Hi,
I just installed an HP 820cxi using the printconf-gui, and the print quality of the color is horrible and it uses so much ink that the page becomes soaked and wet with ink. I tested the printer in windows to make sure it wasn't a printer problem, and it worked just fine in windows, rather beautifully actually. I have adjusted the black density, and I think what I want to do is adjust the gamma for the driver, but I have never done this stuff before.

Thanks for all help!
Mike.

Never heard of the print-conf gui but I assume that you are using CUPS?

open up a browser window and type http://localhost:631/printers if you click on configure printer (you will neet to enter the root username and password to continue) then scroll down to the saturation and take it down from 1 to something like 0.8, that should stop the page getting soaked

This is a pnm2ppa filtered printer, cups does not provide a saturation option. In all of the tests to calibrate this printer, I am waisting an incredible amount of ink, this is not efficient at all, and those ink cartridges are expensive! I'm trying to do a gamma correction, but it is taking a lot of ink, is this really what I want to do to fix my problem? Will gamma correction lower the amount of ink spewed on the paper?

Thx.

P.S.
So much ink is being used that I can actually see the picture more clearly through the back of the paper than the printed surface.

in page /print setup theres usually a saturation option, like printing webpages from mozilla, page setup.

Sorry, Ive used 3 printers on my box and they all work wonderfule.

I'm pretty sure gamma correction will do absolutely jack to solve your saturation problems. I think you should try and use cups with the gimp-print driver? you could also try looking at linux-priting.org and have a look around to see if there's any info, it might also be worth trying to find the pnm2ppa home page and see if there's anthing on that about how to change the saturation

I found the saturation setting, and messed with it, it's available in KDE-print. However, I have saturation set to 0, gamma to 1, and that doesn't do anythhing. The only thing that keeps the printer from soaking the paper is to set it in econofast mode, which is fine. But, the print quality is horrible, when I print a picture of a persons face, for example, it comes out completely intelligible, it is greenish, and there is zero contrast. I found the pnm2ppa web site, but it's a sourcforge project and there are only like 70 posts to their mailing list, also www.linuxprinting.org really didn't help, it did help me understand how to get cups going, which was good. Also, any of the gamma correction methods don't seem to apply, the colors that my printer prints, although, soaking the page, match those on the screen perfectly (which seem illogical if the printer doesn't print pictures successfully.) What's killen me is by the time I have this figured out, I won't be able to do any printing cause the color cartridge will be empty and the printer won't let me continue without replacing it, which I don't have $ for. This is so much fun!

Thx for the replies guys!!
Mike.

what version of pnm2ppa are you using? if its not 1.0.4 you might want to upgrade and see if that helps running out of ideas......

I am running 1.04-7

Distro: RH9
System Type: P4 2.8GHz
Printer: HP 820Cxi (Parallel)

I am also running out of ideas :-\

I think I'm out of ideas I'm afraid, I've never used RH so have no idea what print-conf is like. It might be worth doing things the old fashioned way through CUPS alone? or why not get on the RH forum and hassle the RH people, after all you paid for it so they should be able to tell you how to get print-conf to do what you want

sorry I couldn't be more help

no prob. I've given up for a bit, frustration and time limits my abilities right now. I would keep trying teh gamma settings, but I am affraid to use up all of my color ink :-\ The thing with using only cups is, the saturation option isn't available in cups, it's only available in kde-print, which doesn't seem to make a difference anyways. I'm gonna keep on the research and see if I come up with anything, and I will post it here if I do, maybe it will help somebody else.

Thanks for given it a try!
Mike.