Studio Professional Update V2.15b (Online Version) This update is for all Studio V2.14 users. It mainly updates the current Canon and Epson Workbench driver and provides additional support for the latest Epson printers. It updates the Studio printing program, PageStream 3.1/3.2 and ImageFX Studio driver. If you own V2.13 or an older version of Studio, please contact your distributor for an update. The updates are also available for free download from the Internet (AmiNet) or CompuServe. As usual, because of a bug in the Commodore Installer program, it's recommended you enable the default Topaz 8 font on your system during installation. The installer might not show all options during installation with certain different sized fonts. This is a general recommendation and does not only apply to Studio. The update program will not alter your original Studio disks and will update the installed Studio software. However, you do need the first of your original Studio disk for running this install program. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Here is the list of the latest Studio distributors: Germany: Australia & New Zealand Deutschland: GSoft Australia Pty Ltd. arXon GmbH PO Box 59 Assenheimer Str. 17 Elizabeth SA D-60489 Frankfurt Australia 5114 Germany Tel: 088-284-1266 Tel: 069-978410-26 Fax: 088-284-0922 Fax: 069-978410-30 (English Version) (German Version) The Netherlands: North America: MacroSystem NL Safe Harbor Computers Tromplaan 1 W226 N900 Eastmound Drive 3951 CL-Maarn Waukesha Tel: 034344-2969 WI 53186 Fax: 034344-3103 Tel: 414-548-8120 (English Version) Fax: 414-548-8130 (English Version) United Kingdom: Belgium: HiSoft Click! b.v.b.a. The Old School, Greenfield Boomsesteenweg 468 Bedford MK45 5DE 2610 Wilrijk Tel: 0525-718181 Tel: 038281815 Fax: 0525-713716 Fax: 038286736 (English Version) (English Version) France: Spain: Free Distribution Software TU Amiga Ordinadors 82 Rue De Sailly Plaza Pedro IV No 4,7-3 59390 Toufflers 08120 La Liagosta Tel: 03-20020663 Barcelona Fax: 03-20821799 Tel: (93) 560 3604 Fax: (93) 560 3607 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Notices for Canon BJC users You must have a Studio CanonBJ-EC driver and CanonBJECPref program installed in order to get the driver updated by this update disk. This update fixes a serious problem with the Studio V2.14 driver that might cause Amiga systems with a slow 68000 CPU to crash. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Notices for users of the Epson_ESC-P2 output module This update will replace the Epson_ESC-P2 output module for the Studio printing program. Density 6 will now print using 360*720dpi in order to support using profiles simulating Windows 95 normal paper printing. Note that the online version of the Studio V2.15 update contains additional profiles for older Stylus Color (II, 500,...) printers. The floppy disk version of the update doesn't contain these profiles because lack of disk space. So, if you didn't get profiles offered for older Epson printers (Stylus Color, Stylus Color 500...) with this update, check out the Internet (AmiNet) or one of the AmiNet CDROMs. For more about these profiles read below. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Notices for Epson Stylus Color 400, 600, 800, 1520, 3000 users First, most of the new software included with the Studio V2.15 update is intended for these new Epson printers. Before installing this update, you should have installed the Studio printing software once. It actually doesn't matter for wich printer you install the Studio software. However, it's best you once install the main Studio software for an Epson ESC/P2 emulation printer. Run this update after you installed the main software. After installing the update, the software will be setup for your new Epson printer for normal DIN A4 sized paper with 720*720dpi (Density 7). If you want to use a different paper type or print resolution, you usualy do have to change the color adjustment. For the Workbench EpsonP2 driver this is done using EpsonP2Pref. You can find several setups in the "Presets" menu of EpsonP2Pref. For the Studio printing program, this is done using color profiles as described in the Studio manual. US Letter size paper users should change the paper size in the "Module Config..." windows of the Epson output module to US Letter. The default is DIN A4 and thus would cause blank pages to be printed on US Letter paper. Changing the paper size of the output module might cause some errors message to appear as the paper size settings in the Studio printing program are not valid for the selected paper size. Ignore them. Instead use the "Max Page and Print Size" menu item to correct all settings for the new paper size to the maximum value possible on US Letter. A menu item that you should note yourself as it's sometimes pretty usefull. --- The new Epson printers offer a smaller unprintable margin. While all older Epson compatible printers print something like 2880 dots per line on a US Letter or DIN A4 page, the new Epson printers are different. In order to allow using the increased print area and make sure the ouput is centered on the page, the EpsonP2 Workbench driver now supports a "Large Paper Size" setting for the new Stylus Color 400/600/800/1520/3000 printers. The checkmark can be found in EpsonP2Pref's "Page Size and Margins..." window. The setting should always be turned ON for these printers (and most likely new Epson models). Enabling the checkmark also causes the EpsonP2 Workbench driver automaticly to enable MicroWeave for printing 720 dpi as required by these printers. If you want to generate ESC/P2 compatible printer files that work with older ESC/P2 printers, don't enable "Large Paper Size". In this case, it's your responsibility to enable MicroWeave for printing 720dpi. Only older Stylus Color (II,...) Epson printers allow printing 720dpi without MicroWeave. --- In order to show the power of the Studio Color Management System, profiles simulating the colors of Epsons Windows 95 driver are included. These profiles will cause Studio to print simular to the Windows 95 Epson driver. Epson did a pretty good job with their Windows 95 drivers. So you can expect the same nice colors using the included profiles with Studio. There is only a very very minor difference in the dither pattern as the Windows 95 driver uses a slightly different dither method. All profiles simulating the Windows 95 driver are for use with the Floyd Steinberg Serpentine dither method. All Windows 95 color settings ("automatic") for various paper and print resolutions are available in Studio as profiles. You can also find several other profiles for different dither methods. Please note that the Studio Color Management System allows adjusting the software to your given monitor or image source. This can not be done with the Windoes 95 driver. So, if you want to get the same output as the Windoes 95 driver, you should set the Monitor Gamma value in the "Monitor..." window of Studio to 1.9. If not, set the monitor gamma value to a value matching your system. If your output is too dark/red after setting the monitor gamma for your monitor, try lowering the monitor gamma value until the output matches your screen. If the output is to bright, increase the gamma value. This only has to be done once. --- MicroWeave: please note that the documentation of Epson states that turning on MicroWeave will make printing much slower. This is not correct anymore for the new printers. The Studio output module do the MicroWeave printing by software similar to the Windows 95 driver. The MicroWeave offered by the printer itself ("Hardware" MicroWeave) is still slower and but is not used by the output module. So, you should always leave the MicroWeave option in the Module Config window ON, unless you have certain wishes or want to try things out. Only in the case of 360*360 dpi leaving MicroWeave off means you can print slightly faster. The software MicroWeave used by the output modules doesn't cause a slow down. It also does interleave lines verticaly and horizontaly. This results in nearly no visible banding in the output. However, software MicroWeave does require memory on your system. The amount of memory needed depends on the position of the printed image on your page, the print resolution and the output mode (color or b/w). The usual requirement for software MicroWeave is roughly 1-2.5MByte. In case you do run out of memory, it's good to know: 1. Unlike other Amiga software, if allocation of memory fails by the Studio software, you will have the chance to "Retry" in most cases. This means, if you do run out of memory during printing, you have the chance of freeing memory by quitting other programs on your system and continue printing. You don't have to restart the printing from beginning. 2. Software MicroWeave does require roughly twice the amount of memory when you start printing at the top of the page. If you set the Print Dimension Y value to a value of greater than 1 cm (or 0.4 inch), the amount of memory will be smaller. You can also permanently set the Page Dimension Y value. In this case you won't be able to accidently drag the print dimensions to the top margin of the printed page. --- Is it worth printing 1440 dpi? You have to decide yourself if doubling the print times for printing 1440*720 instead of 720*720 is really worth it. I would recommend printing a high resolution image of high quality with both densities on the printer. Simply compare the two printed images and decide yourself. Because I think the 1440dpi is not worth the extra time/work, it is only supported by the output modules. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Notices for Epson Stylus Color 1520 and 3000 users Note that the Stylus Color 800, 1520 and 3000 use the same output module for the printing program. Often there was not enough space to note the Stylus Color 1520 and 3000. So as general rule: if your Stylus Color 1520 or 3000 is not mentioned, use the Stylus Color 800 settings. They have been made with the Stylus Color 1520/3000 in mind. The output module does offer Banner and Tractor setting. These settings should not be used on the Stylus Color 800. Basicly, the setting reflects what the Windows 95 driver does documented in your printer manual: 1. When selecting "Banner" feeding, you can print banners on the Stylus Color 1520 and 3000. The driver basicly does set the top and bottom margin of the printer to zero as described by the Epson manuals. However, the manuals don't mention that there is an unprintable margin (just some lines) when using software MicroWeave. If you require continues printing without absolutly no visible gap, turn off the MicroWeave option and don't use 1440 dpi (wich automaticly enforces software MicroWeave). 2. You can set the module to "Tractor" feeding. In this case, you want to print on endless paper. For instance, if you want the driver to print on 10x11 inch paper, set the mode to Tractor and than set the Paper size to "Used Defined". Set the paper width gadget in the Module Config window to 10 inch and height gadget to 11 inch. When setting the driver to tractor mode, it basicly does apply a larger top/bottom/right/left unprintable margin for the defined paper size. Again, this is similar to the Windows 95 driver (by the time of this writting, the Windows 95 driver didn't seem to work correctly and sometimes print sizes/margins are calculated wrongly). Basicly, you you can use any of the three feeding mechanism (normal, banner and tractor) with endless paper and you usualy have to choose the one that you want for your specific task (normal: margins like on normal paper; banner: no top/bottom margins; Tractor: the usualy increased margins for endless paper). ------------------------------------------------------------------ Notices for users of the ONLINE version of the V2.15 update As described above, there are two versions of the Studio V2.15 update. The online version does contain additional Epson profiles that don't fit on the floppy disk version of the Studio V2.15 update. So, here are some info's about the additional profiles and who should/can use them: The additional profiles allow Studio to print using similar colors to the latest Windows 95 driver (V2.2-V2.22). All profiles are made for the Floyd Steinberg Serpentine dither routine. This is maybe not the best dither routine for printing using Studio, but as far as the colors in the output are concerned, it comes closest to the Windows 95 driver. To check all available profiles on your installed system you can use the "Avail..." button the "Match..." window of Studio. All profiles are adjusted to a Monitor Gamma of 1.9 in order to simulate the Windows 95 driver (read notes above for SC 400/600/800/1520/3000). Stylus Color 400: You will find some additional color profiles specificly for the Stylus Color 400. Colors printed using these profiles more closely match the Windows 95 driver colors. The normaly shipped profiles are already fine. So these profiles are most likely only of use to those, who need exact document sharing with a PC. (These Stylus Color 400 profiles may also be located on the normal floppy disk version of the update) Stylus Color 400/600/800/1520/3000 Note that you also might find a special High Quality (HQ) profiles for the Stylus printer based on the Windows 95 driver. Each of these HQ profiles is roughly 150KByte in size (normal 15KByte). They will also result in a similar increased need for memory during printing. HQ profiles simply offer a greater precission for adjusting colors. Thus it can simulate the Windows 95 driver colors more closely. So these profiles are most likely only of use to those, who need exact document sharing with a PC. Stylus Color: Users of the first Stylus Color printer will find these profiles very usefull. Note that the install program will only install the profiles for you and will not alter your current Studio settings. The profiles basicly support all the print resultions/paper types offered by the Windows 95 driver. In order to use these new profiles, you have to select them first. In case you still don't know how to do this (haven't read the manual?): 1. Select the Floyd Steinberg (Serp.) dither routine. The profiles have been made for this dither method. 2. select the wanted output mode (color or b/w) and print resolution. 3. Get into the "Match..." window and select the Stylus Color profile wanted. 4. Enable the "Color M. System" checkmark in Studio's main window. 5. For a first test, you might also set the Monitor Gamma value in the upper right corncer of the Monitor... window of Studio to 1.9. This is not required, but recommended. You should get a fine printing if everything listed above is done correctly. Than start altering the Monitor Gamma until the output matches your monitor. Note you can tell the old from the new profiles simply by the dither method (new ones use Floyd Steinberg Serp.) and version in the comment (the new ones are all V1.0) Stylus Color II, 500, Pro and Pro XL: These users will find Stylus Color 500 profiles that basicly work with all the four printers. Please read the notes for the Stylus Color above on how to install/enable the new profiles. Again: if you did not enable the correct profile and color management system, Studio will do a bad job of printing colors. If this happens, check and double check the fours steps mentioned above. The new profiles really result in very similar output to the Windows 95 driver and thus, the quality should be acceptable. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Notices for Epson Stylus Photo users Software for this new Epson printer is still under development. However, you can install this update for the Epson Stylus Color 600. IMPORTANT: you must NOT use the installed Stylus Color 600 output module for the Studio printing program. Instead, you should use/install the Epson ESC/P2 output module for Studio. The StylusColorxxx output modules are closely made for the named printer and are very likely unable to drive a different printer. Use the standard ESC/P2 output module until better software is available. Support for the Stylus Photo is already available in the SetupStylus program. ------------------------------------------------------------------ New features in the Studio printing program Studio V2.15 now supports the TIFF image format (note: users of the Studio V2.14c online update achive already got the TIFF support). Studio tries to support all requirements defined by the TIFF V6 specifications. However, it supports far more than those minimum requirements. It's extremly unlikely you'll find any Amiga program that supports TIFF as much as Studio does. Studio does support TIFF images with RGB, CMYK and YCbCr color space and alpha channel. It supports images saved in strips or tiles. It supports various precissions. The decompressions codecs supported are None, RLE, PackBits, LZW, G3, G4, JPEG and more. Please note that the JPEG decompression support is according to the Tech Note #2 tag 7 scheme. The older JPEG compression described in the TIFF V6 specification is not working reliable and instead the new specification is used. As usual, Studio does print TIFF images with nearly no requirement for memory. Because of the way TIFF images can be stored, Studio might need a bit more memory than with other supported image formats. There is no easy way to calculate the memory required by the program to print an TIFF image. You can increase the print speed for certain type TIFF images if you do allow Studio to make use of more memory if available. The allowed memory usage is controlled by the Memory menu items of Studio. In case you don't have enough memory to print an image, try saving the TIFF images with/without a compression method. For instance, a 40MByte image file generate by a drum scanner may require only 100KByte of memory to get loaded by Studio. A much smaller 1MByte TIFF LZW compressed image might need 512 KByte more memory. Anyway, you'll find that Studio doesn't need much memory for printing TIFF images. So enjoy. Parts of the TIFF routines are based on the work of Sam Leffler and others. Many enhancements/bug fixes/cleanups have been done by Wolf Faust in order to make the library work the way it does. It took months to create this TIFF support. Anyway, it wouldn't have been as good without the support of: Copyright (c) 1988-1996 Sam Leffler Copyright (c) 1991-1996 Silicon Graphics, Inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Studio Prof. History: E = removed bug C = changed I = improvement 03.09.97 V2.15 E - Color CMS profile was loaded when printing using PageStream 3.x in greyscale mode using the Studio driver with Studio set to color. Studio didn't switch automaticly to greyscale CMS profile as selected by the user in PageStream. E - PrtDevice Halftone and Order were not 100% similar to the printer device method. C - server dpi info was overwritten by BMP routine. C - Binary (that is not Photo) assembler BNoise dither routines might show vertical stripes in light colors caused by random number generator introduced in V2.13. E - Fixed a minor bug that caused the V2.14c TIFF reader to ignore DPI information. I - Now compiled using SAS/C V6.58 E - Fixed a bug in the left/right find() function that might cause longword access on odd address boundary (caused crash on old 68000 and 68010). This bug was introduced in V2.11. So far no user reported this problem but it's serious. The bug affected CanonBJ-EC, ImageFX, PGS drivers and the Studio printing program. E - Fixed a bug in the printing program causing the IFF ILBM output module to display error 14 when printing a poster with a startpage greater 1. E - Fixed a bug in the printing program introduced in V2.14c (online) causing the IFF ILBM output to fail printing non dithered 8/24 Bit images. E - Fixed a bug when printing posters with a startpage > 1: in certain cases the last lines of the previous page are mixed with the start of the first (start)page printed. I - Changes done to the multilevel dither routines allowing independent number of shades for each print color (required by upcoming Epson Stylus Photo module). I - Output modules for the Epson Stylus Color 400, 600, 800, 1520 and 3000 added. I - Now uses AsyncIO link library V39.2 I - "Large Paper Size" added to EpsonP2 driver. I - EpsonP2 Workbench driver may now sends less data I - EpsonP2 driver perturbation of error diffussion dither might have caused serious vertical stripes. Now more randomized. I - EpsonP2Pref "Presets" menu updated for new printers. I - support for the Stylus Color 400, 600, 800, 1520, 3000 and Stylus Photo added. I - IFF ILBM output module now warns when trying to print CMYK to 8/24 Bit file. I - major speed improvements when printing using a startpage > 2. I - Updates several output modules (Canon and Fargo) V2.15b Oupps... fault address of french Studio distributor and dither preview was disable in Studio. ------------------------------------------------------------------ COPYRIGHT/DISCLAIMER Copyright ©1991-97 Wolf Faust. All rights reserved. The Studio update disk has been provided to you strictly 'as is', without warranty of any kind. In no event shall Wolf Faust be held liable for any loss or damages arising out of any action, from whatever source, concerning the use or inability to use the software. You may not use, copy, or transfer the product, or any copy or portion, without prior consent in writing from Wolf Faust. The disk can be distributed via AmiNet, CompuServe or CIX as long as no payment for the software is asked. Any other distribution is strictly forbidden. Installer project icon (c) Copyright 1991-93 Commodore-Amiga, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced and distributed under license from Commodore. (Continue by pressing 'Q')