Graphics made on PC won't print on a Mac

L

leicam13

Registered
Hello All,

Help me to understand why graphics, .jpgs, .bmps, .pdfs that were made on a PC and brought over to my Mac via CD show up perfectly on screen but won't print right? For example, I have a line drawing graphic of a tree that I filled in with various shades of gray. From say 20% to 80% black. Sometimes I made new graphics images in Photoshop, sometimes I even made them with Microsoft's Paint or Microsoft's Photo Image. When I print them either in Word or even in Photoshop or Preview the typeface and the lines show up fine but only the darkest parts that were filled in show up in the print. Anything less than black doesn't show up on the print. It seems there is some preference or command somewhere that will make it work. It worked fine on the PC and the Samsung Laser Printer but the Mac and same printer cannot print anything less than black.

Thanks,

leicam
 
leicam13 said:
Hello All,

Help me to understand why graphics, .jpgs, .bmps, .pdfs that were made on a PC and brought over to my Mac via CD show up perfectly on screen but won't print right? ...
Click to expand...
You seem to be all over the place here. However, your best bet for opening Windows-created graphics files on a Mac is GraphicConverter. It can open graphics files created using a number of platforms going back to cave paintings.
 
It prints images and type fine that are native to the Mac for instance it prints clipart from the Word for Mac app thats on the Mac. I really think its the fact that the image was made on a PC and doesn't convert to the Mac easily. The Graphic Converter suggestion sounds like a good one, I just don't want to pop for that particular app just to find out if it works.

LeicaM
 
leicam13 said:
... I just don't want to pop for that particular app just to find out if it works.

...
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GraphicConverter is shareware, but is fully functional before you pay the fee. It is a free download that costs nothing but time if you decide not to pay.
 
Not quite understanding your problem, but could it be that your Mac is set to only print Black and White and therefore shades of gray default to whichever is closer, black or white?
 
Here's the latest update on my search for the answer. This particular printer, a Samsung monochrome laser printer ML-2250 is only set up for PCs. However, it has been discovered that you can install various generic drivers to allow Macs to work with it. Along with a generic Mac driver a couple of other drivers called Foomatic-RIP and Ghostscript also need to be installed. I just read that the Foomatic-RIP only works with 1 or 2 bits per pixel which makes sense why my images are appearing so washed out. I need 8 bits per pixel for typical greyscale images. Any other input is greatly appreciated.
 
leicam13 said:
Here's the latest update on my search for the answer. This particular printer, a Samsung monochrome laser printer ML-2250 is only set up for PCs. However, it has been discovered that you can install various generic drivers to allow Macs to work with it. Along with a generic Mac driver a couple of other drivers called Foomatic-RIP and Ghostscript also need to be installed. I just read that the Foomatic-RIP only works with 1 or 2 bits per pixel which makes sense why my images are appearing so washed out. I need 8 bits per pixel for typical greyscale images. Any other input is greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
You are making this more complicated than necessary. Your graphics files may not be in the optimal format as received from a Windows machine, but the Mac is not a pass-through device. When you embed graphics into another document, they are converted to a format that the application and MacOS X understand. After that, it should not matter where the graphics originated. When manipulating raster graphics (aka bitmap graphics), you constrain its aspect ratio to preserve its quality. A checkbox selection, this is trivial to do in any version of Word on any supported platform, but it seems to escape just about every Windows user I know.

If your printer prints Mac-originated graphics, then your printer problem is probably solved. If you have not installed the required CUPS PPD, then you should install the PPD for the Samsung ML-2252w. When that is done, you will have done everything you can do on the hardware side of things.

It is time to deal with other issues. I have suggested that you download and use GraphicConverter. It can convert graphics files into broad array of formats from a vast array of formats. If it doesn't work for you, then you are out nothing. On the other hand, you can continue to make excuses for not downloading it. The choice is yours.
 
Yo M&M, I do appreciate your help. Even Mac-originated graphics print bad. Everything looks totally washed out. Only the blackest black in the original image shows up as a faint gray. I installed the ML-2252w and am still getting poor graphic printing. I tried to print a low res. grayscale .jpg that I downloaded on the Mac straight from the web. Could the following be the issue. I've read in another place on the Linux site that these drivers only work at the 1 or 2 bit per pixel level. Forgive me if I sound like a novice I am not a programmer. At any rate, this made sense to me because I know that grayscale images need 8 bits per pixel. I don't think GraphicConverter will solve this CPU/peripheral issue. I think I need a driver that drives multiple bits per pixel.

Todd
 
leicam13 said:
... I've read in another place .... Forgive me if I sound like a novice ... I don't think GraphicConverter will solve ... I think I need a driver that drives multiple bits per pixel. ...
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It is very frustrating to try to help someone who would rather recite misinformation than accept simple advice. No programming skills are required to download a program that might help you. Your print driver's purpose is not to increase pixel depth. It converts data on your computer into a pixel map that is passed onto your printer and, finally, the printed page. Increasing pixel-depth is the domain of applications [like GraphicConverter].
 
I downloaded GraphicConverter. A beautiful app. Thank you for introducing me to it. It will be a useful addition. I tried a print of the same stupid tree through its thumbnail search. Same result. Only black prints. Like I said earlier, I did get a successful halftone of clipart from Word for Mac. I don't really know what else to say to you all. I appreciate your suggestions.

Todd
 
What version of Office are you pulling this clip art from? Microsoft changed the way it handles transparency between versions and it may be that this is the source of your problems.
 
I'm running Word 2004 for Mac. I tried the clipart test again. This time it failed. I'm now not sure it worked the first time. I also imported the tree image I've talked about into clipart to see if that would work. Both images printed b&w only. Can anyone cooraborate my theory that trying to print from a Mac to a printer that doesn't natively support Mac and is using the drivers I described above will only produce 1 bit printing.
 
leicam13 said:
... Can anyone cooraborate my theory that trying to print from a Mac to a printer that doesn't natively support Mac and is using the drivers I described above will only produce 1 bit printing.
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Now that you have GraphicConverter, you can try to convert the image to .jpg or some other multi-bit graphics format. However, I suspect that this is a blind alley. Since neither I nor many people on this forum have your printer, it is difficult for anyone but you to do the experiment. However, it may be that you have an obscure user setting in your File > Print dialog box. I have never had a problem printing Word documents with embedded graphics. However, I have had problems with PowerPoint. In my case, I discovered that PowerPoint defaulted to B&W. You need to go through each of your image quality settings in your File > Print dialog box to see if there a setting that is causing your problem. You may also post an example document to so that someone here can test it on his/her system.
 
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I tried the .pdf conversion and printout and same result, b&W only. I've checked the File>print dialogs and in Word there is nothing that steers the printing to b&w. The only thing that remotely looks like it affects printing output is the colorsync option with color conversion set to standard and the quartz filter set to nono. I am quite familiar with print dialogs having to use it all the time when I'm printing photos on my Epson 2400. I still feel that I may have not installed the Ghostscript, Foosmatic-RIP and the hpijs drivers correctly. Even though in Printer Setup Utility I have the ML-2250 'Named' and checked in the Printer List and Samsung ML-2552W Foomatic/hpijs as its 'Kind'. Now even though 2552W shows up in the Printer Utility, how do I know its been installed. I've downloaded the PPD (along with a bunch of others) to my desktop but I am not sure what I am supposed to do with it from there. When I open it in TextEdit there's a bunch of code that is totally foreign to me.
 
None not nono. I do know that the Ghostscript and the Foosmatic-RIP are installed. I may have even installed them more than once. Here's something good, ML-2250 shows up under library/printers as an application. Here's more good stuff. I was able to open a bunch of stuff through the printer app. which revealed a contents folder which opened to an info.plist which then opens to PageSpinner and a page of code, a MacOS folder with a PrinterProxy inside, a Resources folder with among various .tiff files a PrinterInfo.xml file which opened a PageSpinner app. to a page of code. And a version .plist which also opens PageSpinner and code. My intuition tells me that this is where I'm supposed to "install" the PPD text files I've downloaded. Sorry MisterMe, I've just made it a thousand times more complicated. :)
 
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