Banding in gradient fills

[Helge Blischke]

David Williams wrote:
> Hi,
> I've set up a colour laser printer using the manufacturer's PPD file and filter 'rastertosamsungsplc'.
> On the printer test page and on prints from graphics programs such as Inkscape and Open Office Draw. smooth gradients (colour and grey) are reproduced as steps of  different density. The 'normal' resolution is 600dpi and cannot be changed.
> I can't see a way in Cups to change any settings. Do you know of a way I can fix this, please?
> 
> Thanks
> Dave.

You didn't tell what make and model your printer is. If it is
a PostScript level 2 printer (of fed with level 2 PostScript),
banding is normal, as smooth gradients are a level 3 feature
and need to be emulated in levels <3 by banding. To select
the color parameters of the adjacend bands so that banding
is nardly recognizable is not trivial and is heavily dependent
on the printer's internals (hard- and firmware).

Helge

-- 
Helge Blischke
Softwareentwicklung

H.Blischke at acm.org