ijsgutenprint - Ghostscript driver for Gutenprint

gs -sDEVICE=ijs -sIjsServer=/usr/bin/ijsgutenprint -sDeviceManufacturer=vendor -sDeviceModel=name [ -dIjsUseOutputFD ] -sIjsParams=[ key1=value1,keyn=valuen... ] [ options ] [ files ]

ijsgutenprint provides Ghostscript with a Gutenprint driver, supporting all printers supported by libgutenprint.

IJS is an initiative to improve the quality and ease of use of printing with Ghostscript. It permits adding or upgrading drivers without recompiling Ghostscript. An IJS driver runs in a separate process that communicates with Ghostscript via an IPC channel. The Gutenprint IJS driver may be used with AFPL Ghostscript, as it runs in a separate process.

The options for this driver are very complex. We strongly recommend use of a printer management system such as Foomatic rather than configuring a spooler manually with this driver. The driver name used by Foomatic is gutenprint-ijs.

ijsgutenprint accepts the following options:

Ghostscript IJS options

Gutenprint IJS options

Quality=quality

The meaning of this is model-specific. Each printer has its own default value; for most printers, this is a reasonable 300 or 360 DPI resolution.

InkType=inktype

This is printer type specific. The option names are case sensitive.

MediaType=mediatype

This is printer type specific. The option names are case sensitive.

MediaSource=mediasource

This is printer type specific. The option names are case sensitive.

-sPAPERSIZE=papersize

for known Ghostscript paper sizes.

-dDEVICEWIDTHPOINTS=x -dDEVICEHEIGHTPOINTS=y

where x and y are the width and height of the paper respectively, in points (1/72"). Note this is a normal gs option, not an IJS option.

This is printer-specific; we cannot list the correct values for each printer here. The option names are case-sensitive. This option does not set GhostScript up to use a paper size other than the default; it only tells the driver to set up the printer for a different paper size. The default paper size is "Letter".

Cyan=val

Magenta=val

Yellow=val

Brightness=val

Contrast=val

Gamma=val

Density=val

Saturation=val

DitherAlgorithm=algorithm

-sProcessColorModel=DeviceGray -dBitsPerSample=1

Black and white

-sProcessColorModel=DeviceGray

Greyscale

-sProcessColorModel=DeviceRGB

Color (RGB)

-sProcessColorModel=DeviceCMYK

Color (CMYK)

Note these are gs options, not IJS options. Choose color vs. grayscale output. Color output is the default. Choosing DeviceGrey and -dBitsPerSample=1 results in only black ink (no color ink) being used, which is faster and usually results in the most accurate grayscale, but at the expense of smoothness. This prints only black and white (thresholding). This option always uses Fast dithering unless you specify Very Fast. If you want composite color (using a mixture of color and black inks to produce gray), use DeviceGrey.

In addition, using DeviceGrey uses luminance (perceived brightness) of red, green, and blue to choose output levels. Blue of a given intensity is perceived to be much darker than red, which in turn appears darker than green. DeviceRGB, DeviceCYMK and Saturation=0.0 (see "Saturation" above) do not use luminance.

CMYK output may be used with the IJS driver only. It is useful if you're printing a CMYK graphic and want explicit control over the inks. Generally it yields inferior quality, as Gutenprint has good algorithms for converting RGB (screen) into CMYK (inks) that take into account paper type, ink type, and other variables. In CMYK mode, the brightness, contrast, and saturation controls do not function.

This option can be used to optimize the dither.

ImageType=val

Possible values are:

li li lb lw(4). Value Description _ 1 T{ Line art (color or gray scale) T} 2 T{ Primarily solid colors or smooth gradients (color or gray scale) T} 3 T{ Continuous-tone photographs (color or gray scale) T}

Option 0 is the fastest. It generates strong, but not particularly accurate, colors. There may be some fairly sharp color transitions in this mode.

Option 1 generates more accurate colors, but is slower.

Option 2 generates the most accurate colors, but is considerably slower.

Note that any of the modes may be used with either color or black & white output. If black and white output is requested, but a color mode used, composite color will be printed. This generally offers smoother tone, but less purity of gray or black, than pure black ink. Furthermore, it is possible to tune the color of the gray (to achieve warmer or cooler effects) using the color controls in this fashion.

Specifying a lower GhostScript resolution (with -r) results in faster color conversion. For example, if you print at 1440x720 DPI, but specify a Ghostscript resolution of 360 DPI (with -r360), output will be significantly faster and there will be much less difference in performance between the three image type options.

Note that a lot of these options are used for demonstration; generally adjusting the density is a bad idea!

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

The Ghostscript stp driver was originally written by Henryk Richter (buggs@comlab.uni-rostock.de), and was integrated into Gutenprint during the 3.1 development series. Gutenprint itself was originally written by Michael Sweet <mike@easysw.com>, who released up to version 2.0; Robert Krawitz released version 3.0. The Gutenprint development team (http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net) now maintains the entire package.

The IJS driver was originally written by Russell Lang, and incorporated into Gutenprint (known then as Gimp-Print) in early 2002. This driver corresponds with the IJS protocol 0.32.

Copyright © 2001-2002 Robert Krawitz (rlk@alum.mit.edu)

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Robert Krawitz. Originally written by Russell Lang.

This manual page was written by Robert Krawitz (rlk@alum.mit.edu) and Roger Leigh (rleigh@debian.org).

gs(1)