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Gimp-Print version 4.2.6 contains the following improvements over Gimp-Print 4.2.5:
New Functionality:
The following bugs have been fixed in Gimp-Print 4.2.6:
While Gimp-Print 5.0 is not finalized, it contains many improvements and changes from Gimp-Print 4.2, as follows:
Major User-Visible Changes: In general, Gimp-Print 5.0 is not compatible with Gimp-Print 4.2. Gimp-Print 5.0 offers many new options (which are described separately below), and many options that are present in both 4.2 and 5.0 function differently in the two releases. In addition, the API is different. Finally, the color correction is quite different, and profiles created against the 4.2 driver will not function well against the 5.0 driver.
In addition to all of the printers supported in 4.2, a variety of Olympus and Sony photo printers are supported in this release. Options in the CUPS driver and GIMP plugin are now grouped according to function. This work is still in progress, and further usability improvements are expected. Simplified bundles of settings are now offered for users who do not need to customize the settings. The Print Quality and Image Type controls offer a variety of settings optimized for common printing tasks. Both controls offer Manual Control settings for users who wish greater control over the output. Many of the color settings have changed effect. We recommend starting with no color correction and making appropriate changes only as required. Specific changes that you should be aware of include:
* The default operation of the contrast setting has changed to be more in accord with standard practice. In 4.2, reducing the contrast resulted in changing the black and white setting. In 5.0, reducing the contrast does not change the black and white settings. As a result, it is possible to use the contrast setting to improve highlight and shadow detail by reducing the contrast. The old behavior is available by turning on the "Linear Contrast Adjustment".
* The Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow settings have been replaced with separate settings for gamma and density for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. The Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow settings in Gimp-Print 4.2 most closely correspond to the gamma settings in 5.0. The per-channel density settings do not affect the color correction. They are applied after the color correction to scale the individual channels.New Functionality: This release offers a new curve data type. This release offers many new output controls: Balance (density) controls for each channel, in addition to the gamma controls present in 4.2. Black (GCR) transition, including the transition gamma and the upper and lower limits. Transitions for photo (light cyan and light magenta) inks. Transfer curves for each channel (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and composite), allowing very precise control over the output. Hue, saturation, and luminosity transfer curves. Ink limit control. The density control now permits setting density as high as 8.0, vs. 2.0 in 4.2. The Epson driver offers (almost) true full bleed for printers that support it (but see the limitations below). The resolution list for Epson printers has been simplified; many redundant resolutions have been removed. Print head directional for Epson printers (unidirectional vs. bidirectional) is now a separate control. In addition to contributing to the simplification of the Epson printer resolutions, this permits the choice of unidirectional vs. bidirectional at all resolutions. The Epson driver now offers a choice of print head weave patterns. In addition to simplifying the resolution choices for Epson Stylus Pro printers, this offers an additional control for fine tuning output quality. The Epson driver offers an Ink Set control for printers taking different choices of inks (such as the Epson Stylus Photo 2200, which offers a choice of Matte Black and Photo Black inks). The Epson driver permits adjusting the dot size if required to increase the amount of ink printed. For example, if 1440x720 DPI is selected, but the density requested is very high, the printer will switch to using drop sizes appropriate for 720 DPI. This option is disabled by default. Where practical, all controls offer a default setting for simplicity of operation. This default value is intended to offer the optimal choice given the printer and its other settings. For example, if "Automatic" is selected for print head direction, the print head motion will be unidirectional at high resolutions (since unidirectional usually produces better output), but bidirectional at low resolutions (for faster printing). The default is only offered for options that are not directly controlled by the user's action. For example, there is no default choice offered for paper type, since the correct value is based on the paper type loaded by the user. Similarly, there is no default for the input slot or ink set. A new Threshold color correction mode has been added, that produces either all-on or all-off of each color. This is similar to the Monochrome mode in 4.2, except that it works for color as well as black. Quality Improvements: Color and tonal accuracy is greatly improved compared to 4.2 while the gamut (range of printable colors) has been increased. This particularly improves the hue accuracy of red, magenta, and blue, and the tonal accuracy of cyan and green. Most Epson printers have been fully tuned for the new color correction algorithms introduced for this release. The handling of variable drop sizes and photo inks (6 and 7 color printers) has been completely rewritten, with the result being that variable drop size printers with photo inks (such as most Epson Stylus Photo and Stylus Pro printers) give much more consistent results with fewer artifacts. In particular, colors match correctly across all resolutions, which was not the case in 4.2.
In 4.2, variable size drops and light inks were treated the same way; an "effective drop size" based on the relative size of the drops and the darkness of the inks was used to decide what kind of drop to print. While this method has some advantages (it ensures that dark and light inks are never printed at the same place, and also that dark dots are optimally dispersed among light dots), it has some serious disadvantages as well: the properties of a small dark dot and a large light dot are not really the same, particularly when inks are mixed. The combination of different drop sizes being used at different resolutions meant that the transition between light and dark inks differed depending upon the resolution chosen, and if more than one drop size was required at a given resolution, the transition tended to be quite marked.
The new method of handling variable size drops and light inks is to first separate each of the four channels (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) into the appropriate light and dark inks, if needed. This separation is performed based on the relative darkness of the different ink sub-colors (such as light and dark cyan) and specific characteristics of the printer, ink type, and paper chosen. Following this, each sub-color is screened separately, and the appropriate combination of drop sizes is chosen.
The drop size selection in this release has also been changed to fill the page with as many small drops as possible before switching to larger drops. This ensures that the largest number of the smallest possible drops is printed, which yields a smoother texture in the midtones.
Finally, new dither algorithms described below allow drops of ink of different colors to be dispersed, avoiding clumping or overprinting of drops.The EvenTone dither algorithm has been extensively reworked in this release, offering many improvements.
First, it has been rewritten to work correctly with variable drop size and photo printers. This algorithm, which offers significant improvements over the standard Adaptive Hybrid algorithm, does not work optimally with variable drop sizes or photo printers in 4.2.
Secondly, several variations on this algorithm have been introduced, yielding a family of high quality screening algorithms for different applications. The first variation is called Hybrid EvenTone. This dither algorithm perturbs the dot positions slightly to break up some patterning seen in standard EvenTone dithering in solid regions of pale tones, particularly when printing with black ink only. This very slightly reduces the smoothness of texture in exchange for largely eliminating this undesirable patterning. This algorithm is also expected to be more resistant to microbanding effects.
The second variation is called UniTone. This dither algorithm calculates the placement of all dots (except for yellow) using a single EvenTone pass, not just all of the dots of one color. This technique improves the quality when multiple inks must be mixed, such as when color inks are used to produce gray. It does so by ensuring that all dots are equally spaced. Typically when printing neutral tones with EvenTone dithering the cyan, magenta, and yellow dots are positioned very close to each other, even though the individual cyan dots are well-positioned. This causes the groups of dots to appear to be single, large dots. UniTone dithering evens out the spacing between all dots, producing a smoother texture. UniTone dithering only functions when printing in color (or grayscale with multi-tone gray ink); when printing with black ink only, it is exactly equivalent to EvenTone dithering. UniTone dithering is generally slower than EvenTone.
UniTone dithering works best at improving output when the drops are already very small, which is usually at high resolutions. With these small drops, the eye has difficulty distinguishing the color of the individual drops, so their color tends to be distinguished primarily by their darkness. While cyan ink is lighter than black ink and magenta ink is lighter than cyan ink, these differences are not overwhelming and hence the eye does not perceive a difference between them. With large drops, the eye perceives the color of the individual drops, and small spots dominated by one ink become apparent.
As noted above, UniTone dithers yellow separately. This is because the yellow ink is much lighter than any other ink, and the positions occupied by yellow drops appear as holes, reducing the quality of the print. Even light cyan and light magenta inks appear to be significantly darker than yellow.
Experiments conducted to date suggest that UniTone works very well on the printers such as the Epson Stylus C80 at high resolutions, when the printer is using 3 picolitre drops. On the Stylus Photo EX, at 1440x720 DPI, using 8 picolitre drops, quality is improved significantly when printing in normal 6-color mode but quality is slightly worse in 4-color mode, as the colors of the drops are apparent. At 720 DPI (using 12 picolitre drops), quality is improved in 6-color mode but degraded significantly in 4-color mode.
Finally, a Hybrid UniTone dither algorithm is provided, combining the principles of both of the above.
As noted above, UniTone dithering does not always work better than EvenTone, although in most cases all of these algorithms work much better than Adaptive Hybrid in 4.2. We suggest that users requiring the highest quality experiment, using Hybrid EvenTone as a baseline.The conversion between black and composite (CMY) gray has been improved in this release, yielding more neutral grays on most printers. Epson printers have been completely retuned, in most cases yielding much better density, more accurate gray scale, and higher Dmax on all paper types. Architectural Changes: A modular architecture for family drivers. A "family driver" is a collection of printer drivers for one group of printers sharing a common programming architecture, e. g. ESC/P2, PCL, Lexmark, Canon. A modular architecture for color processing. This architecture will enable us, or others, to provide color management without having to change the internal interfaces within Gimp-Print. New composite data types. Gimp-Print 5.0 defines additional data types. These types include: Sequences, curves, and arrays. A sequence is a primitive vector of numbers data type; curves and arrays provide additional capabilities such as interpolation (for curves) and multiple dimensions (for arrays). Lists are a general ordered container of named objects of arbitrary type. They are used throughout the core library, but are not presently exported as such, although derived types are. The creator of a list can specify constructor, destructor, name comparison, copy, and sort operations on list members. Parameters, which are part of the options system described below. In addition to storing values and descriptions of the parameter, parameters can be queried to determine defaults and constraints. Parameter lists (which use the list container internally) are also defined as part of this. String lists are used in various ways; in particular, they are used by the parameter system to inform programs of the available choices of values for string-valued parameters. Complete overhaul of the options system. Rather than offering a fixed set of operations, family drivers, color modules, etc. can now offer a wide variety of options using a predefined set of data types. The data types currently supported are strings picked from a list, floating point numbers, integers, curves, arrays, Boolean values, and filenames.
The new options system provides a flexible way for drivers to inform applications of default values and UI hints, the ability to selectively enable and disable options, and a generalized way of verifying legality of option choices.
The coordinate system has been changed from bottom left to top left of the page, and the printable area can now extend beyond the edge of the page. The result is a more intuitive coordinate system for driver writers that matches the coordinate system of printers, and the ability to do true full bleed. Complete overhaul of the black generation in CMYK output. Black generation is now performed in the color code rather than the dither code. This simplifies the dither code, puts the CMYK generation where it should be, and improves overall flexibility. Complete overhaul of the multi-tone (photo or quadtone) ink processing architecture (channels). Instead of being processed as part of the dithering code as in 4.2, where ink drops of lighter inks were assigned virtual values proportional to their darkness as well as their size, this is now processed after the initial color conversion. This has a number of major advantages: As the actual amount of ink to be printed is visible to the color code, the color code can do ink limiting without fear that the dither code will change the amount of ink to be printed. It ensures that the same proportions of inks will be printed at any density and resolution. In 4.2, the ramp from light to dark ink varied depending upon the dot sizes available and hence the resolution. This has already been demonstrated to yield much better linearity and much more neutral gray scale with even very modest tuning effort. It enables use of all drop sizes of all ink tones. In 4.2, we could not use the smallest drop size of dark ink, because the virtual dot size of a small dot of dark ink is typically close to the virtual dot size of a large dot of small ink. This would yield very sharp transition, and perhaps even result in more light ink printed in darker regions than in lighter regions. With channel processing separate from dithering, this concern no longer exists; we can safely use small drops of dark ink, improving smoothness. It enables the color code to do ink limiting intelligently without concern that the dither code will rearrange things behind its back. It greatly simplifies the specification of inks. With drop size and darkness orthogonal, family drivers can greatly simplify their tables of inks. Dither algorithms can choose to ignore smaller drop sizes if they wish to offer fast operation. Applications with special requirements can now access the raw ink channels directly. This facility was used to create a mechanism to more accurately tune printer inks. Use of true XML to store data about printers and paper sizes, and to represent new data types (sequences, curves, and arrays). This uses the "mxml" XML library, a fast, lightweight XML parser written by Mike Sweet for this project. Currently, the use of XML (as opposed to compiled-in data) is limited, but we expect that this will change beyond the initial 5.0 release. In addition to parameters, internal components such as family drivers, color drivers, etc. can store arbitrary data in the basic stp_vars_t object. This facility is used to simplify the internal driver API; the family driver no longer needs to keep track of dither, color, etc. information itself. The Epson Stylus family driver has been decomposed into more functionally distinct units. The data schema has been considerably improved, and the code itself broken into more easily maintained units. The build system has been updated with a more contemporary toolchain based on autoconf 2.5 and gettext 0.11. The Print plugin for the GIMP has been decomposed into a UI library and the core plugin. The user interface library is a pure GTK1-based library; the tiny GIMP plugin is a client of this library. Printer characteristics are exposed to the application level as read-only parameters. This permits the escputil utility to not duplicate information stored in the printer driver. The CUPS PPD files now offer both fine and coarse adjustments for all color controls, permitting much finer control over output (in steps of .005 rather than .05). The CUPS driver refuses to function with PPD files created for a different version of Gimp-Print, providing an error message indicating the problem. This avoids problems caused by mismatches between the PPD files and the driver. While mismatches are potentially not harmful in all cases, they could cause problems ranging from failures to print with poor diagnostic messages to incorrect results. The Gimp-Print 5.0 CUPS driver can be installed concurrently with the 4.2 driver. Both the PPD files and the driver carry different names from their 4.2 counterparts, permitting a gradual switchover between 4.2 and 5.0-based releases. Exceptions and Workarounds: Full bleed mode does not work completely correctly on most Epson printers at present. Typically there is a small margin at the bottom of the page (1-2 mm) and possibly a very small margin at the top. However, it works correctly along the left and right margins. We do not have an estimated time for a fix. Printing to CD probably does not work correctly on the Epson Stylus Photo 900 and the Stylus Photo R300, although for different reasons. On the Stylus Photo 900, the positioning is most likely incorrect, while there have been reports that the manual feed tray is not selected correctly on the Stylus Photo R300. We do not have an estimated time for a fix. The Canon, Hewlett-Packard, and Lexmark drivers do not offer all of the additional options and improvements that the Epson driver does. We do not have an estimated time for fix. Please contact us if you would like to assist with this. Translation to other languages other than US-English is not supported in this release. This will be fixed prior to 5.0. The Foomatic printer data management system is not completely supported in this release, as noted above. This will be fixed prior to 5.0. Support for the Canon S200 has not yet been ported forward from 4.2. This release is probably slower than 4.2 in many cases, particularly when using High Accuracy (which is the default color correction in most cases) or Bright color correction. It is possible that this release will not be able to drive some printers at full speed, particularly if your computer has a slow processor. Performance has not been analyzed or tuned at present. We expect to improve the performance prior to final release. The user's manual and developer's guide have not been updated for this release. The CUPS PPD update script (cups-genppdupdate.5.0) will not update PPD files from 4.2 or from 4.3 prior to 4.3.21.
Gimp-Print version 4.2.6-rc2 contains the following improvements over Gimp-Print 4.2.6-pre3:
Major changes The definitions of the Epson Stylus CX-6300 and CX-6400 have been fixed.
The European 10x15 cm paper size has been added. A problem with builds using VPATH introduced in 4.2.6-rc1 has been fixed (4.2.6-rc1 was never released as a Mac OS X package, but users building from source would be affected by this bug). The CUPS driver does not attempt to set empty values of media source, media type, and ink type. This resolves bug 627266 by treating the Autoselect option correctly. Some Epson printer resolution names have been changed. This change does not introduce an incompatibility. Printing in black and white and grayscale modes on the Epson Stylus Color 600, 800, 850, 1520, and 3000 is fixed. The following bugs have been fixed in Gimp-Print 4.2.6-rc2: 627266 Mac OS X: Autoselect option incorrectly offered 842715 Epson 600/800/850/1520/3000 fail at certain resolutions BW The following previously reported bugs have been tested and cannot be reproduced: 828993 CNR: Epson SC 850 using Microweave prints tall characters 764041 CNR: Epson 3000 720x360DPI problem
Gimp-Print version 4.3.25 is an unstable developmental version of Gimp-Print. This is the first pre-packaged version made available since Gimp-Print 4.3.18 and it has numerous improvements and bug fixes. Please see the "NEWS" file included with the package for a complete listing of changes.
An uninstaller for all Mac OS X Gimp-Print installer packages is now available for separate download. This uninstaller is included with the version 4.2.6-pre3 download package, but is available separately for anyone wishing to remove an earlier version of Gimp-Print. The uninstaller will remove every version of Gimp-Print that has ever been released as a Mac OS X installer package by the Gimp-Print project. It will also remove the version of Gimp-Print that is included by default with Mac OS X "Panther" (10.3.0). It will not remove any version of Gimp-Print that was installed by any means other than an official installer package (this includes command line installs).
Gimp-Print version 4.2.6-pre3 contains the following improvements over Gimp-Print 4.2.6-pre2:
Major changes Support for the Epson Stylus C43/C44, C63/C64, and PX-V500 printers, and CX-3100, CX-5100, CX-6300, CX-6400, CX-8300, and CX-8400 multi-function devices (printer function only).
Under OS X, the PPD files have better option grouping. Canon printers should now print all pages of a job when the printer is hosted on a Windows system (bug 668342). The following bug has been fixed in Gimp-Print 4.2.6-pre3: 668342 Canon S-450 prints only one page of a jobGimp-Print version 4.2.6-pre2 contains the following improvements over Gimp-Print 4.2.5:
Major changes A bug in the CUPS driver whereby the quality degrades on each successive page of a multi-page job has been fixed. This bug was introduced in 4.2.6-pre1, and is not present in 4.2.5.
The CUPS driver now offers normal and reversed paper order, permitting printing documents in the correct order on inkjet printers. The Postscript driver in the GIMP plug-in now works correctly in non-US locales. Preliminary support for the Epson Stylus C83 and C84. Preliminary support for the Canon S200. A Czech language translation has been added. The printer compatibility list has been updated to reflect the latest information from linuxprinting.org. Engineering C paper size is now added. escputil will no longer hang if the printer does not respond. The Swedish and German translations have been updated. The man pages have been updated. On Mac OS X when using the provided installer package the PPDs are now stored in the standard PPD location /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/en.lprojrather than in/usr/share/cups/model/C
which is different from all previous releases. This change was made for performance reasons (memory usage). As a consequence, the PPDs will no longer be available for printer setup when using the CUPS web admin. The Apple provided Print Center application is not affected by this change.The following bugs have been fixed in Gimp-Print 4.2.6-pre2: 806902 CUPS quality degrades on multi-page jobs (4.2.6-pre1 only) 729918 Postscript family driver fails in non-US locale 735493 CUPS PPD files lacking *OutputOrder
Gimp-Print 4.3.18 is the latest Mac OS X release in the developmental line (4.3.x) of Gimp-Print. Currently, the 4.3.x line is not entirely functional in Mac OS X Jaguar. Almost all users should continue to use the 4.2.x line until the current issues with 4.3.x are resolved. Additionally, if you ever installed 4.3.17 and you can answer "yes" to both of the following questions:
Have you ever previously installed an earlier version of Gimp-Print? Did you run the Gimp-Print Uninstaller before running the 4.3.17 installer?
then you should either delete all of your Gimp-Print printers in Print Center, or manually update the PPD files to the currently installed version of Gimp-Print, or run the new unistaller avaialable here (soon) before reverting to any other version of Gimp-Print.
Gimp-Print version 4.2.6-pre1 contains the following improvements over Gimp-Print 4.2.5:
Major changes The Mac OS X user's guide, How to Print with Gimp-Print has been substantially updated.
The Mac OS X installer package now includes an "uninstaller" which will completley (and safely) remove the Gimp-Print software. Preliminary support for Epson Stylus C50, Stylus Photo 900, CL-740, PM-870C, PM-930C, PM-970C, and PM-3700C. The PM-930C and PM-970C are limited to 2880x1440 DPI in this release; this restriction will not be lifted in 4.2.x line. Better conformance to the PPD spec on the part of the CUPS PPD files. Per-page variables in the CUPS driver are now set at the beginning of each page. This makes it possible to change the page size (for example) in the middle of a document. The PostScript LanguageLevel attribute in the CUPS PPD files now defaults to 3, as all current Ghostscript releases are fully compatible with Level 3 PostScript. Minor speed improvement for the HP LaserJet IIP. The Foomatic data now uses the clear-text printer ID's from Foomatic 3.0, in addition to legacy support for the older numeric ideas. Minor adjustment to the HP DeskJet 340 margins.Gimp-Print version 4.2.5 contains the following improvements over Gimp-Print 4.2.4:
Major Improvements The Epson Stylus Photo 950/960/PM-950C and 2100/2200 are now tuned. The 950 and 960 are fully tuned, while the 2100 and 2200 are fully tuned with Photographic Black ink. Matte Black ink on the 2100/2200, and dark yellow ink on the PM-950C, are not tuned at this point.
As a special note, all of these printers print especially fast at 360 DPI in Four Color Standard mode (in color, grayscale, and monochrome). For this reason, we recommend use of Four Color Standard for printing text and low-resolution graphics on plain paper with these printers.Epson Stylus Photo printers with an automatic paper cutter option (the Stylus Photo 925, 950/960/PM-950C, and 2100/2200) now enable the cutter. This has received some testing, but has not been tested comprehensively. The Epson Stylus Pro 5000 should now print correctly, although this is not yet tested. The Epson Stylus Color 640 now prints properly in grayscale and monochrome at 720 DPI and above. DESTDIR now works with 'make install' in the Gimp plugin directory (this is generally of interest only to packagers). The user manual should now install correctly on all platforms. The version of libtool used to build this release has been changed to 1.4.3. This enables the packaged source to compile correctly on a few architectures (this is generally of interest only to packagers). Updates to the Debian packaging (this is of interest only to Debian packagers). The Mac OS X installer package now automatically updates the PPD file for every existing Gimp-Print printer (queue) in Print Center. Exceptions and Workarounds: There have been a number of reports that printing to a Windows-hosted printer from Macintosh OS X results in only the first page of the job being printed (see bugs 668342 and 672692). In at least some cases, connecting the printer directly to the Macintosh results in correct prints. There is no known workaround short of connecting the printer directly to the Macintosh. Investigation is continuing on this problem. There are longstanding reports of problems printing with certain USB-parallel adapters on Macintosh OS X. In particular, many users have reported problems with the Keyspan adapter; we recommend that users having problems try different brands of adapters, and avoid using USB hubs. Please check our web site (http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3) for a link to a user feedback forum regarding these cables. Mac OS X users who use the Epson Printer Utility (provided by Epson with their standard driver set) to check ink levels and perform maintenance tasks, such as head cleaning or head alignment, may encounter print job failures when attempting to print with the Gimp-Print driver after using the Epson utility. The cause for this failure is currently unknown, but the workaround is to completely power-cycle the printer, after which the Gimp-Print driver should again print normally. Another option is to disable the Epson Printer Utility. The Mac OS X print dialog may offer an "Autoselect" option as the default media source (input slot) on some printers. This option may not be valid and can result in nothing being printed. The workaround is to choose a different setting (explicitly select the input slot you wish to use). The new HP DesignJet drivers have not been fully tuned. In particular, there are reports that they print too light. This can be corrected with the Density adjustment (try 1.5~1.7 or thereabouts). The list of compatible and potentially compatible Hewlett-Packard printers has been updated with the latest available information. If a particular printer does not work with the recommended driver, we recommend that you try other similar drivers, check the Feature Requests at »http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=101537&group_id=1537&func=browse, and if the printer is not listed please file a feature request (via the Submit New button). Borderless (full-bleed) printing is not quite correct on the Epson Stylus Photo printers that support it (see bug 621668). Typically, the left or right margin is off by 1 mm or less, resulting in a very fine white strip on that edge. This will not be fixed in 4.2; it is expected to be fixed in 4.3 and beyond. There is no workaround other than trimming the page. Many Canon printers do not print correctly at 720x360 DPI. The workaround is to use 360 or 720 DPI. The following bugs have been fixed in Gimp-Print 4.2.5: 596538 Epson Stylus Photo 925 etc. paper cutter is not functional 599029 Epson: Maximum speed printing not supported on 950, 960 625780 Epson Stylus Pro 5000 does not print 639356 Build system: libtool 1.4.2 does not work on all platforms 641628 QUALITY: Epson Stylus 2200 print quality is low in 7-color 645895 Epson stc640 does not print at 720dpi and above 646158 Build:DESTDIR broken in make install in print plugin 649253 QUALITY - Epson 950/960 problems in all resolutions 659543 escputil Epson Photo 950 Ink level wrong 672845 Buffer overflow in escputil 672846 rastertoprinter does not compile on Solaris with gcc 672850 Epson back end in CUPS driver can lock up
Gimp-Print version 4.2.4 is the newest final release build in the stable 4.2 series; it contains the following improvements over Gimp-Print 4.2.3:
Major Improvements (bugs 603702 and 619537) All PCL laser printers (including HP LaserJet and many other printer lines) printed too light (black came out as medium gray).
(bugs 631993 and 633910) Various problems with the PPD files used by the native CUPS driver worked incorrectly with many applications, leading to failures to print, failures to recognize certain page sizes, and custom page sizes not working correctly have been fixed. To fix these problems, you must reinstall all of your printer queues using Gimp-Print PPD files. To do this, you must delete and re-create the printer queue (merely modifying or configuring the queue will not solve the problem). Please see the release notes for 4.2.3 (below) for instructions on using custom page sizes. (bug 628698) Lexmark printers produced severely distorted colors in some cases. (bug 631498) Canon large-format printers did not support A3 paper size; these printers are now capable of printing on that size paper. (no bug number) PCL laser printers now have correct margins on A4-size paper. (bug 630365) The Epson Stylus Photo 950 now prints correctly in 1440x1440 and 2880x720 DPI modes. This is not significant new functionality; these modes are actually printed at 2880x1440, which did not have this problem. (no bug number, but related to 628698) 6-color HP printers should now print correctly using all 6 colors. (no bug number) The dimensions for 22x30 watercolor paper were incorrect. New Functionality: The following HP DesignJet large-format plotters are now supported: DesignJet 230, 250, 430, 450, 455, 488, 700, 2500, and 3500. Other DesignJet printers may work with one of these drivers. The following Epson multi-function devices are now supported as printers: Stylus 3200CX and 5200CX. This project does not support scanners, so we cannot offer any advice on the scanner component of these units. The Epson MJ-930C is now supported. Various manual pages have been added or updated. See gimpprint(3), ijsgimpprint(1), escputil(1), and cups-calibrate(8) for more information. Transverse versions of the US CAD standard paper sizes (ArchA, ArchB, ArchC, ArchD, and ArchE) have been added. This permits printing e. g. ArchD size (24x36) plots on 36 inch wide paper. Exceptions and Workarounds: The new HP DesignJets have not been fully tuned. In particular, there are reports that they print too light. This can be corrected with the Density adjustment (try 1.5~1.7 or thereabouts). The version of libtool used to build this package, 1.4.2, does not create shared libraries correctly on some platforms (in particular, MIPS and MIPSEL). The workaround is to either build static libraries only (configure --disable-shared), or to regenerate the libtool with libtool 1.4.3. We expect this to be fixed in a future release. The Epson Stylus 2200 has not been tuned in 7-color mode, and reports are that quality is subpar in this mode. We recommend using 6-color mode until this is tuned, which we hope to be in the near future. There are longstanding reports of problems printing with certain USB-parallel and USB-serial adapters on Macintosh OS X. In particular, many users have reported problems with the Keyspan adapter; we recommend that users having problems try different brands of adapters, and avoid using USB hubs. Please check our web site (http:/gimp-print.sourceforge.net) for updates. The list of compatible and potentially compatible Hewlett-Packard printers has been updated with the latest available information. If a particular printer does not work with the recommended driver, we recommend that you try other similar drivers, check the Feature Requests, and if the printer is not listed please file a feature request (via the Submit New button). The following bugs have been fixed in Gimp-Print 4.2.4: 603702 QUALITY-HP LaserJet 5L print is too light 619537 QUALITY - Poor quality w Lexmark OprtaE+ and pcl-4 628698 Lexmark color reversal 630365 Epson Stylus Photo 950: Enlarged image with some 1440/2800 631498 Canon driver does not support A3 page size for large format 631936 HP DesignJet Margin Problems 631993 Macintosh OS X: Custom page size problems w/some apps 633910 Epson 1520 ppd bug gimp-print 4.2.3 The following bugs are currently open: 409612 Minor positioning prob on 4x6 glossy 538097 QUALITY-Poor quality printing on Canon s400 549677 Incorrect scaling on Canon BJC-1000 557868 QUALITY-Washed out color under Gimp on HP560c 581168 Canon BJC 250 just spits out pages 601767 Mac OS X: Canon BJC 2100 does not print multiple pages 602933 QUALITY-Poor quality on Canon S800 613054 Mac OS X: Printing from InDesign 2.0 on OS 10.2.1 614882 QUALITY - Problems with CANON BJC-55 - Gimp-Print 619299 QUALITY - brightness adjustment problem 621668 Epson Stylus full bleed prints have slight margin 625780 Epson Stylus Pro 5000 does not print 627266 Epson Stylus Pro Autoselect paper feed broken 627978 QUALITY: Canon BJC-6500 has magenta cast. 631937 HP DesignJet Sheet Cutter Problem 639356 Build system: The version of libtool is too old 641992 HP DesignJet 455CA printing rotated 90 641981 HP DesignJet 455 too light 641628 QUALITY: Epson Stylus 2200 print quality is low in 7-colorGimp-Print version 4.2.3 for Mac OS X Jaguar/Darwin 6.0 is the newest release in the stable 4.2 series; it contains the following improvements over Gimp-Print 4.2.2:
The native CUPS driver now accepts custom paper sizes with printers that permit this (all Epson printers, and most others). Bugs fixed since 4.2.2: 604854 QUALITY-Epson 1520 and 3000 print too dark at 1440x720 DPI 611804 rastertoprinter.c fails to compile on Solaris 613384 Epson 7600 no printing 615561 Epson C40UX cannot print in B&W and Gray 615759 360x240 bad horizontal position 619992 IJS driver prints spurious first line 620016 IJS driver does not print properly in monochrome 621667 Very large prints on Epson 9500 fail 622612 CUPS driver forbids custom page sizes 625602 QUALITY Pale output on Stylus Pro 7500 The following bugs are open against Gimp-Print 4.2.3: 409612 Minor positioning prob on 4x6 glossy 538097 QUALITY-Poor quality printing on Canon s400 549677 Incorrect scaling on Canon BJC-1000 557868 QUALITY-Washed out color under Gimp on HP560c 581168 BJC 250 just spits out pages 601767 Mac OS X: Canon BJC 2100 does not print multiple pages 602933 QUALITY-Poor quality on Canon S800 603702 QUALITY-HP LaserJet 5L print is too light 613054 Printing from InDesign 2.0 on OS 10.2.1 614882 QUALITY - Problems with CANON BJC-55 - Gimp-Print 619299 QUALITY - brightness adjustment problem 619537 QUALITY - Poor quality w/ Lexmark OprtaE+ & pcl-4 621668 Full bleed prints have slight margin
Please note: Gimp-Print for Mac OS X requires Jaguar (version 10.2) or later!
For a quick download of the latest release built specifically for Mac OS X users click here. An easy-to-follow, fully illustrated set-up guide is now included on the installation disk image!
For full compatibility with all Mac OS X applications (such as Adobe Pagemaker, Appleworks, etc...), we recommend Mac users install ESP Ghostscript 7.05.5 (or later), an OS X-compatible open source PostScript interpreter. Installing ESP Ghostscript is simple when you use the available Mac OS X version, and no additional set-up is required.
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