[tony.eastwood]

I would like to push my Epson 740 to the edge and get as close to postscript printing I can get - with good colour matching to what I see on screen... Yes, I know I am probably dreaming.

Here's the deal.
Quark 3.3
Photoshop 6.0 (300dpi) file
Illustrator 9.0

MAcOs 9.0.4
Epson 740 inkjet with the latest drivers etc.

My Quark Doc - printed on photopaper at the highest resolution possible is fine as far as text is concerned by my Photoshop and Illustrator files within the document are really below the quality I would like. Will postscript emulation software solve this? The PS file is too pixelated. The illustrator file has very jagged edges. Am I just getting print-outs of the Quark previews where images are concerned?

And what is the best setting for such documents as far as colour matching is concerned? Why do my printed blues look purple, for example? Is there a generic setting that will alleviate the need for endless manipulation and repeated test prints?

Any help would be gratefully received.

Regards

tony eastwood

photoshop files should be tiff or jpeg NOT eps, and you should make sure they are flattened.

illustrator eps files will always be jaggy in quark on an inkjet because they need a postscript driver to process the postscript. you will need a postscript program like stylescript etc. have you considered making your illustrator art a high res tiff and using that to print to your inkjet.

illustrator processes postscript internally so if you print stuff from illustrator they will look good.

colors will always be an issue, consider not using pms colors and try specifying cmyk colors in your document to make it easier to match stuff.

please note that this stuff is just advice for output to inkjet not for final printing.

[Jean-Luc]

ryudo is correct. In the final printout, the type will be OK but you will always get the Quark SCREEN PREVIEW image instead of the hi-res image. There are, however, 2 options to get a full-res and clean image:

1. Buy a software PostScript RIP like iProof Systems's PowerRIP. Not only you will get true PostScript printout but you can also make any adjustment to the color levels (by the way, the Epson consumer printers always print too much magenta). And with that software, you will end up with a print that is 90-95% accurate comparing with a professional press proof.

2. Save your final Quark ducument in EPS and open it in Photoshop at 300 dpi. Photoshop will do all the rasterization work and you will print your ducument as an "image". Pros: inexpensive, easy, somewhat faster than a software RIP. Cons: less accurate than a RIP, you have to go back to Quark to edit your document and go through the process I mention before again (and again).

Hope this helps.

Jean-Luc

<small>[ 06-08-2002, 08:17 PM: Message edited by: Jean-Luc ]</small>

[Jean-Luc]

ryudo is correct. In the final printout, the type will be OK but you will always get the Quark SCREEN PREVIEW image instead of the hi-res image. There are, however, 2 options to get a full-res and clean image:

1. Buy a software PostScript RIP like iProof Systems's PowerRIP. Not only you will get true PostScript printout but you can also make any adjustment to the color levels (by the way, the Epson consumer printers always print too much magenta). And with that software, you will end up with a print that is 90-95% accurate comparing with a professional press proof.

2. Save your final Quark ducument in EPS and open it in Photoshop at 300 dpi. Photoshop will do all the rasterization process and you will print your ducument as an "image". Pros: inexpensive, easy, somewhat faster than a software RIP. Cons: less accurate than a RIP, you have to go back to Quark to edit your document and go through the process I mention before again (and again).

Hope this helps.

Jean-Luc

[judd]

Another option is to convert your quark file into a pdf file and then print that. You will still have to go back to Quark for any mods and then retry, but atleast if you print from a pdf, the text part of the document does not become an image and it remains nice and crisp. Within the pdf settings there are also colour adjustments you can make. Hope that helps.

[Macola]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">Originally posted by judd:
<strong>Another option is to convert your quark file into a pdf file and then print that. You will still have to go back to Quark for any mods and then retry, but atleast if you print from a pdf, the text part of the document does not become an image and it remains nice and crisp. Within the pdf settings there are also colour adjustments you can make. Hope that helps.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif">I use this process routinely for output from Quark with an Epson Stylus Color 740, and it works pretty well, especially with Colorsync profiles. I used Stylescript previously, but it was buggy and way too slow. Go with PDF, that's your best option.