly recommend
use of a printer management system such as Foomatic rather than
configuring a spooler manually with this driver. The driver name used
by Foomatic is gimp-print-ijs.
OPTIONS
ijsgimpprint accepts the following options:
Ghostscript IJS options
-dIjsUseOutputFD
This option should be specified whenever output from Ghostscript will go to
stdout or into a pipe. It may be specified in all other cases, with only a
slight performance degradation.
-sIjsParams=Option1=Value1,Option2=Value2
This parameter contains a single string containing a comma-separated list of
sub-options.
-sDeviceManufacturer=vendor-sDeviceModel=name
This option must be supplied. There is no default. The IJS driver requires
the vendor (it's part of the protocol), but the ijsgimpprint driver
ignores it. It should be CANON, EPSON, LEXMARK, or HEWLETT-PACKARD. The value
of the -sDeviceModel parameter is the same as the value of the -sModel
parameter in the old stp driver.
A complete list of supported printers may be found in
gimpprint-models(7).
Most or all of the Epson Stylus printers are fully functional. The others
vary. In particular, all of the listed Epson Stylus Photo printers print in
full 6-color photo mode; most of the others do not. The color output has also
been better tuned for Epson Stylus printers than for others.
Gimp-Print IJS options
These options are all used in the -sIjsParams options, except where mentioned
otherwise. Due to their complicated nature, the options are explained in
detail in their own sections.
PRINT RESOLUTION
Quality=quality
The meaning of this is model-specific. Two names are listed for each
resolution; the first (short) name is the quality that must be passed to
Quality, and the second (long) name is descriptive. Each printer has its own
default value; for most printers, this is a reasonable 300 or 360 DPI
resolution. A full list of available resolutions for each printer may be found
in
gimpprint-resolutions(7).
INK TYPES
InkType=inktype
This is printer type specific. The option names are case sensitive. A full
list of available media types may be found in
gimmprint-inktypes(7).
MEDIA TYPES
MediaType=mediatype
This is printer type specific. The option names are case sensitive. A full
list of available media types may be found in
gimpprint-mediatypes(7).
MEDIA SOURCES
MediaSource=mediasource
This is printer type specific. The option names are case sensitive. A full
list of available media sources may be found in
gimpprint-mediasources(7).
MEDIA SIZES
-sPAPERSIZE=papersize
for known Ghostscript paper sizes.
-dDEVICEWIDTHPOINTS=x-dDEVICEHEIGHTPOINTS=y
where x and y are the width and height of the paper respectively,
in points (1/72"). Note this is a normal gs option, not an IJS option.
This is printer-specific; we cannot list the correct values for each printer
here. The option names are case-sensitive. Two names are listed for each
resolution; the first (short) name is the value that must be passed to
-sPAPERSIZE, and the second (long) name is descriptive. This option does not
set GhostScript up to use a paper size other than the default; it only tells
the driver to set up the printer for a different paper size. The default paper
size is "Letter".
A complete list of available paper sizes may be found in
gimpprint-mediasizes(7).
COLOR BALANCING
Cyan=val
Magenta=val
Yellow=val
Brightness=val
Contrast=val
Gamma=val
Density=val
Saturation=val
A full description of the color balancing options, including the allowed ranges
of values, may be found in
gimpprint-color(7).
Note these are gs options, not IJS options. Choose color vs. grayscale
output. Color output is the default. Choosing DeviceGrey and
-dBitsPerSample=1 results in only black ink (no color ink) being used, which is
faster and usually results in the most accurate grayscale, but at the expense
of smoothness. This prints only black and white (thresholding). This option
always uses Fast dithering unless you specify Very Fast. If you want composite
color (using a mixture of color and black inks to produce gray), use
DeviceGrey.
In addition, using DeviceGrey uses luminance (perceived brightness) of
red, green, and blue to choose output levels. Blue of a given intensity is
perceived to be much darker than red, which in turn appears darker than green.
DeviceRGB, DeviceCYMK and Saturation=0.0 (see "Saturation" above)
do not use luminance.
CMYK output may be used with the IJS driver only. It is useful if
you're printing a CMYK graphic and want explicit control over the
inks. Generally it yields inferior quality, as Gimp-Print has good
algorithms for converting RGB (screen) into CMYK (inks) that take
into account paper type, ink type, and other variables. In CMYK
mode, the brightness, contrast, and saturation controls do not
function.
IMAGE TYPE
This option can be used to optimize the dither.
ImageType=val
Possible values are:
Value
Description
1
Line art (color or gray scale)
2
Primarily solid colors or smooth gradients (color or gray scale)
3
Continuous-tone photographs (color or gray scale)
Option 0 is the fastest. It generates strong, but not particularly
accurate, colors. There may be some fairly sharp color transitions in this
mode.
Option 1 generates more accurate colors, but is slower.
Option 2 generates the most accurate colors, but is considerably slower.
Note that any of the modes may be used with either color or black & white
output. If black and white output is requested, but a color mode used,
composite color will be printed. This generally offers smoother tone, but less
purity of gray or black, than pure black ink. Furthermore, it is possible to
tune the color of the gray (to achieve warmer or cooler effects) using the
color controls in this fashion.
Specifying a lower GhostScript resolution (with -r) results in faster color
conversion. For example, if you print at 1440x720 DPI, but specify a
Ghostscript resolution of 360 DPI (with -r360), output will be significantly
faster and there will be much less difference in performance between the three
image type options.
EXAMPLES
Note that a lot of these options are used for demonstration; generally
adjusting the density is a bad idea!
Example 1
Print charts to file, using A4 paper, color, 360 dpi:
The Ghostscript stp driver was originally written by Henryk Richter
(buggs@comlab.uni-rostock.de), and was integrated into Gimp-Print during the
3.1 development series. Gimp-Print itself was originally written by Michael
Sweet <mike@easysw.com>, who released up to version 2.0; Robert Krawitz
released version 3.0. The Gimp-Print development team
(http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net) now maintains the entire package.
The IJS driver was originally written by Russell Lang, and incorporated into
Gimp-Print in early 2002. This driver corresponds with the IJS protocol 0.32.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
AUTHORS
Robert Krawitz. Originally written by Russell Lang.
