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- Changes and addtions to the new CD edition
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| The rewritten and updated manual is now included on the CD. A
specially developed program for display and printing the manual
is also included.
The CD features version 2.20 of the Studio printing program. It
also includes additional CMS profiles for various printers. The
installation program has been updated to cater for new printers
from Epson, HP and Canon.
BONUS ITEM The CD includes the PageStream 3.x Universal Graphic import filter.
This filter will enable you to import many graphic formats directly
into PageStream 3.x.
BONUS ITEM Includes some extremely high resolution images (2048 x 3072 pixels)
for test prints.
BONUS ITEM Includes additional drivers from printer manufacturers like Star
and Panasonic.
BONUS ITEM The PageStream 2.x printer drivers (from Studio V1) are now included
on the Studio 2.20 CD. |
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| Studio II comes with Workbench printer drivers that support all
the popular modern printers made by manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard,
Epson, Canon, Star, Citizen, Panasonic and more.
Probably the three most popular makes of printer used by Amiga
owners are Hewlett-Packard DeskJet, Epson Stylus and Canon Bubblejet.
Studio works perfectly with all models of these brands, plus with
any printer that emulates these brands (check your printer manual).
If the model is brand spanking new, then Studio may only partly
support that new model until specific support is built in (usually
just a matter of a few weeks).
The special Studio drivers are 100% Workbench compatible, guaranteed
to work reliably with all Amiga applications that print in the
normal Amiga way. Unlike some other third-party Amiga printing
systems, the Studio II drivers are not hacks that replace the
standard Amiga printing system and consequently crash intermittently,
instead the Studio II drivers use OS-legal features to augment
and enhance the standard system. |
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| The Studio II printing system is more than just a printer driver,
it also provides enhanced preferences programs, set-up programs,
a high quality picture printing program and colour management
system (all described below). Installing the complete and correct
system on to your hard disk is merely a matter of running a single
installation program and answering a few simple questions about
your printer. The installation program will then install the correct
files and programs for your printer. (Installation on to floppy
disk is also possible, although we would recommend two floppy
drives to do this.)
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| Each of the Studio II drivers comes with its own preferences program.
This preferences program does not replace the standard Workbench
Printer and PrinterGfx preferences programs, instead it provides
extra control over those features of modern printers that the
standard preferences programs do not cater for. In particular
the Studio II preferences programs enable you to select from a
wide range of enhanced dither patterns, plus they provide you
with extremely fine control over colour adjustment. The installation
program will set-up the driver and preferences program to good
default settings for your printer, but because all ribbons, inks
and papers are different, the enhanced Studio II preferences programs
enable you to tweak the settings until your particular combination
of media produces perfect printouts every time.
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| Some printers do not have control panels on them and need to be
set-up by software programs. If your printer has no control panel
then you will not be able to adjust its internal settings without
customised software. Studio II comes with customised set-up programs
for the Epson Stylus Range, the Canon BJC range, the Panasonic
KXP range, and the LaserJet 4/5/6 range.
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- Enhanced photorealistic picture-printing
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Photorealism
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For many people the main reason for buying one of the modern crop
of high quality colour printers is so that they can print out
photorealistic pictures. Unfortunately, the Amiga's standard printing
system is not up to the task. There are two main reasons for this:
To start with the Amiga's standard printing system can print a
maximum of only 4,096 colours. While that may sound like a lot
of colours, it is extremely poor compared to the millions of colours
that most modern colour printers can reproduce. Then there's the
Amiga's woefully inadequate colour correction facilities which
mean that it is literally impossible to get your printer to print
the correct colours. For example, all inkjet printers print differently
on to different types of paper, but the standard Amiga printing
system doesn't take this into account and doesn't provide you
with any way of adjusting the amount of ink sprayed on to the
paper. Studio II provides you with the solution to both problems.
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Sophisticated
software
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Studio II comes with a high quality picture printing program that
enables you to reproduce pictures at the best quality your printer
can manage. The Studio II picture printing program prints in 24-bit
colour, which means it can send 16.7 million different colours
to your printer. At the same time, Studio II's unique Colour Management
System means that those colour are reproduced as accurate as possible.
The Studio II picture printing program supports many popular graphics
formats, including IFF-ILBM, IFF24, IFF-DEEP, JPEG, GIF, Targa,
Workbench DataTypes and more. Pictures are printed directly from
disk, which means you don't need megabucks of memory to print
high quality pictures; even the largest picture can be printed
with a little as 1MB of free memory. The Studio II picture printing
program even supports a number of image processing features like
blur, sharpness, mirror, automatic contrast enhancement, and much
more.
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Professional
colour
management
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The Studio II picture printing program features a professional
colour management system, which means the colours in your picture
are reproduced as accurately as your printer is able to reproduce
them. Studio II comes with colour "profiles" (automatic colour
correction databases) for a wide range of printers, including
the Epson Stylus II series, all Canon BJ and BJC printers, all
Hewlett-Packard DeskJets, and most Hewlett-Packard LaserJets.
The type of paper you use, the resolution at which you print and
the dither pattern you select all have an effect of the quality
of the colour in the final printout. Studio II is the only Amiga
software that recognises this and provides you not only with profiles
to cater for this but also the means to adjust printer profiles
or create your own.
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Flexible
output
modules
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The Studio II picture printing program supports "plug-in" output
modules that enable you to direct the output to any Workbench
printer driver (including the enhanced ones supplied with Studio
II), an IFF graphic file, or a specific printer. Specific printer
output modules are provided for the Epson Stylus and Stylus II
range (and compatibles), the Canon BJ and BJC range (and compatibles),
the Hewlett-Packard DeskJet range (and compatibles), and the Fargo
Primera dye-sub printer. Each module has its own settings and
preferences, making switching between modules dead easy.
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Studio II
enhances
other
programs
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The Studio II picture printing program has a facility that enables
any Amiga application to choose to print via the high quality,
colour managed, 24-bit Studio system rather than via the lower
quality standard Amiga printing system. A number of popular programs
have taken advantage of this facility including PageStream, ImageFX,
Photogenics and Personal Paint. |
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| Studio II comes with a 200-page manual that describes all the
features of all the supplied programs, plus it features many hints
and tips on how to get the very best printouts. No other Amiga
printing software provides such comprehensive documentation. You
don't need to read all the manual to be able to use the software,
but if you do read all the manual you'll know how to get better
results than everybody else! |
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