Everyone, please test this release thoroughly. The Epson driver has undergone significant changes from the current 4.2 branch, and I'd like to merge this code back into 4.2, as it's going to be needed to support the UltraChrome inkset in the newest printers. I'd like this to undergo some testing prior to a 4.2 prerelease.

Gimp-Print 4.3.3, released July 14, 2002, is a development release of this package.

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

The Gimp Print plugin requires the Gimp 1.2.

The CUPS driver requires CUPS 1.1.9 or higher. 1.1.14 or above is highly recommended, as certain translation-related bugs are fixed and it is possible to print true CMYK.

The Ghostscript driver requires Ghostscript 5.50, 6.51, or any later GNU Ghostscript release based on 6.51 (e. g. 6.52).

The IJS GhostScript plugin driver requires GNU Ghostscript 6.53 or later or APFL GhostScript 7.04 or later.

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

Gimp-Print 4.3.3 contains the following major changes over Gimp-Print 4.3.2:

1) Printing at very low vertical resolution (typically less than 360 DPI; 360 DPI itself is fine) in black and white mode on some Epson printers either failed or produced incorrect results. This bug has been present for a while.

2) Quad tone grayscale inks, such as the Piezography (TM) inks, are now supported for most Epson Stylus printers. This is not tuned for a particular inkset at this time, so the results will not be of top quality yet.

3) The Gimp Print plugin will now compile properly on commercial UNIX systems that do not have the asprintf function (which is libc-specific).

4) Various improvements to EvenTone dithering.

5) The Epson Stylus Photo 2100 and 2200, and 7600 and 9600, should now print correctly in seven color mode (for UltraChrome inks).

Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 17:59:41 +0200 From: Till Kamppeter

Your patch to fix the IJS interface works also with the 4.3.3 version.

That's certain to work; the issue is what the correct behavior is.

> 5) The Epson Stylus Photo 2100 and 2200, and 7600 and 9600, should now > print correctly in seven color mode (for UltraChrome inks).

The seven-ink mode is listed in the ink type option of the GIMP, but not in the ink type options of the CUPS PPDs or Foomatic (both IJS and "stp").

That's weird, because they use the same mechanism to retrieve the information. Could you double check that you weren't using an older library version?

Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 02:15:19 +0200 From: Till Kamppeter

I have uninstalled the old GIMP-Print RPMs from the distro before I installed 4.3.3.

Still, make sure that you're getting this from the right place.

Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 02:24:13 +0200 From: Till Kamppeter

Robert L Krawitz wrote: > Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 02:15:19 +0200 > From: Till Kamppeter
>
> I have uninstalled the old GIMP-Print RPMs from the distro before I > installed 4.3.3.
>
> Still, make sure that you're getting this from the right place.

The evidence that I get it from the right place is that I have "QuadTone" ink types for the appropriate printer models.

Right, but if the PPD files and Foomatic data don't have QuadTone in them, the data generators (genppd and such) may not have picked it up correctly.

Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 02:36:12 +0200 From: Till Kamppeter

The PPD files and Foomatic data have QuadTone but no seven-ink mode, this is the strange thing. If they had linked against an obsolete library both seven-ink and QuadTone must miss, with the new library both must be there. Having only QuadTone and no seven-ink is strange, especially where both is available in the GIMP plugin.

Which printer model is this?

Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 03:03:50 +0200 From: Till Kamppeter

The Stylus Photo 950 is a seven-ink printer with sheet and roll feeder, in both GIMP and Foomatic the seven-ink mode is missing, but quadtone is there. The roll feeder is missing in both GIMP and Foomatic, too.

Grr. My understanding was that the 950 has 7 ink tanks, but in fact has two identical black cartridges. Is this incorrect? I don't know why the rollfeed is missing, though; it's in the database.

The Epson Stylus Photo 2100 has no quadtone in both GIMP and Foomatic, is this not possible on this model? Also the roll feeder is missing in both cases. Are you sure that this model has no roll feeder? Seven ink can be chosen in GIMP but not in Foomatic.

I'm sure it's possible; we can always add the quadtone (or whatever becomes available) later for this printer.

By looking into the CUPS PPD I have found the bug, it is a short name clash. The CUPS PPD contains the following:

This is now fixed.

7-ink photo and 6-ink photo modes have the same short names, genppd lists both choices in the PPD, but they are not selectable. Foomatic seems to overwrite choices with equal short names. And as short names are the internal identifier for the spooler, they must be different. Even the PostScript commands in the shown PPD snippet are equal for the 6-ink and 7-ink modes, so the modes are really unselectable. Can it be that the GIMP plug-in only has a menu entry for 7-ink, but sets the same variable values as for 6-ink and the promising 7-ink output of GIMP you have seen was 6-ink in reality?

Very likely.