PhaserPrint Plug-in for Photoshop

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Phaser 300X

PhaserPrint Plug-in for Photoshop

The PhaserPrint plug-in operates within the Photoshop application to improve the image data transfer time from your Macintosh to your printer. The Phaser 300X printer's CD-ROM and the Printer Software for the Macintosh diskette contain the PhaserPrint plug-in file for use with Photoshop, and Phaser 300X printers, and other supported Tektronix printers.

PhaserPrint software is compatible with Photoshop 2.0 and higher, and System 7.0 and higher. PhaserPrint software only produces correct output on supported printers. If you use this plug-in with a printer not listed in the PhaserPrint dialog box, the image may be placed incorrectly on the page, or colors may look incorrect, or your file may not print.

The PhaserPrint plug-in also works under QuickDraw GX if your default desktop printer refers to a printer supported by the PhaserPrint software.

Installing the plug-in

See "Installing the printer's software" to install the printer's software.
- From the printer's CD-ROM, or Printer Software for Macintosh diskette, select Easy Install to automatically install the printer's software.
  Or,
- From the printer's CD-ROM, select the PhaserPrint Photoshop Plug-in in the Custom Install window.
The plug-in is automatically installed in the Acquire/Export folder, inside the Plug-ins folder, in the Photoshop application folder, on your hard disk.

Using the plug-in

Open Photoshop and an image.
If you don't already have a Phaser 300X printer selected as the default printer, open the Chooser and select a PostScript driver (such as the Adobe PSPrinter) and your Phaser 300X printer, or select an appropriate QuickDraw GX desktop printer.
From the File menu, highlight Export to see the pop-up menu. Select PhaserPrint from the list; the PhaserPrint dialog box appears.
In the Printer field, select Phaser 300X.

PhaserPrint software bypasses the printer driver selected in the Chooser. Use the page setup and printing option selections in the PhaserPrint dialog box to print your images to your Phaser 300X printer.
PhaserPrint software supports the following image modes selected from Photoshop's Mode menu. If you select a mode not listed here, an error message appears and your image is not printed.

: However, in Photoshop 2.0, if you select an image mode not supported by the PhaserPrint software, the following inaccurate error message appears:
: Could not complete the "PhaserPrint..." command because the export module does not work with Bitmap images.
: The error message does not list the specific unsupported color mode you selected.

Selecting options in the PhaserPrint dialog box

Copies

Type in the number of copies to print, from 1 to 1000.

Destination

This field allows you to choose between printing an image or saving the image to disk.
The first radio button lists the name of the printer currently selected in the Chooser. If the selected printer is not a PostScript printer, this button is labeled Not network printer and the option is unavailable (grayed-out).
The second radio button, PostScript disk file, lets you save an image to disk as a PostScript Level 2 file. When you click the Save button, another dialog box appears allowing you to choose a new or existing file for saving the PostScript code.

: Also, when the PostScript disk file radio button is selected, the option ASCII-85 encode becomes available. If this option is selected, the image data is encoded using an ASCII-85 filter during file output, making the resulting PostScript file portable so it can be downloaded through interface ports that don't support binary data. If this box is not checked, image data is output in binary format.

Printer

This pop-up menu lists the printers supported by the PhaserPrint software.
Select your printer model (Phaser 300X) before selecting a paper size in the Media Size field.
The setting you make in this field remains in effect until you change it.

Media Size

Select a paper size from this pop-up menu.
Paper sizes are printer-specific; select your printer in the Printer field before selecting a paper size.
The setting you make in this field remains in effect until you change it.
See "Phaser 300X printer's paper sizes" for a list of media sizes.
If you select Custom, enter the size in the Custom Media Size field.

Orientation

Select either Portrait (vertical) or Landscape (horizontal) in the pop-up menu.
The setting you make in this field remains in effect until you change it.
Refer to the stylized representation of the page, in the lower left corner of the dialog box, to see how the orientation selection will look when printed.

Color Correction

Select from the options in the pop-up menu.
The setting you make in this field remains in effect until you change it.
If Lab is the selected Mode in Photoshop, then the Color Corrections are not available.
If RGB is the selected Mode in Photoshop, then the Calibrated RGB option is also available.
See Chapter 6 for details on the following color corrections:

None

Vivid Color

Simulate Display

SWOP Press

Euroscale Press

Commercial Press

SNAP Press

Use Printer Setting

Monochrome

Calibrated RGB*

* RGB mode images are printed using the Calibrated RGB color space as determined
by Photoshop's Monitor Setup in order to match the currently selected monitor's
colors to the printer's colors. This option is unavailable if the image is not RGB.

Rendering Intent

This option is available in the following cases:
- If the Mode in Photoshop is RGB, and you select Calibrated RGB as the Color Correction in PhaserPrint.
- If the Mode in Photoshop is Lab.
See "Using the rendering intents" for details on the following rendering intents:

Quality

Select from the options in the pop-up menu.
The setting you make in this field remains in effect until you change it.
See Print quality for details on the following print quality modes:

Compress Image Data

Use this option to compress image data so less data needs to be sent to the printer.
This option is useful if your network connection is slow, for example a busy Ethernet network or if you are using LocalTalk. For fast networks, printing may be faster without using this option.
The default for this option is on.
The setting you make in this field remains in effect until you change it.

Manual feed

Check this box to manually feed media into the printer.
The current settings for Media Size, Orientation, and Media apply to the type of media manually fed.
The default for this option is off.

Finepoint sharpening

Check this box on to use Finepoint Sharpening.
See Finepoint sharpening for details on this option.

Color control strip

Check this box on to print a band of test colors at the bottom of your print.
See Control strip for details on this option.

Stylized representation of the page

The area in the lower left of the dialog box is a stylized representation of the page as it would look when printed using the current selections in the Scale, Printer, Media Size, Orientation, Enable image replication, Center images, and Image separation options. When you change any of these selections, the representation of the page is redrawn to reflect the new selection.
If Show color preview of image is on, an approximate color image is displayed.

Scaling an image

Scale to fit
- Click this check box to scale the image to the largest size that will fit the image area of the currently selected page size or orientation.
- This option automatically updates the value in the Scale field.
Scale
- Type in the percentage the image should be scaled, from 10 percent to 2000 percent.
- Use this option with the Enable image replication option to produce multiple copies of an image on a single page.
Alert message

: The following message appears in the dialog box whenever a scaled image will not fit within the image area of the currently selected page size or orientation option:
: Image does not fit page and will be clipped when printed.

Center images

Check this box to center the image in the image area of the page.
If this box is not checked, the lower left corner of the image is aligned with the lower left corner of the image area of the page.
The setting you make in this field remains in effect until you change it.
If the Center images box is checked and the Enable image replication box is checked, the set of replicated images are centered in the image area of the page.

Enable image replication

Check this box to fill the image area of the page with as many copies of the image as will fit.
The size of each replicated image is determined by the setting in the Scale text box.
If the size of each replicated image (shown as black rectangles in the stylized representation of the page) is too small to display, the total image area of the printed page is shown as a single gray rectangle.

Image size

This field reflects the dimensions, in inches or millimeters, of the image.
If the value in the Scale box is out-of-range, the image dimensions are displayed with question marks.

Image separation

This option is only available if the Enable image replication box is checked.
Type in an amount, in inches or millimeters, to specify the amount of separation between each replicated image.
The setting you make in this field remains in effect until you change it.
A larger amount reduces the number of images that can be printed at one time.
The minimum allowed separation value is 0 inches.
The maximum separation value is 4 inches (or the metric equivalent).
The default separation value is 0.125 (one-eighth) inches (or the metric equivalent).
Valid characters for this field are 0 to 9 and a period (or decimal point).
As you type in a value, the stylized representation of the page, and the Number of images and Image layout values, are dynamically updated. If the value entered in the Image separation field is out-of-range, the values in these other fields are replaced by question marks, and no images are shown in the stylized representation of the page. If the value is out-of-range, and you click the Print or Save button, the following alert is displayed:
The value for Image separation is out of range. It will be replaced with the closest allowed value.

Number of images

This field displays the number of scaled images that will fit in the image area of the currently selected Media Size and Orientation options.
The Number of images reflects the current Image separation value.
If the Enable image replication box is not checked, this number is set to 1.
If either of the Scale or Image separation values are out-of-range, a question mark is displayed.

Image layout

This field shows how the scaled images will fit horizontally and vertically in the image area of the currently selected Media and Orientation options.
The Image layout reflects the current Image separation value.
If the Enable image replication box is not checked, this number is
set to 1 x 1.
If either of the Scale or Image separation values are out-of-range, question marks are displayed.

Media size

This field reflects the dimensions, in inches or millimeters, of the selected media size.
Enter values in this field if you selected Custom Media Size.

Show color preview of image

This option displays an approximate color image, rather than a black box, in the Stylized representation of the page field.

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