"Postscript" Brother Printers

I recently purchased a Brother HL-5250DN printer. I use Mac OS 10.2.8.

The printer had Postscript Emulation on the box. We're a weekly
newspaper and I like to output 65 line screen halftones. Well, it
doesn't seem possible to set the line screen on this "Postscript" printer.

I would suggest taking Brother's Postscript claims with a grain of salt.

Hop

On Fri, 9 Feb 2007 23:19:16 -0500, Hop David wrote
(in article <(E-Mail Removed)>):

> I recently purchased a Brother HL-5250DN printer. I use Mac OS 10.2.8.
>
> The printer had Postscript Emulation on the box. We're a weekly
> newspaper and I like to output 65 line screen halftones. Well, it
> doesn't seem possible to set the line screen on this "Postscript" printer.
>
> I would suggest taking Brother's Postscript claims with a grain of salt.
>
> Hop

Ah... what printer driver are you using? Hint: very few desktop laser
printers support what you seem to want. I'd get an imagesetter and print to
film, or at least one of the (considerably higher-end than a 5250) laser
printers which can print to film. Or maybe one of those direct-to-plate
jobbies.

And I'd use a higher screen than 65 lines. Back when I was supporting
newspapers in the Caribbean, we never went lower than 85 lines, and usually
were at 100. We found that printing at less than 85 was a waste of paper and
ink, 'cause the output was, frankly, too muddy, especially wrt to colour pix.

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

Dave Balderstone wrote:

> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Hop David
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>>I recently purchased a Brother HL-5250DN printer. I use Mac OS 10.2.8.
>>
>>The printer had Postscript Emulation on the box. We're a weekly
>>newspaper and I like to output 65 line screen halftones. Well, it
>>doesn't seem possible to set the line screen on this "Postscript" printer.
>>
>>I would suggest taking Brother's Postscript claims with a grain of salt.
>
>
> With respect, if you're using a laser printer for final output for your
> weekly newspaper you're not taking advantage of current technology.
> Even with a pure Adobe PS laser printer, you're not going to get the
> line screen you want if it isn't supported by the print driver.
>
> What press are you running on, and how are the printing plates being
> produced? Even the smallest papers here in western Canada are either
> running older imagesetters producing film negs or submitting PDFs to
> their printers and letting them handle it, either to film or direct to
> a platesetter.

Our printers use an offset camera to make negatives from camera ready
pages. Then use negatives to burn plates. They still don't have
imagesetters, neither direct to film nor direct to plate.

When they do, we'll probably ftp pdf pages to the printers. Until then,
we'll continue our 20th century ways.

>
> Also, what press are you running on that needs a 65 line screen? 85 or
> 100 lpi is far more common and will give you better quality. We run 100
> line on a 40 year old Goss Urbanite and have award winning color
> reproduction.
>
> Oh, 10.2.8 is a few years old, too.

I've tried finer screens. I suspect some of the unacceptable degradation
of finer screens comes from additional steps: camera ready pages to
film, film to plate, plate to newsprint. With a platesetter the final
output is a few generations closer to the original image.

Ajo's a small, isolated community. We mostly print black and white
images and a lot of our equipment and software is old. If our market
were larger and more prosperous, maybe we'd have newer equipment and
more 4-color.

We've been using Xante printers which typically cost more than $1,000.
When I saw ps emulation for less than $300, it seemed like an answer to
our prayers. The Brother's been a good printer for outputting text,
invoices or documents with no halftones. But I was disappointed it
couldn't give the coarser halftones I wanted.

Hop

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Hop David <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I recently purchased a Brother HL-5250DN printer. I use Mac OS 10.2.8.
>
> The printer had Postscript Emulation on the box. We're a weekly
> newspaper and I like to output 65 line screen halftones. Well, it
> doesn't seem possible to set the line screen on this "Postscript" printer.
>
> I would suggest taking Brother's Postscript claims with a grain of salt.
>
> Hop

I use a Xerox Printer with (true) Adobe Postscript 3, and I can choose
whether to use the printer's halftones or others in the printer driver.
If you use that in conjunction with true 1200 dpi on coated paper you
could probably reach your goal:
(1200 dpi/85 lpi) = 200 gray levels
So you could have the needed 200 gray levels at a screen of 85 lines per
inch for realistic images.
See eg Xerox Phaser 4500 or 5500. Get samples from them before you buy.

HTH

Marc

--
Switzerland/Europe
<http://www.heusser.com>
remove CHEERS and from MERCIAL to get valid e-mail

Dave Balderstone wrote:


>
> Can your printer shoot halftones on their cameras and then provide
> those to you for pasteup, or strip in film negs?

Terry can do that, but it would be a lot of time and effort for her. I'm
accustomed to dropping off our pasteups at our Phoenix printers and
picking up our newspapers three hours later. (Phoenix is a two hour
drive from Ajo.)


>
> Also, back in the 20th century, I used to use a contact screen in the
> darkroom to create halftones from 35mm negatives for paste-up, is that
> an option for you?

I used to do that too. If I remember right with a Beseler(sp?) enlarger
and a homemade platform made from a vacuum cleaner and peg board to hold
the screen tight to the photo paper. I recall the dots were "soft", the
photo paper and 35 mm film expensive, and the dark room chemicals a pain
in the ass to mix and clean.

I love our Canon Rebel & Adobe Photoshop and am pleased to have our old
dark room equipment gathering cobwebs.

>
>
>
>>When they do, we'll probably ftp pdf pages to the printers. Until then,
>>we'll continue our 20th century ways.
>>
>>>Also, what press are you running on that needs a 65 line screen? 85 or
>>>100 lpi is far more common and will give you better quality. We run 100
>>>line on a 40 year old Goss Urbanite and have award winning color
>>>reproduction.
>>>
>>>Oh, 10.2.8 is a few years old, too.
>>
>>I've tried finer screens. I suspect some of the unacceptable degradation
>>of finer screens comes from additional steps: camera ready pages to
>>film, film to plate, plate to newsprint. With a platesetter the final
>>output is a few generations closer to the original image.
>
>
> 85 line *should* reproduce well, assuming you can get a decent
> half-tone. 100 line may indeed be pushing it. Your key is going to be
> getting those halftones.
>
>
>>Ajo's a small, isolated community. We mostly print black and white
>>images and a lot of our equipment and software is old. If our market
>>were larger and more prosperous, maybe we'd have newer equipment and
>>more 4-color.
>
>
> Is that Ajo, Arizona? I see the Copper News has a website, is that your
> paper? Looking at the digital pages, I have a better idea of the
> challenge you're facing.

Yes, The Ajo Copper News is our paper.

Is there a larger center where you could ftp
> digital pictures and have a service bureau return halftones to you? I
> realize that may not be cost effective...

That might be an option. I know of several service bureaus in Phoenix I
could ftp to. I will check to see if their cost for negatives is
comparable to what our printers are charging me.

>
>
>>We've been using Xante printers which typically cost more than $1,000.
>>When I saw ps emulation for less than $300, it seemed like an answer to
>>our prayers. The Brother's been a good printer for outputting text,
>>invoices or documents with no halftones. But I was disappointed it
>>couldn't give the coarser halftones I wanted.
>
>
> As you've discovered, PostScript is only one part of the quality
> puzzle. The actual engine in the laser printer is far more important.
> The toner used will have an impact as well.
>
> Something we use as part of our classified workflow (for historical
> reasons, our system is an orphan) is a Harlequin RIP that does nothing
> but take print files (mostly from MultiAd Creator) and produce
> pre-screened 1-bit TIFF files that we then drop into the classified
> database for pagination. I wonder if prescreening in that way might
> give you what you're looking for on the Brother?

Converting grayscales to bitmaps in Photoshop is something I can do.
That might work, although resizing prescreened images often gives
horrible plaid patterns. Getting the size right from the start might be
a way to do it, although I'm fond of resizing stuff in page layout.

>
> You can email me some photos, I'll run them through our system and send
> them back to you for testing, if you'd like. I'l have to set up a 65
> lpi queue, but that's not a problem.

To email you I would remove the spam thwarting caps and underscores from
your reply to?

Hop

Marc Heusser wrote:


> I use a Xerox Printer with (true) Adobe Postscript 3, and I can choose
> whether to use the printer's halftones or others in the printer driver.
> If you use that in conjunction with true 1200 dpi on coated paper you
> could probably reach your goal:
> (1200 dpi/85 lpi) = 200 gray levels
> So you could have the needed 200 gray levels at a screen of 85 lines per
> inch for realistic images.
> See eg Xerox Phaser 4500 or 5500. Get samples from them before you buy.

(Googling Xerox Phaser 4500...)

Those look interesting. Thanks.

Hop