Improvements for LIDIL printers urgently needed

[Bastian Becker]

I have several issues with my HP Deskjet F2180. The printer is working out-of-the-box, but the following points are my issues:

- The print quality
It's too low if I use the the standard settings. The color is not really strong, its more light like dark-grey. If I use the Setting "High Resolution", the problem appears also. If I use "300 DPI printout mode Black / Color" the black color is great and strong but the other colors are not. If I use 600 DPI, the printer use too much ink, it has to dry a few seconds. So I can't use a setting where all colors are strong.

- Printing speed
The printing speed is very bad. Only if I use the setting "Draft" he prints in normal speed (but then there are color problems; see above). I know the standard speed because I've used this printer with Windows before and it works fine (colors & speed).

- Size
There are problems with the size in printings, for example in OpenOffice if I want to print a handout or in Firefox. He doesn't print the headline and the footer. I use Din A4 standard paper and set this in HPLIP and ubuntu printer settings as well. If I print normal documents with a headline and a footer, it works fine.

If you need more information, please ask for it.

[Bastian Becker (bastianbecker-deactivatedaccount)]

Size problem solved with latest updates. The others are still present.

[Bastian Becker (bastianbecker-deactivatedaccount)]

I can't understand why these problems are present. Today I've printed a document (text & picture), the picture quality was bad and the colors are not strong. Secontly, the text wasn't original black, more blue-black. Only if I use 600 DPI with black / color catridge, the black color is fine but the colors are not strong.

What can I do?

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Bastian, I am adding the upstream HPLIP project to this report as this problem is caused by HPLIP itself and not by its integration in the Ubuntu distribution.

To the HPIJS driver developers at HP, the handling of LIDIL printers needs to be improved. Once it should be reall checked whether the best quality and speed of these devices can be reached. Second, the print quality selection must be made easier for the users.

The first issue depends on the internals of the driver. There I cannot really give any suggestions how to do it better. For the second issue I suggest the following:

Some LIDIL printers are sold with only a three-color CMY cartridge and without black cartridge. Equipped this way they mix black out of the three colors and so the color quality is not so good. A black cartridge can be added optionally to improve the quality. The printer is not able to switch between the modes automatically. The user must select in the driver configuration whether he has only the CMY cartridge or both cartridges.

In the PPDs of HPLIP there is a "Quality" option containing all modes for one and two-cartridge use and the "PrintoutMode" option only assigns one-cartridge modes to the standard tasks, so that the printer "just prints" for all users. This makes many users complaining about bad quality and the problem is caused by using only the color cartridge when the black one is mounted, too.

My suggestion is the following:

Add a new option "Black Cartridge" wih the settings "Installed" and "Not Installed" to the PPD, into the group "Installable Options" (or whatever its standard name in the PPD specs is).

Let the Quality options have settings for the different resolutions and for color or grayscale printing but not distinguished one- and two-cartridge modes.

Now let the "PenSet" part of the "-sIjsParams" Ghostscript command line option come from the "Black Cartridge" option of the PPD and the rest from the "Quality" option of the PPD.

The "PrintoutMode" option is only coupled to the "Quality" option, as before.

Now the user selects his cartridge configuration once when he sets up the print queue. Several printer setup tools even pop-up the options of the "Installable Options" group so that the user selects the printer's hardware configuration. Then he always prints in the correct modes to make use of the cartridges installed in the printer.

As a next step the default setting of the "Black Cartridge" option should be set to "Installed" for all printers which are sold with both cartridges and "Not Installed" for printers which are sold with only one cartridge.

[Bastian Becker (bastianbecker-deactivatedaccount)]

Hi Till,

thanks for your _very_ detailed posting. Even if I doesn't understand all of the technical contents of your posting, I think that we're on the right way. You, and the developers of the drivers should know that I try to help (e.g. testing) wherever I can.

What I can say for now is that I use a black color catridge. But I think you're right if you say that only the color catridge is in use. Today I've printed a document with red and black text elements in landscape format. In the line where the red and the black color was, the color problems appear (for 1-3 lines). After these lines, the printing quality was okay. If I use explicit the black catridge, it workes fast and looks very well.

I hope somebody can fix this issues, because it's a big restriction. Thanks for your help!

[David Suffield (david-suffield)]

This sounds like a feature request not a bug. Correct?

All the print modes for single pen or two pen printing are available in the ppd file for LIDIL printers. Depending on the printer and the installed pens the default print mode may not be correct, but the user can make the correct selection manually when ppd options are presented.

Adding a "Black Cartridge Installed" option to the ppd file and then constraining the print modes based the installed option is a good idea.

In the near future we plan on supporting the native CUPS ppd files so we will consider this feature request for LIDIL printers then.

-dave

[Bastian Becker (bastianbecker-deactivatedaccount)]

Dave, as you can read in my posts before, its not only a feature request. Some points (e.g. printing quality), is , whatever I choose, not good and too slow. I don't think that a normal printing experience is a feature request, and I don't know that printing without issues should be a feature request. I think it should work out of the box.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

In reality there are two problems:

1. Feature request: Improve usability by "Black Cartridge" option under "Installable Options". Remark: A PPD constraint is also not a good solution here. The "Quality" option should only have one choice per resolution and bw/color, like the higher end inkjets. The choices of both the "Black Cartridge" and "Quality" options should be passed to HPIJS and HPIJS should then generate the appropriate raster data to send to the printer.

2. Bug: Original poster reports that even with correct option settings for his cartridge combination the printer does not reach its maximum quality. Driver probably needs some more adjustment/optimization.

Bastan, did you use the head alignment, color adjustment, and/or head cleaning features offered in the HP toolbox?

[David Suffield (david-suffield)]

> 1. Feature request: Improve usability by "Black Cartridge" option under "Installable Options". Remark: A PPD
> constraint is also not a good solution here. The "Quality" option should only have one choice per resolution and
> bw/color, like the higher end inkjets. The choices of both the "Black Cartridge" and "Quality" options should be
> passed to HPIJS and HPIJS should then generate the appropriate raster data to send to the printer.

With native CUPS ppds the Resolution, Print Quality and Installed Pens will be separate settings. Print modes based on resolution will no longer be used.

> 2. Bug: Original poster reports that even with correct option settings for his cartridge combination the
> printer does not reach its maximum quality. Driver probably needs some more adjustment/optimization.

Bastan, can you post a postscript file that you are having problems with. Also post the gs command from the CUPS error_log with DEBUG on. This will allow us to reproduce and analyze the problem.

-dave

[Bastian Becker (bastianbecker-deactivatedaccount)]

Sorry, I'm a bit confused now. It's because I've tried to reproduce the failure but I can't. I've printed three documents with 300 and 600 dpi, black and color catridge and it works almost fine. Only the last one makes some issues, but it could be caused by my alternative ink (the others printouts are better and brighter; but in darker color than on the screen; but, as I've said, it could caused by my alternative ink).

So I don't know where the problem really was. The printing speed is not as good as with the windows driver, but that's not the point for me. Could it be that the driver was passed on last time? I'm very suprised and embarrassed about that.

I'm sure that I've test out all possibilities but it doesn't work before. Now it does. Thanks for you help and sorry for the invested time.

[Bastian Becker (bastianbecker-deactivatedaccount)]

Okay, it seems that the "too-dark-color-problem" is really caused by the alternative ink and not by the driver. I can say this because I've copied a text and picture combination from a magazine, and the colors are also not well and to dark.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Reopening upstream task for the feature request on the structure of the options in the PPD file. HP is working on this issue.

[CrazySnowdog (crazysnowdog)]

Hello everyone, ive been looking around the internet for info on this and saw this tread, and it is sort of a bug. I recently bought the HP F2180, the speed is fine, text is great, but on pictures, it prints dark images very dark, on lighter images this is barely noticeable, but if somebody's face is in a shadow, it is VERY noticeable. This is the only problem i have found with this printer. It works fine out of the box, no extra installation necessary. Could anyone tell me if this is a bug or if its fixable under some "preferences" folder hanging around my computer. Thanks in advance, you´re all doing a great job!

[CrazySnowdog (crazysnowdog)]

Also, just wish to add, i just tried printing in the High Quality setting, i´d like to report there is no difference, granted, higher DPI, but the image is just as dark on the shadows as it was before. Thanks

[Bastian Becker (bastianbecker-deactivatedaccount)]

I've tested my HP Deskjet F2180 with Windows Vista and the original HP-Drivers. What I can say is that the printing speed and quality of the output is definitely better with the Vista-Driver unlike Ubuntu / HPLIP. I've posted some months ago that the quality of the output could be caused by my alternative printing ink. But thats definitely not the point.

At this point, I doesn't understand why the windows drivers are so much better than the HPLIP drivers? Does HP not working for HPLIP? How can it be as different as day and night? If I look at the HPLIPOpenSource-Website [1], the HP Deskjet F2180 should be fully supported!

In conclusion, it is most likely a driver issue, because the printing quality is much better with Vista-drivers for the same document. Is there any improvement possible in the near future?

@CrazySnowdog: Are you sure that the black color is as dark as it should be? Do you changed any preferences?

[1] http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/models/deskjet_aio/deskjet_f2100_series.html

[Harishankar (v-harishankar)]

I want to add my voices to the above!

I have a HP PSC 1315 Multifunction printer at home and i frequently encounter to issue of having to print multi-coloured documents in both B&W and colour cartridge simultaneously.

Not using the black cartridge during a colour print job is a huge drawback and reduces the overall speed and quality of printing. The black text is greyish blue and not very clear compared to the pure blank ink which is used by Windows driver when printing multi-coloured documents.

Overall the printer doesn't seem to respect either the Quality, Ink type, media in the old HPIJS driver and the new HPCUPS driver hasn't solved the problem at all.

Please HP, let us be able to use inexpensive printers in Linux particularly as we are very satisfied with the overall quality of the product when used in Windows.

[Suma Byrappa (suma-byrappa)]

Hello All,

We regret the inconveniences caused. We will plan to take this bug with high priority.

Thanks and Regards,
Suma

[mohammad kamruzzaman (romon)]

hello all,

i am searching for official document of LIDIL printer language.

i am trying to create an LIDIL printer emulator.

can anybody help me?

thanks in advance

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Do you really mean a LIDIL printer emulator (a program which consumes LIDIL as input and converts it to a standard format like PDF, PNG, ...) or a LIDIL printer driver (a program which converts a standard format like PostScript, PDF, or CUPS Raster to LIDIL)?

[DrMartinus (linux-drmartinus)]

Hi,

i have the same observation to report about my HP OfficeJet Pro L7680 with HPLIP 3.10.2 in LinuxMint (current version, 64 bit, all up-to-date). The areas in the dark shadow get printed far too dark, the contrast is too high. I noticed that in hp-toolbox, one can change brightness and gamma, but not contrast. it makes no difference at what resolution I print the image, or on what type of paper. i use original HP ink.
I have placed an image for comparison on my server. I hope its self-explanatory. You find it here:

http://www.drmartinus.de/images/HPLIP_Printout_and_Original.jpg

[DrMartinus (linux-drmartinus)]

Ok, I have to add: It works much better with the Document Viewer of Gnome. I was using Adobe Reader before (9.4) and now tested the Document Viewer. it's a huge difference, the shades are all fine. Does anyone know what could cause the difference? I'll adjust my PC immediately...