[Gimp-print-announce] ANNOUNCE: Gimp-Print 4.3.21

[Robert L K. <rl...@al...>]

Gimp-Print 4.3.21, released September 24, 2003, is a development
release of this package.  Like all development releases, this version
is considered unstable and should only be used by those individuals
tolerant of the likelihood of problems.  Individuals desiring a stable
release of Gimp-Print should use the latest 4.2 release.

Gimp-Print is a suite of printer drivers that may be used with most
common UNIX print spooling systems, including CUPS, lpr, LPRng, or
others.  These drivers provide high quality printing for UNIX
(including Macintosh OS X 10.2 and newer) and Linux systems in many
cases equal to or better than proprietary vendor-supplied drivers, and
can be used for many of the most demanding printing tasks.

This software includes the Print plug-in for the Gimp, and Ghostscript
and CUPS drivers, including Foomatic data.

The Print plugin for the Gimp requires the Gimp 1.2 (later versions of
the Gimp are not supported).  You may need to install a package named
"gimp-devel" or the like on many distributions.

The CUPS driver requires CUPS 1.1.15 or higher.  You may need to
install a package named "cups-devel" or the like on many
distributions.  We strongly recommend using CUPS with Gimp-Print as a
general-purpose printing solution.

We do not currently recommend using Foomatic, as the Foomatic data
generator included with Gimp-Print offers very limited capabilities.
This will be fixed in a future release.  The Foomatic data will work
with either Foomatic 2.x or 3.x.  Foomatic 3.x has additional
capabilities that this package detects and takes advantage of.

The IJS-based GhostScript plugin driver requires GNU Ghostscript 6.53
or later, ESP Ghostscript 7.05 or later, or APFL GhostScript 7.04 or
later.

Users of Macintosh OS X 10.2 and above can use this package, as the
printing system is based on CUPS, which is supported by Gimp-print.
Note that Macintosh OS X 10.0 and 10.1 (including 10.1.5) cannot use
this package.

Please read the README file for full instructions on installing this
package.

Gimp-Print 4.3.21 contains the following major changes over Gimp-Print
4.3.20:

1) This release offers further improvements in quality.  The specific
   improvements are described below.

   The driver now attempts to use as many small drops as possible
   before starting to use larger drops when printing on variable drop
   size printers.  This improves the texture of midtones, particularly
   at lower resolutions (extremely high resolutions typically only use
   the smallest drop size available).  The result is that 1440x720
   DPI, or in some cases even 720 DPI, now offers quality almost
   identical to higher (and slower) resolutions such as 2880x720 and
   2880x1440 DPI.

   The driver also uses more light ink prior to switching to dark ink
   (for 6 and 7 color printers).  This improves smoothness in
   midtones.  Furthermore, the transition between light and dark ink
   is adaptive, depending upon the amount of black (both black ink and
   black component printed with color inks) in addition to the color
   being printed.  This allows use of more dark ink in darker regions,
   reducing the likelihood of overloading the paper and producing a
   darker gray tone.  The combination of these two changes increases
   ink usage in some cases (mostly saturated midtones, where more
   light ink is used) and decreases it in others (mid grays).

   The color correction has been further tweaked based on observations
   of behavior in 4.3.20.  In particular, the desaturation in dark
   tones has been tweaked to achieve a better match and smoother
   transitions.

   The EvenTone dither algorithm has significant improvements in
   smoothness when multiple drop sizes are used, particularly for
   black-only prints.  In addition, certain artifacts in the light
   midtones have been eliminated.  There are some very weak new
   artifacts that may occur in regions of transition between drop
   sizes, but in most cases these will not be visible.

   Finally, the black generation has been changed, producing more
   solid dark tones.  Instead of a linear ramp between the point at
   black ink starts to be introduced and the point at which the gray
   component is printed with all black, the black generation now uses
   an exponential (gamma) curve whose exponent depends upon the
   printer and the paper in use.  This produces more solid dark grays
   while avoiding either a sharp transition from muddy grays using
   only color inks, excessive grain from use of too much black ink in
   lighter grays, or lack of contrast in dark tones caused by too much
   black ink.

   At present, only the Epson driver utilizes these changes.

2) Individual Epson printers have been retuned, producing closer
   matches between different printers and papers.  Specific
   improvements:

   * The new Stylus Photo series (780, 785, 790, 810, 820, 830, 870,
     890, 895, 900, 915, 925, 935, 1270, 1280, and 1290) has improved
     dark tones without muddiness.  In addition, the drop sizes at 720
     and 1440x720 DPI have been recalibrated, producing much better
     results in the midtones at these resolutions.

     The color correction curves of these printers have also been
     recalibrated on a variety of papers, in particular producing
     better blue and red tones.

     These printers also benefit greatly from all of the improvements
     described above, and produce quality very close to photographic
     prints.

   * The Stylus C70/C80/C82/C84 densities have been recalibrated on a
     variety of papers, eliminating excessive ink usage on high
     quality papers.

   * The Stylus Photo 950 and 960 drop sizes have been recalibrated,
     improving results significantly at 1440x720 DPI and to a lesser
     extent at 720 DPI.  In addition, the color correction curves have
     been adjusted, particularly for blue hues.  These changes will
     benefit the equivalent Japanese market printers (PM-950C,
     PM-970C, and PM-980C) if the dark yellow ink is not used.

   * The Stylus Photo 2100 and 2200 have been recalibrated on a
     variety of papers, using both matte and photo black ink.  In
     addition, the color correction curves have been adjusted and
     should give excellent color reproduction, particularly on glossy
     papers.

     These improvements should apply to other printers using
     UltraChrome inks (Stylus Pro 7600 and 9600).

   * The Stylus Color 680/777 ink drop sizes at 720 DPI have been
     adjusted.

3) Preliminary support for the Sony UP-DP10 has been added, including
   the laminate pattern feature.

4) Olympus and Olympus-compatible printers have been color-tuned.

5) Preliminary support for the Epson Stylus C63, C64, C83, C84, and
   PX-V500.

6) Margins for the Epson Stylus C70, C80, and C82 have been
   corrected.

7) The Postscript driver now produces proper alignment on the page
   (bug 802621).

8) The Canon driver should now print all pages of a job correctly (bug
   668342).

9) Draft printing modes on the Epson Stylus Color 660 should now work
   correctly (bug 808289).