Unsatisfactory Quality on Samsung CLP-315 Color Laser Printer (foomatic)

Bug #378068 reported by LKaestner
10
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
foo2zjs (Ubuntu)
Incomplete
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Component: Samsung CLP-315 Color Laser Printer
Driver: Samsung CLP-315 Foomatic/foo2qpdl (recommended)
OS: Clean Ubuntu 9.04 Installation with current updates
System Environment: http://www.sysprofile.de/id42117

After connecting the printer the drivers were installer properly.
I can print from all applications but the resulting print-out never is satisfying.
Images are way too dark and patchy and characters are a bit blurry.

Fortunately, the results are fine when using Samsung's original drivers.
Hoping for this to be fixed in Karmic. ;-)

Revision history for this message
Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter) wrote :

First you can enhance the printout quality of all color printer drivers from the foo2zjs package by installing color profiles for the printer:

getweb 315
sudo mv samclp315-argyll-0.icm /usr/share/foo2qpdl/icm/

After that start system-config-printer (System -> Administration -> Printing), right-click your printer's icon, click "Properties", and under "Printer Options" select your loaded profile with the "ICM Color Profile" option. Select the other options so that you get the best possible output quality.

Now try to print again. Do your printouts improve?

Try also the SpliX driver. If it does not appear under the driver choices for your printer, try a similar printer model like the CLP-300 or CLP-310. If these also do not list the SpliX driver, install the SpliX package from

http://openprinting.org/show_driver.cgi?driver=splix

Close and restart system-config-printer and try again to set up your printer with something like "Samsung CLP-300, SpliX ...".

Does this give better quality? Which one gives the best quality for you?

Revision history for this message
LKaestner (lkaestner) wrote :

Hello Tim,
thank you very much for your efforts!
Here's what I tried and the respective results.
1. Installing and setting up the Color Profile (getweb 315...)
    --> nothing changed
2. Updated foo2qpdl (V.11.05.2009) from here: http://foo2qpdl.rkkda.com
    --> new color profiles availiable but no improvement
3. Installed and tried out the SpliX 2.0.0 driver for CLP-300
    --> no improvement
4. Installed Samsung's original driver and configured it for CLP-310
    --> printer works flawlessly like expected
Eventually I ended up with the original driver which finally provides nice print-outs.

Revision history for this message
LKaestner (lkaestner) wrote :

Despite that Samsung's driver (current version) enables me to print (text), this bug can't be seen as fixed.
Furthermore I'm practically unable to print out any pictures or documents with larger images from any application. When starting the print-job the process "gs" (GhostScript?) completely takes up one CPU-core (Quadcore 3,2GHz) for over 30 minutes per page. It's a complete disaster and schould really be fixed.

Revision history for this message
Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter) wrote :

Can you follow the instructions in bug 382379, especially replacing your pdftops CUPS filter by the alternative Poppler-based one? Does this help?

Changed in foo2zjs (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
LKaestner (lkaestner) wrote :

Hi Till,
after breaking down my printing system and reinstalling both the Samsung printing driver 3.00.37 and CUPS, I installed your Poppler-based pdftops CUPS filter. Now my Samsung CLP-315 produces good-looking print-outs ins a few seconds.
A big THANK YOU for fixing the bug!

Link to the filter: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/poppler/+bug/382379/comments/9

Revision history for this message
Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter) wrote :

Thanks for the good news. I have linked your report to the master bug report now.

Revision history for this message
félix luna (theoneline) wrote :

Hello LKaestner

Can you explain us. How you can install de samsungś original driver in your ubuntu? Please... Im trying that in Lubuntu 12.04 but the driver dont works..

Thankyou very much!

Félix

Revision history for this message
Patrick Wigmore (patrick-wigmore) wrote :

It seems to me that there are two bugs being reported here:

1. foo2qpdl produces incorrect colour output on Samsung CLP-315 printer. This aspect IS NOT a duplicate of bug 382379 and presumably remains unfixed.

2. Samsung's proprietary printer driver (also known as the Samsung Unified Linux Driver) was slow when used in combination with the Ghostscript based pdftops CUPS filter. This aspect IS a duplicate of bug 382379 and should therefore be considered closed/fixed.

For what it's worth, foo2qpdl has never produced good colours on my Samsung CLP-310N printer.

My workaround for years has been to use the Samsung driver as packaged at http://www.bchemnet.com/suldr/ but of course that does not help to improve foo2qpdl.

Bug 786497 seems to describe similar colour problems with another Samsung printer; perhaps both bugs share a common cause.

Revision history for this message
Patrick Wigmore (patrick-wigmore) wrote :

In the install instructions, upstream, at http://foo2qpdl.rkkda.com/INSTALL, under the heading "CUSTOM ICC/ICM COLOR PRINTER PROFILE (BUY)", CLP-315 is listed as a model the developer needs a profile for, which can be contributed to the foo2qpdl project if somebody obtains one.

So, perhaps that is the required fix.

If I have time, I may test the latest upstream version of foo2qpdl to see if it outputs better colours than the Ubuntu packaged version, and if not I may look into whether a better colour profile needs to be made for the printer, and whether that is something I can do.

(I am assuming that the CLP-310 and CLP-315 are essentially the same hardware, besides the colour of the plastic case.)

Revision history for this message
Patrick Wigmore (patrick-wigmore) wrote :

OK, so testing confirms that, for me, this issue is present upstream.

More careful reading leads me to believe that the poor quality printouts with foo2qpdl are actually due to a known issue with Ghostscript 9+. See https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=696179

foo2qpdl documents the problem here:
http://foo2qpdl.rkkda.com/INSTALL (under "GHOSTSCRIPT BUGS" section heading)
http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/forum/read.php?63,3189

The suggested workaround is to use Ghostscript 8.71 but I was unable to get that to compile on Ubuntu 16.04.

Revision history for this message
Padi Phillips (padi) wrote :

I too a having issues getting this printer to print well in colour. I once did manage to get it to print really nicely in colour soon after I bought the printer in 2011, by following a How-To I found online, which I can't subsequently now find.

It's really frustrating to know that this printer can be made to work well on Linux, but not being able to find the way to persuade it to do so.

Tried installing Ghostscript 8.71, but had a similar experience to the previous commentator. This issue has been around for several years now, and seemingly though there is a solution, it's not well known.

How I wish I'd kept the URL to the how-to I found all that time ago somewhere safe...

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