Print quality from CS3 to a non-PS b/w printer

MJ
Posted By
Mark_John_Murphy
Jul 21, 2008
Views
325
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I open an image in Photoshop CS3 and do a file / print to my HP laserjet 1300 black an white printer. The image prints out with a halftone pattern with little dots visible all over the place.

If I place the same image without any changes into Illustrator and do a file / print form there, the image comes out looking like a black and white photograph with none of the dots / halftone pattern of the photoshop image.

I want it to look like a photograph. I do not want the halftone / dots.

Can someone help me with what is happening here? Maybe just some photoshop setting that I need in order to print nice looking images from Photoshop CS3 to this printer rather than having to get Illustrator involved?
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G
gowanoh
Jul 22, 2008
Resize the image in Photoshop to whatever the length/width at 200 dpi. Any higher DPI is pushing what the printer memory can handle. This venerable HP is a very good text printer but not a graphics printer. You will likely see banding or other artifacts.
JT
John_T_Smith
Jul 22, 2008
What are your EXACT print settings?

Is there a place on the printer driver screen to SELECT quality settings?

I use a Brother laser and when I print there are several options available (not at that computer, so can’t remember if the printer window pops up when I click the printer ICON or if I have to click File-Print from the menu to access the settings)
MJ
Mark_John_Murphy
Jul 24, 2008
Hi John Smith,

Here are the first two pages of the print dialog:

www.k9tag.com/basenjibath.html

If I open Illustrator and place this image and do a file / print, the image prints like a b/w photo.

If I do a file/print form CS3 I get a message saying something about interpolation and postscript and the image prints out looking like a fine halftone pattern is covering everything. Changing from 600 dpi to 1200 dpi just produces an image with a fine halftone pattern.

Illustrator prints a better photo than PHOTOshop!!! What’s up?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark
S
Silkrooster
Jul 24, 2008
One issue i see is your image is 6×9 inches at 72 ppi. That is a low resolution image. No matter how high you set the dpi on the printer it will not get any better.
Your image is 6×72=432 px
by 9 x 72 = 648 px
plus what I rounded off.
MJ
Mark_John_Murphy
Jul 24, 2008
Silkrooster,

As mentioned, I placed the image in illustrator without changes and printed to the same printer. The results look like a black and white photograph just I would expect to see from photoshop.

I am only seeing the problem with photoshop. The image has enough resolution / ppi to look good when printed from illustrator. I would think it should print the same or better from photoshop.

Probably some switch I need to set somewhere?
KH
Kevin_Hatch
Aug 8, 2008
This is not a source quality issue; it’s a printing bug (for Windows Photoshop CS3 at least). I upgraded to CS3 and suddenly all my prints are halftones too. Printing the same images with the same printer on CS2 always produced a clear, crisp print. I tried upgrading to 10.0.1 as that was mentioned as including a printing quality bug fix, but it did not help the halftone issue. Are there settings other than the CS3 defaults that can fix this problem?

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