Canon i950 printing is faint with Leopard

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Level 1

45 points

Canon i950 printing is faint with Leopard

I have recently upgraded from 10.4.11 on an old Power Mac G4 to 10.5.2 on a new 24" iMac 2.8GHz and I've found that printing to my networked Canon i950 printer is now very faint.

The printer is connected via USB to a Linux server at home running Turboprint and networked using CUPS. The printer has been working 100% with 10.4.11, no problems, always nice and dark printing.

After doing the "BrowseProtocols all" CUPS fix in Leopard, the printer has been working but printing very faintly compared to Tiger.

Yes - I've checked the ink levels!

The printer output is still nice and dark when I print from my old Mac (Tiger 10.4.11) so I know it's not the printer or the server, it's got to be something different with Leopard - but I can't figure out what.

There is no new Canon i950 printer driver available from Canon, their website says that the driver is built into 10.5.x which is fair enough, but their appears to be a problem.

There isn't a ColorSync profile for the printer either - could that be a problem?

Finally, I've tested printing on a Macbook running 10.5.2 and it also is printing faintly so I am convinced that the problem is inherent to Leopard, since I don't have any problems with faint printing with Tiger.

Any pointers on how to fix this or where to look?

iMac 24" 2.8GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 2GB SDRAM, 250GB

Posted on May 13, 2008 4:36 AM

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Answer 1

PAHU

Level 6

16,705 points

May 13, 2008 5:12 AM in response to Tom Armitage

There was a similar problem on Tiger when someone used one of the included drivers (then known as GIMP-Print). By default these drivers were set to a mode that was for a combination of text and graphics. Changing the setting to Text only improved the darkness with text. Not sure if you have a similar option with the Canon 4.8.3 driver on Leopard.

Also, have you tried using one of the included Gutenprint drivers? While the i950 is not listed, the i850 is so it might be worth your while trying one of these alternatives to isolate if it is something with the Canon driver.

Re ColorSync and the lack of a profile, that won't be the problem as text printing shouldn't be using any colour other than black.

PaHu

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Answer 2

Tom Armitage Author

Level 1

45 points

May 13, 2008 3:43 PM in response to PAHU

Thanks for the information.

I'm just using the default driver, ie whatever Leopard is picking for the printer when I added it and ran with that because it seemed to work, I only realised that it's output is faint after printing from my G4 running Tiger. I initially thought the problem might just be the ink running low.

Changing the printer setting to "text only" is done under the Print menu when you go to print isn't it? I'll give that a shot and report back.

How do I check which printer driver is being used and how would I go about changing it to the Gutenprint driver?

Also it's not just text that's faint, it's graphics too if that makes any difference.

Thanks again!

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Answer 3

PAHU

Level 6

16,705 points

May 13, 2008 4:40 PM in response to Tom Armitage

Tom Armitage wrote:
Changing the printer setting to "text only" is done under the Print menu when you go to print isn't it?

Yes. When you File > Print, change the menu (which may show Copies and Pages or the applications name such as Preview) so that you see something like Quality and the setting should be in here. Now I'm not 100% sure about this as I don't have this driver installed, I only have the newer Canon drivers so you may have to look around.

How do I check which printer driver is being used and how would I go about changing it to the Gutenprint driver?

When you open Print & Fax and select the printer in list, the right-hand pane should show you which driver you are using. To change to the Gutenprint, with the printer selected in the list, click on 'Options and Supplies' and then Driver. From the menu you can choose to browse to a different driver. Type in 850 to filter your search.

Also it's not just text that's faint, it's graphics too if that makes any difference.

Yep. That does make a difference. You may find there is a built-in colour profile being used by the driver. These are there for the different paper stocks you can use, such as glossy and matte photo. If you have one of these paper stock selected, then that can impact how flat (faint) the printing looks. The paper settings should also be available within the print menu. Ensure you have the correct paper selected in the driver for what you are printing on.

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Answer 4

Tom Armitage Author

Level 1

45 points

May 14, 2008 4:58 AM in response to PAHU

Thanks for all the assistance.

I've tried all the things you suggested: namely switching to "text only", changing the driver to Gutenprint and making sure the correct paper type is selected.

No luck with any of them I'm afraid.

I couldn't find anything like "text only" in the print dialogs, might have overlooked it but I don't think this is the problem.

I wasn't able to change the driver used for this printer to Gutenprint. You see, the printer is networked off a Linux server running Suse 10.2 and using the Turbprint Canon i950 driver. A year or so ago I tried to get this printer to work with Linux using CUPS and Gutenprint etc, and it just wouldn't work properly, mainly I suspect because Gutenprint and CUPS don't support the Canon i950 and the i850 isn't quite compatible with it. The closest I got after a lot of messing about was only being able to print in black and white, no colour, so I gave up and installed Turboprint which does support the Canon i950.

Anyway I am using 1.96-4 or what ever the latest version of Turboprint is and no other option was available thought the Leopard printer driver selection drop down.

Finally I am sure I have selected the correct paper.

To confuse (or maybe clarify?) matters more, I have connected the printer directly via USB to my system running 10.5.2 and found that it prints correctly when connected this way, ie the output is normal. It just won't print correctly to the printer when it is shared off my Linux server running Turboprint, ie the output is faint.

I have put in a bug report/support call to the Turboprint people - I'm a paying customer after all!

This is the reason I run mostly Macs and not Linux at home, most things on Macs just work without much fanarckling about, but I suspect there is a problem between Turboprint and 10.5.2

Thanks again for your help, any further tips would be appreciated if you have them!

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Answer 5

PAHU

Level 6

16,705 points

May 15, 2008 1:06 AM in response to Tom Armitage

Well from what you have said it would suggest that the Leopard provided i950 driver is okay. The filters within Turboprint must be causing some sort of quality conversion when the spool file is received. As to why this doesn't occur when the file is submitted via Tiger is interesting.

I am assuming that you can print okay from Suse via Turboprint to the i950? If so, instead of using the Canon driver on Leopard, try using a Generic Postscript to the same queue provided by Turboprint. It should then use the appropriate filters (CanonIJRaster) to convert the spool file to the printer.

Alternatively, is there a way you can create a queue on Linux that acts simply like as a pass-through port? Then you could use the Canon driver on Leopard without fear of Turboprint adding to the file.

PaHu

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Answer 6

Tom Armitage Author

Level 1

45 points

May 18, 2008 6:34 PM in response to PAHU

For the record, the printer works ok printing directly from the Suse Linux box. It's a headless file/print server so I never need to print directly from it, but a test print from within the TurboPrint setup/config program works ok.

I've not heard back from the TurboPrint folks so I might have to pursue some of the ideas you've put forward.

I'd describe myself as technically savvy (I design electronics, write code and have been using Macs for 5 years and Linux for longer), but I admit to being completely bamboozled when it comes to working with printers!

I find CUPS very confusing to set up and use, Apple has done a lot to make it simpler and Linux needs to learn a lesson from them.

From what I can tell, there's only one queue being set up by Turboprint, it's shared out by CUPS and I can't select any other driver other than the default to access it. I'm assuming that the default is either the default Leopard driver for the Canon i950 or another driver provided through some CUPS trickery.

I was happy when the i950 was connected to my Mac Mini (still on 10.3 but going strong!) and shared out from there, it just worked, but the layout of my new house doesn't allow me to use the Mac Mini as the print server any more, hence the Linux box...

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Answer 7

Tom Armitage Author

Level 1

45 points

May 19, 2008 7:58 AM in response to PAHU

Hmm, I've been messing about with CUPS on the Linux server and found something interesting.

What I've found is that it appears that the Mac I have running 10.4.11 is picking up all the print server settings correctly (as shared via CUPS) and changes to them as they happen, while the Mac I have running 10.5.2 is not, it's seems to be stuck in a lower resolution draft mode.

For example, on the Linux server using the CUPS administration page, I set the shared printer to output at 1200 dpi fine quality. The Mac running Tiger picked this up and reported the correct resolution, while the Mac running Leopard did not, it was stuck reporting 600 dpi, the previous setting and didn't change even after deleting the printer and adding it again in the System Preferences.

It took a reboot of the Leopard Machine to pick up on the resolution change, it then reported the correct setting under the printer features.

But even then when I print from the Mac running Leopard, it seems to ignore the new settings and default to the old!

I raised the debug output in the CUPS log on the Linux server and found the following from the machine running 10.5.2 when printing:

D [19/May/2008:23:44:46 +0930] [Job 1482] argv[0]="i950"
D [19/May/2008:23:44:46 +0930] [Job 1482] argv[1]="1482"
D [19/May/2008:23:44:46 +0930] [Job 1482] argv[2]="tom"
D [19/May/2008:23:44:46 +0930] [Job 1482] argv[3]="expat.dyndns.org"
D [19/May/2008:23:44:46 +0930] [Job 1482] argv[4]="1"
D [19/May/2008:23:44:46 +0930] [Job 1482] argv[5]="Resolution=600x600dpi AP DInputSlot= pserrorhandler-requested=standard nocollate media=A4 com.apple.print.PrintSettings.PMColorMatchingMode..n.=0 OutputOrder=Normal com.apple.print.PrintSettings.PMLayoutColumns..n.=1 PaperInfoIsSuggested..b. AP ColorMatchingMode=APApplicationColorMatching zedoPrinterDriver=Canon-i950 DestinationPrinterID=i950 zedoColorC=0 zedoColorCorrection=1 zedoUserColor=1 zedoGamma=180 nocom.apple.print.PrintSettings.PMBorder..b. com.apple.print.PageToPaperMappingType..n.=1 com.apple.print.PrintSettings.PMColorSyncProfileID..n.=836 zedoContrast=0

and the following from the machine running 10.4.11 when printing :

D [19/May/2008:23:53:49 +0930] [Job 1483] argv[0]="i950"
D [19/May/2008:23:53:49 +0930] [Job 1483] argv[1]="1483"
D [19/May/2008:23:53:49 +0930] [Job 1483] argv[2]="tom"
D [19/May/2008:23:53:49 +0930] [Job 1483] argv[3]="untitled"
D [19/May/2008:23:53:49 +0930] [Job 1483] argv[4]="1"
D [19/May/2008:23:53:49 +0930] [Job 1483] argv[5]="zedoDithering=OrderedFine zedoColorModel=RGB zedoGamut=0 zedoDuplexAdjust=0 zedoColorC=0 zedoColorCorrection=1 MediaType=Plainpaper_0 zedoGamma=180 zedoColorY=0 zedoIntensity=0 zedoColorK=0 zedoMirror=0 Resolution=600x600dpi_3 zedoColorM=0 zedoContrast=0 zedoBrightness=0 zedoUserColor=1 AP DInputSlot= noTraySwitch nocollate media=A4 com.apple.print.PrinterInfo.PMColorDeviceID..n.=6945 OutputOrder=Normal com.apple.print.PrintSettings.PMLastPage..n.=2147483647 com.apple.print.PrintSettings.PMColorSpaceModel..n.=2

Note how they are different, in particular the "zedoDithering=OrderedFine" which is how I've set up the printer server options - it's not there for the Mac running Leopard!!

Is anyone able to give me any ideas as to what's going on or where to look??

Is this a bug in Leopard??

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