HALF TONES IN PAGESTREAM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Half Tones are used by most all "printed" matter. It is a system of dots used to depict light and dark areas in a photo/art. An example would be your local newspaper. PageStream needs this capability. Having been in the printing industry (newspaper) and used most every DTP package on several platforms, I must say I like PageStream the best. However, I am dissapointed by the lack of support for halftones. This is the very cornerstone of printed "photos". Yet for all the brouhaha, no one has seen fit to include this crucial feature in their DTP package. I have been waiting patiently for SoftLogik to "pioneer" this feature in PageStream, but having waited this long I must speak out and encourage them to do so. Digitizing of photos and video frames is very common and the wealth of this material is going largely ignored. The problem is: no matter what type of format (IFF, TIFF, GIF, etc) you import into the page, the output is not suitable for clear reproduction. Half tone output for import "photos", is not just another "that's nice" feature, it is a NECESSITY for serious DTP use. SoftLogik should add this feature to PageStream immediately. Halftone output on a printed page is what we need - now... Pagestream does support user definable Screen Angles and Screen Frequency for bitmap images. Select a bitmap and go to Edit Coordinates to enter the Screen Angle and Frequency. Hi again Dave, I think I just left a message to you on CIS about the same thing. What exactly does PgS not do for you? You can define angle and frequency for each pic in edit coords, and for pages in the special text gadget. Granted using the special text gadget is a pain, and will probably be changed in the future some time, but it does work. SL does all their ads with this. Do you need definable angles for each color? If you are importing photos, use 45 for the Screen Angles and 60 for the Screen Frequency (on a 300 dpi printer). This works well for me. I've been using 133 LPI to an imagesetter at 2400 dpi with no problems. I use pagestream ST to import and print halftone photos which have been scanned and saved as .IFF files. The output to PS printers looks good and adjusting the screen frequency can improve the appearance...30 lpi gives nearly 50 shades of grey, 100 lpi yields only 7 distinct shades (at 300 dpi)...the output should be improved greatly by sending the information to a 1200+ dpi imagesetter. It seems to me that the original posting requesting half-tone output was in regards to dot matrix printing. Most of the graphics produced within Pagestream (and every other DTP or graphic program I've used for the Amiga) print as continuous tone greys. For certain purposes, this is less than useless. I use a Postscript interpreter to get real halftones, and am saving pennies for a true Postscript printer so I don't have to jump thru hoops to get halftones. Perhaps there are programs on other platforms that will do this direct to dot matrix, but it is at best unusual. So my point is: let's not argue apples and oranges. Pagestream gives one a great deal of control in creating halftones for printing via postscript. More than any other program I know of on the Amiga platform. And to demand that one gets equal control via dot matrix is asking for something no one else has delivered on either. The real limit to halftones on Dot matrix printers is the number and size of dots. A typical 9 pin will print 240x216 dpi but each dot covers 5-10 of the spaces in a true 240x216 grid. A good 24 pin printer is better with 360 x 360 dpi, but still the dots cover more than one grid space. 300 dpi lasers are really the bare MINIMUM for halftone printing With a half tone image, the more dots per halftone line, the finer the grey resolution...with 300 dpi, 30 lpi gives nearly 100 dots per halftone dot (very good grey scale representation... the pagestream default of --- (about 50 lpi for a 300 dpi laser) only leaves about 36 dots per halftone dot, not as good, but acceptable. With higher lpi values, the halftone screen goes toward a continuous grey (16 or fewer tones) On a dot matrix printer with 360x360 dpi (which is really closer to a real 180x180 dpi) the dots are just to few to produce reasonable halfones. Let me clarify the problem. If you are printing a large number of copies on a printer for limited distribution, then fine... the continous tones are fine. And I know about PostScript and halftones. If you look at your local newspaper you will see photos reproduced in 16 shades of grey to define a pretty good picture. And it can be photocopied with some ease. An original PMT (photo mechanical transfer) of a halftone will reproduce with even more clarity. What I am ultimately trying to accomplish is to provide a BLACK AND WHITE camera-ready slick ready to be duplicated. And I'm afraid SL "is" talking "apples and oranges". PageStream does a good job doing color separations and a few other things. I would like them to spend a day or two in the layout and pasteup section of a large daily to see how black and white is done. I just had a B&W photo "shot" for a halftone and pasted it on my layout for duplication on a high quality copier after making a PMT. Would of been nice to be able to do all of this in the program.... Dave, I think you might have to buy a separate program such as Retouche Pro (from GoldLeaf) to create b&w halftones. I am not familiar with Retouche Pro, but I think you can scan in images and apply all sorts of anti-aliasing effects, etc, and save the graphic as an EPS or TIFF. You could then bring it into PGS. Contact Goldleaf for more info. Re: Camera-ready slick I think understand what you're getting at, but if you're expecting PMT quality from a 300dpi laser, you're barking up the wrong tree. If, on the other hand, you're dumping to a 1200+ dpi output device, and you're still not happy with the output, then maybe we need to focus elsewhere. I've dumped 16, 64 & 256 gray-scale pics to Lino with excellent results from several DTP packages. What are you using to get your pics into your document? Don't you have to consider how the image was brought IN the the DTP package??? It seems if I scanned an image at 300 dpi (even at 256 grays) output to a 1200 dpi or a 2400 dpi output device is not going to be the same as a traditional halftone?!?! Am I missing something??? That's the point I was trying to make. As Uncle Jack explained to me a LONG time ago, halftone screens are just that, screens with holes in 'em. There are different screens, with different hole densities, depending on the result you're trying to achieve. In DTP applications, it's a whole different airplane. Depending on how the picture is digitized, different results are achieved, eliminating the the need for a "real" halftone process. For example, my Navarone scanner has a "halftone" option, which breaks up dark areas into different dot patterns depending on the the density of the black areas. The result of the scan is a pseudo-halftone, rather than a straight black/white line art piece. My 256 gray scanner actually reads in the individual grays and interprets them as one of 256 different colors, which the output device then attempts to simulate. In any event, between the nature of the scan and the rez of the output device, the need for traditional half-toning in a DTP program is gone. In fact, if memory serves, Uncle Jack actually used halftone screens when xeroxing a pic (prior to scanner availability) to simulate the same effect for stuff he had to paste into his mag. (Ain't technology wunnerful?) ;-] Question, what is the standard or recommend line screen to be use for magazine quality with PageStream for the St? How can you set them? I printing this to a LINO at 2540 DPI and to film so what do you guys recommend? Thanks a million. You should ask your printer...most folks suggest 133 or 150 lines per inch. When I did the Tracker/ST manual cover, I didn't specify any line per inch. I think it came out at 133...and it printed fine..! thank you for your answer. I see the same answer from others I ask. So more or less your printer can really "KILL" a project I will try the 133 lines. One more thing about Retouche Pro/Didot Pro GoldLeaf says that using the Imagespeeder it can do much better than using a Postscript compatible program. I was inform that with it we can get a scan image with great gray scales printed at 3000 DPI in about 2.5 minutes , trying to do the same using a postscript compatile program try about 24 hours and do not get the same results. Nevins I am doing more resurch on this as I think this will help us all. Also Nathan has the Cranach Studio, do not know much but it should do the same. Cranach Studio sound like great programs...I look forward to seeing them. What sort of projects are you working on, Ringo? It is nice to see folks using PGS and the Atari for serious work. Nevin, I am working on some newsletters other small documents but my main work is Graphic Illustration samples Poster, Magazine Ads and now Desktop Video. That is why am looking forward to Retouche and Cranach Studio also PageStream 2.1 etc... I now have the Phase 4 programs from Lexicor Software. One thing is I am very GLAD that all of this great products are comming out! The Linotronic Service is now getting the final touch-ups and testing but we are taking files now! Dont forget Repro Studio. It is very good also. Negotiations are underway as I write this, so it (and Avant Vektor) may soon be available in the US (and in English). I have a small question. How do I set the 133 line screen for a 1 page lino output? What is the defult value? You set each objects frequency from the Edit Coordinates requestor. You can also specify a frequency for the entire page from the Configure Printer requestor's SPECIAL text gadget....(check page 6.11 in the 2.1 manual) You can enter f133, a30 which would give you a frequency of 133 and an angle of 30 for page 1 EOFting the screen frequency can improve the appearance...30 lpi gives nearly 50 shades of grey, 100 lpi yields PAGESTREAM - QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ haven't tried it, but first thing I would try is... draw the arc as you want, then define the line as a dotted line and set the line point size to suit the effect you want. This might work. Dee Dee, thanks for the tip. I tried it and I can use it. I'm not getting bullets, though, just dashes. I thought there might be some way to achieve the effect of a 90 degree arc of bullets using a macro and the duplicate function. Here's another effect I am needing: the decenders of the letters in a particular word dip into a solid black box. How do I get the decenders of each letter to be white, while the rest of the letter above the black box is black? Any ideas? Thanks I recently received my update to TouchUp 1.6 and am having problems importing scanned TIF grayscale images. The manual that came with the upgrade says that PageStream will import these files, but I get a "File Type Not Recognized" message when I try. TouchUp also will not load the TIF grayscale image after it is saved, issuing a "Color Format Files Not Supported" message - is there some whay to import these files? ARC of bullets: Set a bullet in text mode on the page then define a secontd object a couple of inches below it...group these together and duplicate and rotate them a couple of times and viola! an arc of bullets...note the other object should be just a line segment or something of type 0. TIF: You can not use TIFF files with pagestream 1.8x (only the yet-to- be- released version 2.1)...also, I beleive that the latest version of touch up is 1.65. Mike, thanks for the great tip on creating an arc of bullets. I am eager to try it out and also see how I may further take advantage of your tip. TIFF: correct, you'll have to wait til 2.1 ST. And you can't reload them inot TU because TU is mono only. Once you've scanned a grayscale, TU leaves you in the lurch. It's supposed to be a bonus feature since TU is mono only. Thanks for the info, Mike. Do you know if Outline Art will display TIFF files? To all Atari PageStream users, I have a SyQuest full of Lexicor Phase 4 Program file DEMOS and animation and they look great on my TT030. Now this file will be able to import as IFF in to PageStream 1.83 but even better on 2.1 With Phase 4 we can do videos and also grat raytrace pictures using 256 color and than import them into PageStream. Small hint scan an image save it as an IFF file import it into Phase 4 and RayTrace it or use it as a background, mapit onto any object and more. I should be getting the full program by next week! Also Lexicor is at the ATARI roundtable Topic7 "Graphics Section 22 for Rosetta" it should be fun. Lexicor program will import Amiga, IBM, and MAC file format. so take a look. MIKE your Bullet Arc solution worked great. After I grouped the bullet and the phantom center radius, I duplicated the grouped object 7 times with 0 x and y coordinated. Then I took the topmost object and rotated it 10 degrees, the second by 20 degrees, etc. I am really impressed with your ingenuity, and wonder what other goodies you have up your sleeve. BTW do you have a solution for eliminating or at least reducing crosshatching from Touch-Up scanned B&W photos which are imported, sized and imported into Pagestream 2.8? PS: By changing each bullet in the arc to a letter of a word, one can create some neat looking text-wraps smoothooops. Thanks again for your help. Ringo, that sounds interesting. Where did you get the demo of the lexicore stuff? Hey bob, how about uploading a sample doc with instructions for your arc- bullets. I'd love to see how it works..! Cross-Hatched Bit-Maps You can minimize cross-hatching bit-maps by remembering a few simple rules. 1) Crop your image as closely as possible whhile you're in Touch-Up. 2) Scale your image EQUALLY both horizontally AND vertically. (None of this 40% vert. & 60% horiz. nonsense!) ;-] 3) Whenever possible scale your image keeping in mind both your scanned dpi and your output device's dpi. 1 & 2 will make the most difference. Most of the docs that folks have asked me to look at that exhibit cross- hatching problems fall into the same category: "Hey, dammit, I want the whole image in this area! So what if the horiz & vert scaling aren't equal!" It just doesn't work that way... ;-] got the Syquest from Lexicor Software only because I order my Phase 4 programs last september. I can show the files to all that would like to see them. I will be uploading some files soon. By next week I should have the programs so I will be making my own work and if anyone needs some file conversions I will do that also. Bob, if you are scanning line art and saving it as an IMG file yo must display it on screen and paper as close to even multiples of the actual resolution. I usually scan at 400 dpi and enlarge the image in pagestream by 132% in both directions. (NOTE: 133% can cause some cross hatching since pagestream will sometimes go to 134% instead of 133%. (I am using a 300 dpi laser). If you scan dither patterns AND have access to a postscript printer, you can get surprising results from a greyscale IFF when printed as a near half-tone image. (I am still waiting for v2.x to get TIFF grey-scale (much higher resolution)). Later, Mike thanks for the feedback on eliminating/reducing crosshatching of Touch-Up imports. as you requested, I'm uploading a doc that explains how to to create an automatic flow of bullets (or text) along a curve. 'm having a rather odd problem printing bitmap images. Printing in portrait mode works fine, but when I print in landscape mode, the images are stretched in one direction. Everything else (text, line art) prints fine. BTW, I'm printing on a (yuck!) 9 pin dot matrix printer, 240 x 216 dpi... Any help would be most welcome! Ringo here I am of some help. I hope. Or please ask for Nevin. The NeMan him self. I sold my 9 pin printer last month did not use it with PageSTream. I do have a small question are you using a ST or Mega ST? or how much ram do you have? Nevin help please. I'm using PgS 2.1 Amiga.. 1.5 megs.. If I'm using a portrait page and rotate the graphics 90 degrees, it prints ok.. But, if I'm using a landscape page, graphics unrotated, the graphics print stretched in one direction... Great program otherwise.. When you print in landscape choose an even resolution (120x120 or 240x240) that should do the trick! I would, except EpsonX doesn't have an even resolution! Guess I'll have to reduce one dimension of the bitmap before I print, except that makes it a bit hard to lay out the page.. Oh well.. Any other ideas? Try EpsonXOld if you have it but it may have the same problem... Your idea may work though! The problem isn't with the printer driver.. If I import an image into PgS, and draw a box around it, when the page is printed in landscape mode, the image will stretch beyond the box! I just tried what you are trying to do with success BUT I have a DeskJet printer and every one of my available resolutions are even (ie: 150x150 300,300 etc) Try output thru the IFF.Printer at the resolution 1 or 2 to a disk file and view it and see what you get. I can make another guess here...try importing the pic AT the same resolution that you will be printing at...when the requestor pops up asking to import as a picture window or an object, click on OBJECT and then erase the word "Object" and type in the following... dpi=240,144 (or what ever resolution you will be using) and then click OK. When you paste the object just click once without sizing it. It may not be the exact size you want but give it a try! The problem with printing in landscape also exists when printing with IFFILBM.printer. Here's exactly what I did, so everyone can follow along at home: Configure printer to IFFILBM.Printer, printing to disk Create new page, default dimensions, landscape mode Import TUTORIAL.IFF (picture of squirrel) as object, paste holding shift key Change line style for object to get a border Print View IFF file, using viewer of your choice Follow these directions, and you'll get imperfect results every time! Oops.. forgot to mention that when you print, select a density that isn't even.. I used 5 (200 x 100) EOF a macro and the duplicate function. Here's another effect I am needing: the decenders of the letter <<<<*>>>><<<<*>>>><<<<*>>>>