TSB
Computers and Software => RIPs => Topic started by: Gilligan on November 12, 2011, 10:29:13 PM
-
Actually haven't even got there.
I'm following a tut on t-shirtforums and they say to install a laserjet 4/4m PS and "print to file".
seems easy enough.
Set it up, test file works (doesn't ask me where to save but a quick search and I find it saving to my profile's root)... so off to Photoshop.
Go through the motions and ... and... and... NADA!
No file created and no error. This is on my XP laptop... on the wife's win7 64 desktop it says "access denied" when I select the file name (from any app). Probably a UAC issue trying to write to the root of my profile. I would like to specify where my file would go but I don't seem to be given that option.
-
So more playing around.
Still no luck with Photoshop.
BUT Illustrator does output separations and outputs to file (I need a better printer to fake I think).
So I took my blocks and dumped them into illustrator and outputted them... now I'm confused. Maybe this is how it is supposed to look but it seems odd.
This is blocks of 90% black to 10% black. I printed out of ghostview to PDF so I could look at the dots close up.
Can someone explain them better to me or is it like I think and screwed up?
-
I rarely output this stuff from Photoshop, but rather Corel, mostly DRAW. There we have an option to output as a Device Independent Bitmap.
Forgive me if I screw this up, because as I said, I hardly ever output this way. However, there are a bunch of other members who will explain this better (if not actually correctly if I blew it)
In Photoshop, I guess I would print to file to a dummy driver, as you did. I use the HP 5500 (http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=82218&prodNameId=82229&swEnvOID=228&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=pl-79971-2) In Photoshop, you set your lpi, and angles in each channel (just black in this case)
Print to file, then, you need to open Ghostview GS View. This is where you actually print from. I saw no mention of this, do you have it installed?
If not, get it here. (http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/)
Open your file, set your media size (and orientation if needed), pick your real printer, and have at it.
-
Ok... still not working form Photoshop. Same thing... looks like it's making the file but it disappears, never ask where to save it and it's no where to be found in a search of the hard drive.
I do have Ghostview (and ghostscript).
That pdf I attached above was from printing to PDF from ghostview (as a way to see the output, I don't have a printer at home). That was from the LaserJet 4/4M PS which resulted in strange "ellipses" to say the least.
So I grabbed the 5500 and installed it. From here I went back into illustrator and still had some problems if I choose "Separations (host based)" from the output section it was printing in a weird CMYK that was using all colors (like when working in RGB how black isn't just black but a mix) I outputted the sep and turned off all the other colors and it just had like the darkest blocks. So I tried "In-Rip Separations" (this wasn't available in the LJ 4/4m) and it worked just fine. Even made better ellipses as you can see from this attached PDF printed out from GhostView.
So should I be able to take the .ps file that created this pdf and use ghostview to output my films for my halftone test? Hoping to get some testing done today. :)
-
As I warned you, I am not the guy for much help with specific Adobe/Ghost questions (hell, I'm barely helpful with Corel)
An Adobe Ghoster is bound to jump in.
A couple of things though. When I tried this in PS last night, I also could not find my saved "Print to File" file. I did a search, and did find it in my usual "Frog Jobs" folder (rather than the usual "Print to file" folder I have). Make sure you give it a specific individual name that you can search for, and figure out where PS and GS View want to put them.
Then open it in GS VIew and print.
Now, In PS or Illy, what line frequency did you use? The 40 that we suggested? I can't tell from your attachment, as except for bitmap workarounds, the line frequency is a product of the RIP upon output.
-
I'm using CS5, and I know a few things have changed, but . . .
Bring up your print dialog box, make sure your fake postscript printer is selected, and that separations are selected. Older versions of Photoshop allowed a bit more customization here than 5 is allowing, but you should make your frequency, dot shape, and screen angle here.
Look for a "Printer" button at the bottom of the print dialog box. If you click on it, you should get a drop down menu of choices, such as "save as PDF" and "save as postscript" . . . select "save as postscript" then the Save button. You should get the option of where to save it.
When you close that, you might have to re-enter your linescreen/shape/angle choices (for some reason I always had to), and hit Print.
Obviously, open the .ps file you just saved and have a go at it. As Andy pointed out, make sure your media size matches the "sheet" size of your original file and of the fake printer, otherwise things have a way of getting cropped out.
It's a squirrelly program, but it's free and does an excellent job once you've run the obstacle course and figured it out.
Hope this helps. I've had issues since moving up to CS5 and OSX Snow Leopard. Under CS3 I always used the Adobe PDF printer that was an option and allowed for any size output, plus all of the halftone options. I hate it when things get "fixed" . . .
-
Ok, I'll clear up any thing confusing hopefully.
Photoshop, yes, it just disappears and I named it a unique name to search... I am a computer guru so I do know how to search my computer and make sure I find what I'm looking for. Just not there... it acts different than Illustrator in that it puts up a dialog box asking for file name, not a usual save as dialog box.
In Illustrator, I'm using 40 lpi and 45 degrees ellipse (left it 45 just because it's one color).
Ok, out the door real quick... will fill in more later... CS4 btw.
-
Just a note, though you may do fine with 45 degrees, the need for the neutral angle in this case is not interaction with other colors, bur rather interaction with the mesh itself.
For this test, it's no biggie, and in fact could prove very educational.
-
Ok, so back (had to go eat lunch with the family)...
So OK, Created blocks in a CMYK document in photoshop (0,0,0,90 then 0,0,0,80 and so on). Merged visible and copied and pasted to a CMYK illustrator doc. Then printed to "fake" printer (designjet 5500 PS 42in), using "In-rip separations" and unchecking all the colors except black. Setting 40 LPI, 45 degree, ellipse. Save as dialog box pops up and I save the file "blocks5500.ps" then open up that file in Ghostview and print it out to a PDF printer so I can verify the halftone images.
That is what I've posted right there in the last attachments.
Does that all look like it should?
-
At least what I get is halftones, but at my printer's defaults.
As Tom said, save your file as a postscript file. That is where the magic then occurs in Ghost and GS View.
-
Ok, I don't get the options that Tom mentioned.
I just get a standard printer dialog box. I print and it pops up a "save dialog box" like if you hit save on a document in an application.
This is when I go to "file" > "Print" then hit "print". I assumed that that IS a post script file... but I want to move beyond "assumption" and KNOW I did it right.
-
You'll get more Photoshop and Illustrator-specific members chiming in later today, or even more tomorrow, I'm sure.
Me, I have 50 hoods to do right now!
-
Ok... Illustrator on 7 is being silly. The option for separations on the 5500 is greyed out. Unless someone knows a trick I'm looking at the Adobe PS driver. Does that work all the same?
Seems like it does but I really don't know.
I've made a large gradient bar going from 100% to 0% and marked it at every 10%. I'll be adding some squares of said mile stones and printing that out.
-
Ok... little progress.
In-Rip sucks with the new windows 7 5500 driver. Host based is the way to go here. (technically I'm using the Adobe Postscript file with the 5500 as the PPD.)
Here is the PDF of the latest test. I also printed out a real page test on plain paper and it looks essentially the same... to the naked eye that is.
Is this the type of halftones I should be expecting out of ghostscript or am I missing something? It's definitely better (cleaner) than doing the bitmap trick in photoshop... makes that look like a joke.
Is this what 40 lpi 45 degree ellipse halftones should look like I guess is what I'm wondering? And now on to the $800 dollar question. How much better (if any) would this look coming out of Accurip?
-
Excerpted from my complete write-up on Ghost -
***********
PHOTOSHOP
***********
- Photoshop - finish any separations for halftones to where you have the channels ready to go
Click File - Print Options - SCREEN and set the lpi, angle, and shape for each color channel
Note for CS2 this is found in Print with Preview - If you don't see these setting, be
sure your setting is for "Output", NOT "Color Management"
Select PAGE SETUP to point to HP DesignJet 5500 and click OK
Select one channel to print and click PRINT. If a message pops up that clipping might occur, just click PROCEED. If a message pops up for resolution higher than 2.5 times the frequency, just click PROCEED
Click the box for PRINT TO FILE and click OK. The PRINT TO FILE box should open wanting an Output File Name. I have a folder on my C drive named "GHOST", so what I put in the box is - C:\GHOST\xxxxxxx_yyyy.ps where xxxxxxx is my customer and yyyy is the color of the channel. So name it something like C:\GHOST\Cust_Image_Color.ps and click OK. Note those are "back slashes" (above the Enter Key), not "forward slashes". The channel will output to where you referenced. It may take
20 - 45 seconds to output and Postscript files can be quite large
Repeat the steps for each channel
DesignJet 5500 is a postscript driver set. You MUST have a postscript driver installed to be able to write to a "file". However, you do NOT have to have the physical printer.
I'm having trouble finding those options in PS CS5. In previous versions you had the option to click on "write to file" box. I'll keep looking.
Tom, in CS5, I do not have an option in the drop down for "save as postscript"
-
I'd love to read that entire writeup.
But for the record... I'm still getting access denied on Win 7. I know what is happening. It is trying to default to the c:\users\UserName\WhateverYouCalledIt.ps and UAC does not allow that directory to be written to by a "user" (even administrator).
Illustrator is smarter in that it pulls up a "save as" dialog box but PS as well as the printers own "test page" action does not.
A battle for another day. I guess I can always move things into Illustrator to output to Ghost.. it's an extra step but not a terribly complicated one.
-
sent you a pm
-
Cool... still working out some of the details but I found that Photoshop was dumping the .ps files into the photoshop dir. Which UAC doesn't allow that so that explains the Access Denied error in Win7.... now to figure out a work around.
-
I'm guessing you didn't read the second write-up I sent last night where it described the work around in PS/CS4/5 to write to a file.
I know that method will let you save the file (.eps) anywhere you want. BTW, I'm on 7.
-
Yes I did... that was the "still working out some of the details" part. I tried that here (XP) and got a few errors and it didn't out put with halftones.
So, I'm working both angles still.
-
Did you download the Wilflex RIP and Load to PS?
That made all the difference for me in CS5. Earlier versions of PS have the "output to file" option.
-
I did... I actually just got the email saying my reply to yours bounced.
I'm actually on CS4 at the house here (xp), CS5 on the wife's 7 machine. 7 has the UAC problem, but XP doesn't give me an option of where to save it... just silently shoves it in the program files directory (photoshop).
-
Ok... question.
I just dropped in my greyscale turkey into Illustrator to run to ghostscript (works better out of illustrator as I still have those Win7 kinks to work out, plus the wife fixed the text and she likes Illy)... So now when I go to print the output it is assuming actual CMYK data (including the CMY) when all I have is Black.
When I ran my halftone test Illy just KNEW all I had was black and unchecked the CMY channels. I tried manually unchecking them but it is blending to get my greys so when I look in Ghostview it's obviously missing "color".
What gives? BTW, my turky is an embedded PSD and not done in Illy. Shouldn't Illy know what my colors are and set them up properly when outputting?
-
If the whole file is your image, convert it to greyscale in Photoshop and save as a PSD.
If it's a channel separation, make sure your channels are all spot colors, save as PSD with spot colors.
Open PSD in Illy (only works on CS2 and before for me), click with direct selection tool (white arrow), each
channel should be selectable, place on separate layers and delete background CMYK file. Okay to add
vector elements at this point if necessary/possible. All of your spot colors should show up in your pallet
if done correctly.
-
I'm trying to place it as a PSD (saved as greyscale) but it's not working.
There are no separations, just indexed it to the greys I wanted then converted to greyscale.
What else can I do? I really hate to redraw this thing after all this tweaking. I mean, I guess if that's what it takes. I just don't want to have to do things the "long way" because I'm failing at something simple.
-
Once it is in Illustrator click the image and assign it the process/global black from your swatches.
-
Could you explain further? I'm not getting it.
-
To be clear, I'm selecting the object and then clicking on one of the swatches and that doesn't seem to be cutting it.
-
ALL STOP
I got other problems with this file... it's not the psd.
My bad. Will sort it and get back to you guys.
-
Yeah, just double checked my instructions and they worked fine. Good luck.
-
Yep... not sure what or where it went wrong... but I selected all then picked the greyscale black (tooltip says 100%k) that seemed to do the trick.
I definitely learned a few things in this little glitch!
Thanks EB, didn't know you could assign a psd file a color (kind of weird but I guess that works!)
-
Ok, new problem maybe someone knows the answer to.
I have some solid black (the bars of the cross hairs) that is ABSOLUTELY 100% K when I pass the eyedropper around.
Yet, when I bring the PSD into AI and run it through ghostscript and print out of ghostview to PDF (just to view it) the 100% ends up looking like about 95% (maybe less).
this clearly won't work.
-
Anyone have an answer for this issue?
It's getting to be crunch time and I've got no answer.
Just did the artwork for the back of the shirt and had to place some PSD files into the rest of the stuff in Illustrator and it's not reading them as 100% black.
The PSD's are saved as grey scale and are 100% black.
-
Print a piece of paper out of GS and see if it halftones.
-
Can you send the PS file to me?
I'm not touching the import to Iilly problem as I would not be doing that so have no clue.
-
Attached.
Obviously it should work. People do it all the time and it shows up as 100% black but oh well.
anything you can offer is great!
This is actually the front of the shirt. The cross hairs should be SOLID as welll as the outlines on the turkey.
You will see the text is fine as well as the cajun wineglass (originated in Illustrator).
-
I just opened the .ps file (I actually had meant to send the Photoshop (PS) file, lol).
However, having said that. I used Ghost to open it up for printing.
The crosshairs, except for being a bit raster jaggy are definitely solid as is the outline of the turkey.
The insides have several densities which I believe is what you wanted.
Skip the Illy step and open that .ps file in Ghost. Print from Ghost. End of story.
Attached is the screen print of the scanned back in top of your pic. I only printed on 8.5x11 so chopped off the bottom but that's irrelevant.
Printed the bottom part and the scan back in is now attached as well.
Wine glass is solid. So solid it laid down so much ink it made the paper wrinkled so it may look like it has lines, but it don't.
-
Hmmm... I wonder why when I render it out of ghostview to a PDF that it shows crazy halftones on the 100%? :(
The photoshop file was just that turkey in gray scale. I'm sure you can imagine it. Nothing fancy. Yes, there is some nasty raster artifacts going on... but it is what it is. I'll run a test print on the printer and see what it looks like in the morning (no printer at the house).
Actually I print it out remotely so I can have it when I walk in the door. :)
-
Dunno,
But I think you go down a lot of dark alleys (Photoshop to Illy, render from Ghost to pdf, etc) when just printing it out directly might have solved most of your issues.
An investment of $150 or less for a printer "at the house" might have saved you a bunch of posts, lost time, and mild frustration.
Actually the reason I didn't print your entire image at once is I'm using a cheap azz $49 Brother multiifunction printer/scanner for draft stuff. My HP9800 is what I use for film.
Just my 2c.
-
Attached is the screen print of the scanned back in top of your pic. I only printed on 8.5x11 so chopped off the bottom but that's irrelevant.
So how did you do the "test" screen capture with the halftones?
That's why I'm dumping to PDF because I can't see another way of doing it so I can look at the dots before printing. I know it's just a little paper and ink, but have my printer set up to print slowly so it's faster to check it digitally.
-
LOL... you are correct... but once this is all sorted out I shouldn't be printing out at home very often anyway.
Just got to work out the kinks here.
Juggling all the businesses gets a little hectic at times so I end up hammering this stuff out late at night while in bed.
-
Attached is the screen print of the scanned back in top of your pic. I only printed on 8.5x11 so chopped off the bottom but that's irrelevant.
So how did you do the "test" screen capture with the halftones?
That's why I'm dumping to PDF because I can't see another way of doing it so I can look at the dots before printing. I know it's just a little paper and ink, but have my printer set up to print slowly so it's faster to check it digitally.
Printed out to paper, scaned back in to a .jpg file, which I should have attached, lol, but instead i have a little screen capture tool called Print Key Pro that is like Snagit and others and creates a small .png file.
Like I said, in retrospect, I could (should have?) have posted the .jpg, but went to more trouble, lol, catching the screen print of the .jpg display and saving and posting that, doh!!
-
Well... I guess I got a new problem. Lucky you guys.
I got to work to find this (attached).
Now, if anyone remembers I had no problem rendering my halftones out of ghostview for my block test. AND the PDF's show half tones (albeit too much)... so it seems there is a disconnect between the printer and ghostscript.
-
That's some weird stuff man. What printer and what driver are you using? Also what are your
separation settings out of Illy?
-
Epson WF1100, windows 7 64bit driver.
Settings out of Illy is Postscript file using the 5500 driver, output is set to separations (host based), 25lpi 25 degree elliptical.
-
FWIW, and to remove variables, find a PDF postscript description file. Adobe
used to package them with a lot of their programs. Use that out of Illy.
In GS, what is your selection on the lower left section "Print Method"?
-
Windows GDI.
How would I do that and what would it be different than using the Postscript File driver that is already built in illustrator?
-
The PDF Postscript description (PPD file I think?) is device independent. That means no
restrictions based on the printer you're foolin.
Use the Ghostscript Device and find a driver for your printer. Windows drivers can do funky things.
You're trying to take all the funk out here and send the straight dope to your output device.
-
Hmmm, so do I just start picking and guessing (testing) the ghostscript devices. They certainly don't list mine in there. They don't have many.
-
There's a description of them somewhere, and more are available on the web. All you
need is one that speaks in the language of your printer. Start with the PPD file though
as that describes the lpi/shape etc, and that certainly seems to be your problem. It's halftoning,
but I'll be damned if I've ever seen that pattern before.
-
Yeah, it's weird. I had those problems before but they went away and didn't show up on the test I shot. Can't recall what changed but I didn't change it back. LOL
I'm digging around... I have to get these films out by tomorrow so I can print by Friday! :)