RE: [SLUG] PostScript Level 2 vs Level 3

From: Sick Twist (thesicktwist@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Nov 09 2005 - 14:33:33 EST


>From: SOTL <sotl155360@earthlink.net>
>Reply-To: slug@nks.net
>To: slug@nks.net
>Subject: [SLUG] PostScript Level 2 vs Level 3
>Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:32:22 -0500
>
>Hi All
>
>The office printer is doing strange thing and is in the process of deciding
>to
>go far north for the winter to the land of frozen movement.
>
>I was just looking at an HP 1320 and an HP 2400 as a replacement.
>
>Reading the specifications I noted that the 1320 has PostScript level 2 and
>the 2400 has level 3.
>
>As far as printing B&W text documents in Linux is there enough difference
>that
>level 2 will not suffice..
>
>Or, is there a such a significant difference in drivers that one is in in
>preference to the other?
>
>SOTL

The following excerpt is from The History of PostScript
[http://www.prepressure.com/ps/history/history.htm]. Hope this helps!
-Jonathon

1998: PostScript 3
For some obscure reason, Adobe preferred to call the latest update
PostScript 3 instead of PostScript level 3. Compared to level 2, PostScript
3 seems like an insignificant upgrade. In some ways this can be understood
since a lot of applications are still struggling to support level 2
properly.

The main advantages of PostScript 3 are:
    * Support for more than 256 graylevels per colour. Adobe has included
12-bit screening in their PostScript code. This allows for up to 4096
graylevels per colour. In the past, the limitation of 256 graylevels was
sometimes visible as banding, especially in blends.
    * Support for PDF. PostScript 3 RIPs support both PostScript level 2 and
PDF-files.
    * Improved support for in-rip separation: PostScript level 2 RIPs are
already capable of performing a colour separation in the RIP itself, but
some types of images like duotones or hexachrome images could not be handled
in such a workflow. PostScript 3 contains an extra colour space called
DeviceN. If a non-CMYK colour image is encoded in this colour space, a
PostScript 3 RIP is capable of performing a correct colour separation of
that image.
    * Web-ready printing. In these days of internet hype, Adobe couldn't
stay behind and added some internet functionality to PostScript. Funnily
enough none of Adobe's OEM-customers seem to have bothered implementing it.

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