[argyllcms] Re: Inkjet printer driver related question
- From: Gerhard Fuernkranz <nospam456@xxxxxx>
- To: argyllcms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 21:30:10 +0200
Am 20.08.2014 10:42, schrieb Ivan Tsyba:
Hi.
I'm trying to understand basic principles of data flow from image file to
inkjet printer head.
As I understand, driver is sending to inkjet printer raster data in all cases,
even application trying to print text line. But when this data is transformed
to printer colorant quantities: by driver, or by printer firmware?
It really depends. In conjunction with inkjet printers, the rasterization usually happens either
in the driver or in a filter in the print pipeline. If the printer understands e.g. PostScript or
PDF natively, then the rasterization is usualy delegated to the printer's firmware (still any
non-PostScript input data must be converted to PostScript first by a filter in this case).
Sometimes even multiple conversion steps can be involved in the print pipeline, e.g. ASCII text
-> a2ps -> PostScript -> ghostsript -> con-tone raster data -> printer driver
-> printer's native raster data format.
Epson proprietary driver has mode selection with Color, Grayscale and Advanced
B&W Photo when Gutenprint driver has CMYK, CMY, KCMY, RGB and other variants
and this is little bit confusing, because printer have more than four colorants.
What you see is that the Gutenprint driver accepts/emulates various input color
spaces (CMYK, RGB, etc.) and converts/separates them internally to the
printer's native inks.
Regards,
Gerhard
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