Xref: utzoo comp.lang.postscript:1408 comp.text.desktop:648
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!amdahl!pacbell!ditka!qiclab!sopwith!snoopy
From: snoopy@sopwith.UUCP (Snoopy)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,comp.text.desktop
Subject: Publishing laserset material (was: Re: I need a finer setgray)
Message-ID: <88@sopwith.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 89 00:42:21 GMT
References: <10322@gryphon.COM>
Reply-To: snoopy@sopwith.UUCP (Snoopy)
Distribution: na
Organization: The Daisy Hill Puppy Farm
Lines: 34

In article <10322@gryphon.COM> richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) writes:
|Get it set on a 2650 dpi Linotronic ?
|
|/* mild personal nit to pick */
|
|I'm getting real tired of seeing books, forms, and ad's in magazines
|set with a laser printer instead of a phototypesetter.
|
|That 3 volume O'reilly series about X-Windows, for exmaple is laser typeset,
|and it doesnt look like a real book somehow.  More like a thick company
|newsletter.
|
|I can't help but feel that we're making negative progress here.

What is happening is that the range of reproduction quality is getting
compressed towards the middle.  I am happy to see less memeograph (sp?)
and draft quality dot matrix output.

I don't think the laserprinters themselves are necessarily to blame for
the cases of lowered quality.  Sometimes the software driving them doesn't
take advantage of the resolution available.  Sometimes an advertiser will
*want* an obviously low resolution output to make it look more "computery"
to an audience used to associating very low resolution with computers.
(No one ever accused advertisers of having taste.)  And I have to wonder
if the reproduction stage(s) after the laserprinter retain what quality
the laserprinter does generate.  A friend of mine has a 300dpi laserprinter
that generates beautiful output.  Run this through a photocopy machine,
(even a big Kodak one, which has been the best I've found) and it looks
pretty sad.
    _____     
   /_____\    Snoopy
  /_______\   
    |___|     tektronix!tekecs!sopwith!snoopy
    |___|     sun!nosun!illian!sopwith!snoopy