If you're into high quality color prints, nothing touches inkjet quality, though a $40,000 Canon imagePRESS doesn't exactly suck. At Watkins we have several HP color laser printers, and if you do an occasional color calibration they produce "similar" results to the expensive Canon. Of course the Canon uses a photometer for calibration, and has a Fiery RIP to do the fine color tweaks.
Ghostscript does a fairly decent job. I've used Fiery RIPs, and the expense is just silly compared with Ghostscript/Cups. We didn't have this stuff before, but it has become really great. Usually, the postscript is just handed off to the printer to deal with, but if you're picky, you can setup some post-queue processing with Ghostscript to tweak the color.
As far as inkjets, unless you have one of these 9-color inkjets, print on expensive coated paper, and keep it sterile - you're going to get the absolute most fabulous black and color reproduction from a wax/thermal printer, like the Tektronix or Xerox models. With wax, the ink sits on top of the page - it doesn't bleed into the paper. Printing full-page vacation photos will come out bright and glossy with standard paper, and with higher detail than the cover of any high-quality magazine. These solid crayons can be picked up from EBay, or Amazon for cheap - I got a bag of crayons from Goodwill, where I picked up my old Tektronix 740.
Some old color laser printers are workhorses, and will just need a couple cleanings to keep them running sharp. I just gave away my old Tektronix Phaser 560, and it has served us well for about 5 years.
Yes, I do have a bunch of printers. I love to print, and so should you. I swore off inkjets due to clogging, jamming, and 30-minute-per-page print times. Of course, bulk ink systems are cheaper now.
-- Drew from Zhrodague Tiki Witchdoctor [email protected] "Ooga-booga!" -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en
