The Seperator is a Chooser level print driver that saves printed documents to TIFF files — rather than printing to a device. The TIFF files may be color seperated.
TIFF files created by the Seperator may be read by other applications that can read TIFF. All of the files created are full color images — either 24 bit RGB or 32 bit CMYK. The size, resolution, and color space of Seperator TIFF files is selectable.
Differences between versions 0.90 and 1.0 of the Seperator:
• The PageSetup dialog has been simplified.
• A crash bug that sometimes occurred after several prints is fixed.
• A couple of memory leaks were fixed.
• The registration dialog was added to PageSetup. There is no time expiration on this version of the Seperator. A copy that is not registered, however, has the repeating string pattern of "The Seperator" printed across each page.
Page Setup
The Page size settings define the size of the image that you want to create. The Seperator creates a TIFF image of this size. The units are pixels.
Often times an application's document size differs from the Page size. The way such documents are printed in these cases varies from application to application. For example, if a document is smaller than the printer page size an application may scale the document to fit the printer page or it may print it at actual size (perhaps centered in the middle of the printed page).
The resolution settings define the image resolution and is stored in the TIFF file. It also determines, along with the page size, the physical size of the image. So if the page width is 576 pixels and the horizontal resolution is 72 dpi, then the physical size of the image is 576pixels/72dpi = 8 inches wide.
The Seperations buttons determine whether a 24 bit RGB image or a 32 bit CMYK image is stored in the TIFF file.
The Color dialog sets a color tranform curve. The curve is applied to output images prior to the image being written out to the TIFF file. The curve is not stored in the TIFF file. The color transform curve is applied regardless of whether an RGB or CMYK image is being saved.
The CMYK dialog sets parameters that are used in creating a CMYK image.
Print
The page range determines which pages of your document are printed. It works just like in other printer drivers.
Before printing is allowed (and the Print button is enabled), an output file must be specified. The Output button brings up the Standard File dialog, from which you must enter the TIFF output file name. The Seperator appends a suffix to the file name to produce a different file name for each page. For example, if you enter "test" as the output file, then the Seperator creates "test page 1", "test page 2", etc…
Color
From the color dialog you may adjust the gamma, contrast, and brightness parameters. If RGB is selected in the Page Setup dialog then red, green, and blue appear in this dialog. If CMYK is selected in the Page Setup dialog then cyan, magenta, yellow and black appear. The resultant color tranfer curve is applied to an image prior to it being written out. The default values do not affect an image.
CMYK
From the CMYK dialog you may adjust parameters that affect how black (K) is applied in relation to CMY and how CMY is adjusted based on how much black is applied.
Black printer is the amount of black that is used to compensate for CMY not being able to produce black. It is expressed as a percentage of the mimum of CMY for a give pixel. Lets take a pixel that has CMY of (30%,40%,50%), for example. If black printer is set to 100% then 100% of the minimum of CMY is 30%. 30% black is used, ie, K=30%. If black printer is set to 50% then 15% black is used (50% of 30%).
Undercolor removal specifies the amount of CMY that is removed based on the amount of black printer being added. For example, if under color removal is 100%, then 100 % of the black printer is subtracted from each of CMY. If under color removal is 75% then 75% * black printer is subtracted from each CMY.
Registration
The registration dialog is used to register a copy of the Seperator. A copy that has not been registered prints a repeating string of "The Seperator" across each printed page. A registered copy does not print this string. Contact Mystic River Software (see the About dialog) to register your copy. Version 1.0 of the Seperator may be registered for a fee of forty dollars per copy. Owners of registered copies are notified of future updates.
MISCELLANEOUS
The Seperator spools printed images to PICT files and later converts them to TIFF files. The Seperator normally deletes the PICT files when it is finished. If you hold down the option key when clicking on the Print dialogs OK button, then the PICT files will not be deleted.
The file type and creator for the created TIFF files may be set by adding the resources 'OFC ' and 'OFT ' with ID = 128. This is useful if you would like to launch a particular application by double clicking on the icon of a Seperator TIFF file. Resedit can be used to add these resources. Set 'OFC ' to the creator string of the application and 'OFT ' to TIFF. In the absence of these resources type and creator are set to that of an Adobe Photoshop TIFF file.
