This is gimp-print version 4.1.99a2, the second alpha release leading
up to the 4.2 stable release.  This release is not 4.2.

This software includes the Print plug-in for the Gimp, and GhostScript
and CUPS drivers.  The support for printers in GhostScript and CUPS is
identical to the support for these printers in the Print plugin --
they use the identical code base.  Please read src/ghost/README and
src/cups/README for more information on this.

These release notes primarily describe changes visible to the end
user.  Detailed descriptions of changes may be found in the ChangeLog.

The Gimp Print plugin requires the Gimp 1.2.

Gimp-Print 4.1.99a2 contains the following changes over 4.1.99a1:

1) A segmentation violation (crash) in certain modes using Epson and
   Lexmark printers is fixed.

2) In the Gimp plugin, moving the preview image should now work
   properly in all cases.  In recent releases, it did not move
   properly if the scaling was set to pixels per inch (PPI) rather
   than percent.

3) A crash or data corruption problem (depending upon circumstances)
   with the Epson Stylus Color 480 and 580 is fixed.

4) Pure black and white (monochrome) printing now works properly on
   grayscale printers.  Previously it was converted silently to
   grayscale.

5) The stp driver has been qualified against GhostScript 6.51 (the
   newest GNU release).

6) The stp driver (in GhostScript) can now be built against an
   installed libgimpprint.  This is a much less invasive build
   procedure, and results in a smaller GhostScript binary when lined
   dynamically.

7) The Epson Stylus Color 600, 800, 850, and 1520 will now print
   correctly in grayscale and black and white modes.

8) The Epson Stylus Photo 780/785/790, 890/895, and 1280/1290 now
   print much closer to the margins of the page.  It still does not
   print closer than about 3 mm (1/8") from the bottom of the page.

9) The native CUPS driver now supports all options supported by the
   package, including color adjustments, in addition to direct CMYK
   output, which is also new.  Also, the default output type for this
   driver is now Line Art rather than Photograph.  This will yield
   significantly better performance, and is in accord with the rest of
   the package.

10) The fast economy mode (360x120 DPI) has been fixed and should now
   work correctly (i. e. very fast) on printers that support it.

11) The Foomatic data has been updated for the current state of the
   driver.  In addition, there are some improvements in the data
   generation process to make it more general.

12) Some improvements for the Canon BJC-7000.

13) Preliminary support for the Epson Stylus Pro 10000.  This printer
   is definitely *not* tuned!

14) Explicit support for the Epson Stylus Photo 875, 785, and 895
   (which are variants on the 870, 890, and 890 respectively).  No
   driver-level changes are required for these printers, but there has
   been some confusion due to the fact that these printers were not
   listed explicitly.

15) The GIMP plugin has buttons to permit centering horizontally or
   vertically on the page, in addition to the existing button to
   center the image both horizontally and vertically.

16) A number of the controls in the GIMP plugin have been
   reorganized.

17) Holding down the shift key while dragging the mouse in the preview
   window constrains the image to moving horizontally or vertically
   only on the page.

18) Preliminary support for the Epson Stylus C20 and C40 printers,
   including color head alignment (in escputil).  The color head
   alignment is experimental, has not been tested; it may not work,
   and it may potentially damage your printer.  If you wish to
   experiment with this, be careful!

19) A new 'status' sub-command has been added to the escputil
   utility.  This enables you to retrieve status from the printer.

20) A new directory, samples, has been added.  This contains various
   sample images that will be installed in
   /usr/local/share/gimp-print/samples (or as appropriate for your
   system).  You can run "configure --without-samples" if you would
   prefer the sample images not be installed.


Gimp-Print 4.1.99a1 contains the following changes over 4.1.10:

1) Print quality is substantially improved using Fast and Very Fast
   dither algorithms with 6-color printers.

2) Ilford heavy paper has been tuned for Epson printers.

3) The print plugin now correctly saves and restores custom paper
   sizes.

4) The print plugin now defaults to the standard default resolution
   for a given printer, rather than the lowest.

5) The Epson Stylus Color 980 should print more accurately at 2880x720
   resolution.

6) The software will use substantially less memory at high resolutions
   with Epson printers.

7) The "unprint" test program (which creates a ppm file from a printer
   output file) is considerably faster, more robust, and better
   handles variable dot size and 6-color output.

8) The preview window in the plugin uses its space more efficiently,
   allowing for a larger preview in many cases.

9) The Canon driver has been partially fixed.  This has resulted in
   the (temporary) deactivation of 6-color mode on the BJC-8200 and
   related printers.  This will be fixed before 4.2 release.  In
   addition, there have been some other improvements to the Canon
   driver.

10) Initial support for the Canon BJC85.

11) There is now texinfo and HTML documentation available.

12) Initial support for changing ink cartridges on the Epson Stylus
   Color 480/580 with escputil.  In addition to this, there is initial
   support for aligning the color heads on these printers.  These are
   not debugged, and there is no guarantee that either option works.

13) Initial support for the Epson Stylus C20 and C40 printers.


Gimp-Print 4.1.10 contains the following changes over 4.1.8:

1) A critical bug that in some cases causes a segmentation violation
   and/or data corruption is fixed.

2) The package will use about 1/3 as much virtual address space when
   printing very large images.


Gimp-Print 4.1.10 has the following known issues:

1) The Canon driver currently produces incorrect or no output on many
   printers at many resolutions.  This has been the case since roughly
   4.1.5.  We are aware of this issue, and will fix it as soon as
   possible.


Gimp-Print 4.1.9 was abandoned.


Gimp-Print 4.1.8 contains the following changes over 4.1.7:

1) The way to print black and white only images has changed.  In the
   Gimp plugin, the option has been moved from the Image Type group of
   buttons to the Output Type group.  In the Ghostscript driver, it
   has been moved from -dImageType=3 to -dColor=2.  It has been
   removed, at least temporarily, from the CUPS driver.

   It is likely that there will be further changes related to all of
   this before 4.2.

2) A bug introduced in 4.1.7 that caused roll feed printing to fail on
   Epson Stylus printers (such as the Stylus Photo 870) is fixed.  The
   symptoms are typically that the ready light on the printer flashes
   as data is sent, but nothing is printed.

3) Initial support for the Epson Stylus Pro printers: 5000, 5500,
   7000, 7500, 9000, 9500.  It is not yet tested and tuned.  There is
   also currently no support for the paper cutter.

4) Explicit support for various types of roll paper supported by Epson
   printers.  This enables Gimp users to specify the height of the
   page with a fixed width.

5) A bug that in some cases prevented certain options from being
   selected (and may have resulted in crashes) in the GIMP plugin has
   been fixed.

6) Color quality on Epson printers (particularly in the blue range) is
   improved.

7) Tuned Epson Premium Quality Photo Paper for new (870/1270 and
   successors) Epson Stylus Photo printers.  This paper was
   specifically designed for these printers, and may not give optimal
   results with older printers.

8) Partial color tuning for some papers on Epson printers.  In
   particular, matte and plain paper should now produce more accurate
   grays with default settings.

9) Very dark tones and very saturated colors should be improved
   somewhat.  The result may be a bit darker and more contrasty; this
   will need some experimentation.

10) The Gimp plugin should now build on systems not using GNU make.

11) The Gimp plugin now permits the user to define a new printer name.
   This allows the user to define multiple "printers" with different
   settings.  A newly-defined printer will clone the settings in
   effect at the time the new printer is defined.

12) The Gimp plugin now grays out settings that have no effect.
   Specifically, the custom page size boxes are grayed out unless a
   paper size allowing custom sizing is in use, and the color control
   sliders (cyan, magenta, yellow, and saturation) are grayed out when
   grayscale or black and white output is selected.

13) The Gimp plugin now offers an extra option for positioning the
   image in the preview window.  The middle button moves the image in
   increments of the image size.  This can be useful in some cases
   when printing the same image multiple times on one page.

   Furthermore, if you move the image with any mouse button, and while
   the mouse button is held down you press another button, the entire
   move operation is aborted; the image is returned to its previous
   position, and does not respond to the mouse until you release all
   buttons.

14) The Gimp plugin will no longer compile against any version of 1.1.
   It no longer uses the transitional "compatibility" API; rather, it
   uses the 1.2 API.

15) There has been a significant reorganization of the dither code.
   While this has been tested, it is quite possible that there are
   cases where the code has regressed.  Typical symptoms would be no
   output, grossly wrong output (likely with vertical bands or
   streaks), or crashes.  Please report any problems you may find.

16) The package as a whole is compiled with more warnings enabled
   (when gcc is used).  While most of the warnings have been cleaned
   up, some of them cannot easily be removed (they're due to issues
   with external header files or other tools, for example).

Gimp-Print 4.1.8 has the following known issues:

1) The Canon driver currently produces incorrect or no output on many
   printers at many resolutions.  This has been the case since roughly
   4.1.5.  We are aware of this issue, and will fix it as soon as
   possible.


Gimp-Print 4.1.7 contains the following changes over 4.1.6:

1) A bug in the internationalization code that prevented compiling
   on systems not based on GNU libc (for example, Solaris, BSD) is now
   fixed.

2) Significant dither improvements, as follows:

   * The Adaptive Random and Random Floyd-Steinberg dither methods
     have been removed.  There is no evidence that they offer any
     quality enhancement over Adaptive Hybrid and Hybrid
     Floyd-Steinberg.

   * The Ordered dither method is greatly improved.  It now produces
     correct colors on 6 and 7 color and variable drop size printers.
     This method is recommended for continuous tone images, as it is
     faster than Adaptive Hybrid and equal in quality in most cases.

   * The Adaptive Hybrid dither method continues to be recommended for
     images with a significant component of line art and text,
     particularly with very fine, sharp detail.  It is considerably
     smoother in transition regions with 6 and 7 color and variable
     drop size printers, thanks to the improvements in ordered
     dithering.  Tests on an older 6-color printer (Epson Stylus Photo
     EX) suggest that transitions should be completely invisible to
     the unaided eye at reasonably high resolutions.

   * Both Ordered and Adaptive Hybrid appear to use less ink
     (particularly less light ink) on 6 and 7 color printers.

   * Variable drop size Epson printers will exhibit a smoother black
     transition.

3) PCL printers will print pages with a lot of vertical white space
   much more efficiently.

4) The Epson driver offers more choices of ink types, including 3 and
   5 color composite-only inks (black is produced by composition of
   CMY only; no black ink is used).  This may be useful in some cases.

5) Tentative support for vertical zero margin printing has been added
   for Epson printers that support it (notably the Stylus Photo
   780/790, 890, and 1280/1290 printers).  This feature is
   experimental.

6) The Gimp plugin name was incorrect in 4.1.6.

7) The CUPS driver no longer offers the Custom page size as the
   default; it now offers Letter size as default on most printers.

8) The CUPS driver no longer allows printing in color to black and
   white printers (such as laser printers).


Gimp-Print 4.1.6 contains the following changes over 4.1.5:

1) As of this release, the Gimp 1.0 is no longer supported.  You must
   use at least 1.1.21; 1.2 is strongly recommended.  In particular,
   we will not fix bugs in the Gimp plugin unless they can be
   reproduced with the Gimp 1.2.

2) Foomatic is now supported in the 4.1 line.  Please read the README
   for more information.  This requires a relatively recent version of
   Foomatic and is not compatible with the version bundled with
   Gimp-Print 4.0.

3) Significant improvements to the Canon driver for many printers,
   most notably the BJC-8200.  There may be some temporary new
   problems with 4-color printing on some Canon printers; feedback on
   this would be greatly appreciated.

4) Significant improvements to the Lexmark driver.

5) Further improvements to the Stylus Color 980.

6) Support for printing 720x360 DPI on many Epson Stylus printers.
   This mode offers a speed/quality tradeoff intermediate between 360
   and 720 DPI.  It does not work very well on photo-quality paper.

7) Improvements in the Fast dithering option on plain paper.

8) Some improvements to the Epson Stylus Photo 870/1270 and newer
   6-color printers.

9) Internal architectural changes: the library now operates internally
   in CMY rather than RGB space, and offers a raw CMYK input mode.
   The former is not visible outside of the library; the latter has no
   current uses and is untested.  Neither change should have any
   user-visible effects; this is strictly for programmer use.


Gimp-Print 4.1.5 contains the following changes over 4.1.4:

1) The old (Gimp 1.0 and early 1.1-compatible) print plugin UI is
   deprecated.  No further improvements will be made nor bugs fixed in
   this interface.  It will be removed within the next few releases.
   Please upgrade to Gimp 1.2.

2) A "bar-code" effect on certain HP printers (all printing looks like
   something vaguely resembling a bar code) is now fixed.

3) A major print quality problem slipped into many new Epson printers
   in 4.1.4, resulting in pale (and in some cases distorted) output in
   many printing resolutions.  That is fixed.

4) The maximum paper dimensions for many Epson printers (particularly
   older ones) is fixed.  In particular, all printers can now print
   44" long or better, the Stylus Color Pro, Pro XL, 400, and 500 can
   now print 13" wide, and the Stylus Photo EX can print A3-sized
   paper.

5) Clean up the Debian packaging a bit more.  In particular, the
   Debian installation files are included in the release.

6) Bug fixes for the Epson 480/580.

7) Fix printing dimensions for Epon 780/790, 890, and 1280/1290 to
   allow printing to all edges.

8) Significant quality improvements for Epson printers printing to
   plain paper.  The noticeable effects should be more solid blacks
   and colors.  There may be a bit more ink bleed, but it should not
   be wildly excessive.

   Users of 6-color (Stylus Photo) printers may find that using Four
   Color Standard ink gives better results on plain paper.  There will
   be less ink bleed and more consistent grays, at the expense of
   smoothness of pale tones.

9) A significant rewrite of some of the internals, while having no
   effect on the behavior of the package, will ultimately permit a
   much more stable binary interface.  Currently, this is in an
   interim state.

The following problem with 4.1.5 is known to exist: printing in at
least some modes on the Canon BJC-8200 is incorrect.

Gimp-Print 4.1.4 contains the following changes over 4.1.3:

1) Major improvements to the Debian packaging.  It is compliant with
   Standards-Version 3.1.1, and is lintian-clean.  It should build
   from source on potato, woody and sid.  Please see the README for
   more information.

2) First cut at internationalization.  Please see the README for more
   information.

3) The Ghostscript driver should now compile on all systems.

4) Added support for Epson 83 printer (appears to be more or less a
   clone of the 880), Stylus Photo 1280, and Stylus Photo 480/580.
   Note: it is still not possible to change ink cartridge on the
   480/580 with this driver.

5) Initial support for the Compaq IJ750 (aka Lexmark 3200) and Lexmark
   Z31.

6) Initial support for Canon BJC6500, S400, S450, S800, and S4500.

7) Some improvements in quality for the Epson Stylus Color 900/980.

8) Fix for Set Image Scale in GUI when image scaling was previously in
   percent mode.

9) Other minor UI improvements.

10) Print correctly in grayscale mode when the source resolution is
   better than the output resolution.  This bug manifested itself as
   printing an image squashed, usually with the other 2/3 of it black.

11) Some improvements in the Lexmark driver.

12) Fix for print width of Epson Stylus Photo 2000P (it can print to
   13" wide).

13) Tune page length for a number of Epson printers (should eliminate
   problem of printing off the end of the page).

14) New 180x120 and 360x120 DPI modes for Epson printers that cannot
   print 180x180 DPI.  These modes are for very quick and dirty
   economy printing; they will not print solid black even on plain
   paper.

15) New gimpprint-config script (with man page) to ease linking
   against libgimpprint.

16) Significant print quality improvements for many variable dot size
   printers.

17) Cleaned up some black speckling problems.

18) New --disable-libgimpprint option to configure inhibits building
   of libgimpprint.  This can be used to build just the programs (GIMP
   plugin and/or CUPS driver) against an installed copy of
   libgimpprint (if the installed copy is current).


Gimp-Print 4.1.3 contains the following changes over 4.1.2:

1) The source has been completely reorganized.  Please read the README
   file for more information!

2) Improvements to the Lexmark driver.


Gimp-Print 4.1.2 contains the following changes over 4.1.1:

1) We believe this release contains an important bug fix that in some
   cases caused the Epson driver to seg fault upon completion.  This
   resulted in the page being slightly incomplete at the bottom, and
   in addition the page was not ejected.

2) Further improvements in quality (we believe) in Photograph mode.

3) Correct sizing for extremely tiny images in the Print plugin.

4) First cut at roll feed printing for the Epson Stylus Photo
   870/1270.

5) Support for custom paper sizes in the Print plugin.

6) Initial support for the Lexmark 3200, and other improvements in the
   Lexmark driver.

7) Preliminary support for the Epson Stylus Photo 790/890/1290
   (followons to the 870/1270).

8) Fixes to the Debian installation.

9) Preliminary support for the Canon BJC-55 and BJC-85.

10) The Ghostscript Makefile snippets now contain a proper dependency
   on gdevstp-print.h.

11) Many internal changes to prepare for a major code reorganization
   that is coming up shortly.  These changes should be completely
   invisible at user level.


Gimp-Print 4.1.1 contains the following changes over 4.1.0:

1) Further improvements in quality (we believe) in Photograph mode.

2) A problem whereby black letters and other black detail had a hollow
   appearance under some circumstances is fixed.

3) The Canon S450 is now supported.

4) The Epson Stylus Color 640 and 660 should print correctly.

5) escputil now uses readline when available.


Gimp-Print 4.1.0 contains all fixes through the 4.0.4 release.  In
addition, it contains the following user-visible differences over
Gimp-Print 4.0.4:

1) Greatly improved color quality in Photograph mode.  In particular,
   red, green, blue, and violet colors are much more accurate.  This
   is done by means of hue and luminosity adjustments based on input
   hue and saturation.  This only works in Photograph mode; Line Art
   and Solid Colors have not changed.

2) Preliminary support for the Lexmark Z52 inkjet printer.

3) Support for 2880x720 on Epson Stylus printers that support that
   resolution.  The visible quality difference will probably be little
   if any.

4) Fine black detail in color mode is greatly improved.

5) Many new resolutions have been added for Epson Stylus printers,
   mostly supporting better print quality at 180, 360, and 720 DPI.

6) There is preliminary support for 600x600 C-RET mode on the HP 840.

7) The foomatic package is not currently being distributed with
   gimp-print.  The main issue is synchronizing the foomatic database
   with the rapidly evolving state of gimp-print.  We have not
   determined yet whether it will be practical to continue
   distributing foomatic with gimp-print.

8) The PPD's generated as part of the native CUPS driver are
   incompatible with the PPD's in the 4.0 version of the native CUPS
   driver.  This requires reinstalling your printers after running
   'make install' in the cups subdirectory.

9) The defaults with the native CUPS driver are now identical to the
   defaults with the Ghostscript stp driver and the Gimp Print
   plugin.

10) Ordered dithering is now smoother on 6 color printers, at some
   loss of color fidelity.
