[comp.sys.mac] smoothing bitmap graphics

pazzani@ics.uci.edu (Michael Pazzani) (09/14/89)

The Apple LaserWriter has a facility to "smooth" bitmap graphics does
a pretty good job of making 72dpi bitmaps look acceptable when printed at
300dpi.  Does anyone know if these facilities can be accessed
directly from postscript?  I have a large number of bitmaps (from
a Symbolics Lisp Machine) that are printed using the postscript
"imagemask" procedure.   I'd love to find a way to make them print
on a laserwriter with the same quality as images produced by MacPaint.

Thanks in advance,
Mike
pazzani@ics.uci.edu

hallett@pet3.uucp (Jeff Hallett x5163 ) (09/15/89)

In article <1989Sep14.163312.17575@paris.ics.uci.edu> Michael Pazzani <pazzani@ics.uci.edu> writes:
>The Apple LaserWriter has a facility to "smooth" bitmap graphics does
>a pretty good job of making 72dpi bitmaps look acceptable when printed at
>300dpi.  Does anyone know if these facilities can be accessed
>directly from postscript?  I have a large number of bitmaps (from
>a Symbolics Lisp Machine) that are printed using the postscript
>"imagemask" procedure.   I'd love to find a way to make them print
>on a laserwriter with the same quality as images produced by MacPaint.

Well, this might be quite a problem.  The smoothing that occurs for
bitmaps is Apple-proprietary code and sits in the LaserPrep file as a
binary executable.  (This is why a lot of places have a problem
uploading and printing with this beastie.)

The best bet for you would be to find a way to convert the bitmap to
PostScript.  You may find that the bitmap gets reduced in scale to
match the LaserWriter quality, but that will look better anyway.
There are a number of routines to convert bitmaps to PostScript (and
many other things too).  The trick is getting the Symbolics files into
one of those formats.

--
                Jeffrey A. Hallett, PET Software Engineering
                    GE Medical Systems, W641, PO Box 414
                            Milwaukee, WI  53201
  	       (414) 548-5163 : EMAIL -  hallett@gemed.ge.com