02-15-2007, 11:48 PM
See original thread:
http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/249...msg-249031
OK, so I threw some photos at this baby. Disclaimer: It still has only the factory 128MB of RAM, and I don't know if more RAM will make any qualitative difference. I will have more RAM in it next week, I hope.
Anyway, the first thing I did was a drop and print. I just dumped the photos right to the machine and let it do whatever it did. I made no changes to the print dialog box, so the image quality was on Standard. This was fine for casual use, but, um, I wanted more.
I played around with InDesign and color conversions, watching the various effects and getting a handle on what was making a difference and what wasn't.
In the end I installed the printer's ColorSync profile (on both Mac and Windows; I got identical results from each platform) and told the driver to link to that profile and do all the conversions.
Man, did that make a difference. I was stunned at the color quality. But still, as I looked at the Mac prints it was obvious that the highlights were blown out and there was still a bunch of noise. Well, I thought, maybe that's just a limitation of this machine. But on poking around a bit I turned the image quality to Enhanced, and that was the ticket. The color was great AND the highlights were smooth and a bunch of the noise was gone.
It's interesting to note that on Windows, installing the .icm file and going to the driver's Properties dialog/color management tab, and forcing the driver to use the profile, grayed out the driver's image quality options. Hmmmm, makes sense. So it's a one-step process in the Windows driver.
But on the Mac driver, you still have to do the two-step of finding and using the ColorSync utility and using THAT to link the profile to the printer, and then setting the Enhanced print quality option every time you print a job. I wish Apple would get their sh*t together on the user experience with printing.
Anyway, there you go. $600 or so and 12 cents or so per page, and it's a great utility printer that can also step up to the plate and (with some processing time; don't kid yourself) do a great job on photos.
http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/249...msg-249031
OK, so I threw some photos at this baby. Disclaimer: It still has only the factory 128MB of RAM, and I don't know if more RAM will make any qualitative difference. I will have more RAM in it next week, I hope.
Anyway, the first thing I did was a drop and print. I just dumped the photos right to the machine and let it do whatever it did. I made no changes to the print dialog box, so the image quality was on Standard. This was fine for casual use, but, um, I wanted more.
I played around with InDesign and color conversions, watching the various effects and getting a handle on what was making a difference and what wasn't.
In the end I installed the printer's ColorSync profile (on both Mac and Windows; I got identical results from each platform) and told the driver to link to that profile and do all the conversions.
Man, did that make a difference. I was stunned at the color quality. But still, as I looked at the Mac prints it was obvious that the highlights were blown out and there was still a bunch of noise. Well, I thought, maybe that's just a limitation of this machine. But on poking around a bit I turned the image quality to Enhanced, and that was the ticket. The color was great AND the highlights were smooth and a bunch of the noise was gone.
It's interesting to note that on Windows, installing the .icm file and going to the driver's Properties dialog/color management tab, and forcing the driver to use the profile, grayed out the driver's image quality options. Hmmmm, makes sense. So it's a one-step process in the Windows driver.
But on the Mac driver, you still have to do the two-step of finding and using the ColorSync utility and using THAT to link the profile to the printer, and then setting the Enhanced print quality option every time you print a job.
Anyway, there you go. $600 or so and 12 cents or so per page, and it's a great utility printer that can also step up to the plate and (with some processing time; don't kid yourself) do a great job on photos.