U12570@uicvm.uic.edu (Ed Garay) (04/30/91)
On a 26 Apr 91 posting to comp.fonts, rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: >...text deleted... > >It leads me to ask if there's any near-term promise of low-end printers >with significantly better resolution--say 450 dpi or better, preferably >more like 600? I've been told that 400 dpi is just about the limit for >current dry toners, and that a change in toner/technology is going to be >expensive for the time being. The past few years have seen 300 dpi getting >cheaper by the day; it's really an incredible bargain any more. But I >haven't seen or heard any progress in pushing the resolution upward for >low-end printers, other than HP's resolution enhancement. I sure hope that printer manufacturers are taking a closer look at the benefits of resolution enhancement technologies similar to HP's RET. RET is one of the main reasons why the LaserJet III family of printers is selling real well inspite of the saturated and price-competitive laser printer market. Also, for example, the LaserJet IIISi's RET combined with its microfine toner, has definitely the best looking 300dpi print quality money can buy; and the beauty of it is, that you get an effective resolution of more or less 600dpi without having to deal with four times as many pixels per inch as a true 600dpi resolution would require. And you don't have to run to purchase or make new bitmapped fonts, nor rescan your images either! RET works transparently. Granted, HP is not licensing its RET technology to its competitors, but there is at least one company, namely Destiny Technology Corp, which has developed a similar technology to improve 300dpi image quality. Destiny calls the technology used in its custom ASIC chip, Edge Enhancement Technology (EET) -- it improves the appearance of 300dpi output to 400dpi. While the smoothing algorithms employed in Destiny's EET differ from those used in HP's RET, their effectiveness is essentially the same -- in some cases, I have read, EET produces even better results that HP's RET. The EET ASIC chip set can be easily integrated in printer controllers and it is not expected to add more than $50 to the cost of a printer. Destiny's EET ASICs have been shipping since the end of last year. So, the question remains, which printer manufacturers are going to use this Edge Enhancement Technology, or any other resolution enhancement technology, for that matter? And how soon before we can buy 300dpi laser printers with outstanding resolution like that of the HP LaserJet IIIs? I should add, if I understand RET and EET correctly, that while they produce a noticeable improvement in image quality for text and lineart, there is very little or no gain in print quality for grayscale renditions. In any case, I think that HP's Resolution Enhancement Technology is wonderful, and I hope to see its impressive print quality matched by other printer manufacturers. If you feel the same way also, I suggest you let your favorite printer vendors know. --- Ed Garay University of Illinois at Chicago, Computer Center Internet: u12570@uicvm.uic.edu Bitnet: u12570@uicvm P.S. -- HP has finally announced the new LaserJet IIIP (;-)
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (05/03/91)
I'd just like to add to Ed's excellent coverage that I interviewed (unsuccessfully) with a (to remain nameless) company that had an active project for a 1200dpi laser printer for office use. It's eighteen months later, and no announcement yet, so the problems of toner quality, memory chip quantity/prices/speeds, data transmission bottlenecks, onboard CPU processing speed, and market demand or lack thereof are presumably not yet all solved. From my own experience doing 800 dpi large format (E size) laser onto film, 1200 dpi seems a bit of overkill; existing printing inks in 1978 tended to blur all detail below about 600dpi in any case, so that whether your pixels were round or square, no stairstep remained along diagonal lines; wet inks wicked together to smooth the edges mechanically. I'd hazard a guess that even dry toner would do a similar jaggie removal wicking when it was heated to bond to the paper, in which case 1200 dpi of detail would not carry into the final document. In particular, a half-tone screen probably wouldn't behave as expected. Still, I'm willing to be surprised. For whatever extra value the above information might add to the discussion. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
wdr@wang.com (William Ricker) (05/04/91)
xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >From my own experience doing 800 dpi large format (E size) laser onto >film, 1200 dpi seems a bit of overkill; existing printing inks in 1978 >tended to blur all detail below about 600dpi in any case, so that >whether your pixels were round or square, no stairstep remained along >diagonal lines; wet inks wicked together to smooth the edges >mechanically. I'd hazard a guess that even dry toner would do a similar >jaggie removal wicking when it was heated to bond to the paper, in which >case 1200 dpi of detail would not carry into the final document. In >particular, a half-tone screen probably wouldn't behave as expected. It does indeed, although I'm not sure at what resolution. The reference book on dry-toner blled and how to take advantage of it is /Digital Typography: An Introduction to Type and Compostition for Computer System Design/, Richard Rubinstein, Addison-Wesley, 0-201-17633-5. (Dick does the occasional speaking tour; if he's in your area, see him! I I rate him up there with Tufte.) --bill -- /s/ Bill Ricker wdr@wang.wang.com "The Freedom of the Press belongs to those who own one." *** Warning: This account is not authorized to express opinions. ***