ia4@CUNIXD.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Imran Anwar) (09/25/89)
FAX OR COMPUTER TRANSMISSION? - - - - - - - - - - I am using a RICOH 35 (64 gray scale machine at all nodes of my organization's network). The results, even at 64 gray scales, are barely acceptable for printing in newspapers, whixh is the primary purpose of having the 64 GS machines. I was reading the current issue of Macworld and saw plenty of ads for very sharp quality laser printers and scanners for the MAC including 256 gray scale ones. My question: If one used a Mac + 256 gray scale scanner + 9600 baud modem + 300 or 400 dpi plain paper laser printer at either end would not one expect to get better quality images on paper than the best fax machine that prints on thermal paper? Your suggestions/comments welcome. Thanks imran
isr@rodan.acs.syr.edu ( ISR group account) (09/27/89)
A laser printer in the 300-400 dpi range will NOT give results as good as a FAX. Your fax machine is probably 100x200 dpi resloution. A 300 dpi printer, has 300dpi at 1 gray level. at 64 gray levels, it will have around 37 dpi, which sucks. if you wanted t, and it was physically possible, you could print out your pictures on the printer at 64-gray levels at twice their size, then reduce them to normal size photographically (or xerographiclly) This gives results that are (barely) newspaper quality. -- Mike Schechter, Institute for Sensory Research, Syracuse Univ. isr@rodan.acs.syr.edu -or- msschech@rodan.syr.edu