Polaroid BLL Generator - Manual

Introduction 9 Chapter 1: Introduction This is the user manual for the Windows BLL Generator. This product is used to generate platform andapplication independent BLL files that can be used for imaging on remote Lasergraphics film recorders. Windows BLL Generator supports PCs running W indows 95, Wi...

10 Introduction What You Need You need the following hardware and software to run Windows BLL Generator: Required Hardware • Any IBM ® PC compatible machine with a 486 processor or better, Pentium or better recommended. • 16 MB of memory when running W indows 95/98 and 32 MB when running Windows NT....

About this Guide 11 About this Guide This guide explains how to set up and use Windows BLL Generator. This guide assumes that you already know how to use Microsoft W indows. If you are new to W indows,review your Microsoft Windows User’s Guide before proceeding. Screen illustrations in this guide ar...

12 Introduction What’s new Windows BLL Generator replaces Windows BLL Generator 3.15 for Windows 95 and W inRascol 3.15for Windows NT. Major parts of W indows BLL Generator 3.15 were rewritten to increase performance,simplify its use, and take advantage of new features of Windows 95 and W indows NT....

Windows BLL Generator Features 13 Windows BLL Generator Features Windows BLL Generator adds a new dimension to all of your visual communications by letting youproduce professional-quality presentation graphics—right at your desk. Various Output Types Windows BLL Generator takes images produced by an...

14 Introduction True Color Windows BLL Generator supports 24-bit color, which enables you to produce life-like pictures with anyof over 16.7 million colors. 24-bit color refers to the way color information is stored in the image. 24-bitcolor is sometimes called “true-color” because it reproduces the...

Express Setup 15 Chapter 2: Express Setup This section explains how users with previous WinRascol experience can get Windows BLL Generatorup and running quickly. If you are new the Windows BLL Generator or don’t consider yourself aseasoned computer user, please take the time to study the chapters be...

16 Express Setup Installing Windows BLL Generator Windows BLL Generator is freely available on the Lasergraphics web site www.lasergraphics.com. It isalso part of the W inRascol 4 distribution disks for convenience. Note that you may not distribute theWinRascol 4 distribution disks or their contents...

Software Installation 17 Chapter 3: Software Installation This section explains how to install W indows BLL Generator on your computer. The installation isperformed in two steps, the initial installation and running BLLConf.

18 Software Installation Running setup These steps perform the initial installation of the Windows BLL Generator package. • Close all programs currently running. • Insert disk 1 of the Windows BLL Generator installation disk set, skip this step if you’ve downloaded the W indows BLL Generator from th...

Adding a BLL-generator 19 Adding a BLL-Generator Start BLLConf in Start->WinRascol32. Select Add/Manage BLL Generators. This dialog will appear: • Select Add generator.

Printing your first Image 21 Chapter 4: Printing your first image This guided tour will show you how to print from an application. You must have completed the software installation successfully to follow this tour.

22 Printing your first Image Printing from an Application This section will show you how to print an image using Microsoft Wordpad. Wordpad is included in bothWindows 95/98 and Windows NT. But you can use any other Windows application instead. Start Microsoft Wordpad. You will find it in Start->P...

26 Printing your first Image Viewing a BLL You can preview the BLL you just created by using W indows Explorer to locate the file in the directoryyou designated during installation and double clicking on it. The BLL Viewer will show you the rastered file: Note that the printer driver has automatical...

Introduction 27 Chapter 5: Principle of Operation This section explains how the W indows BLL Generator and WinRascol work together to produce filmoutput. Introduction WinRascol consists of two software components: • WinRascol32: The queue and print manager. It queues print jobs and sends them to the...

Introduction 29 Printing from Windows on a PC without Film Recorder Producing slides from Windows applications on a PC without film recorder is a simple four-stepprocess. • Select a BLL-generator Driver as the output device for the Windows application on the PC. • Create the images with the applicat...

Important Concepts 31 Important Concepts This section explains resolution, color fidelity, and the differences between bitmaps and objects. Resolution Resolution can be defined in many ways. Dots per inch (DPI) is a common definition, but an impracticalone for slides and overhead transparencies beca...

32 Principle of Operation When discussing film recorder resolution, the terms 2000-line slide, 4000-line slide and 8000-line slideare commonly used. The number of lines refers to the number of dots across the image. Examples: 2000-Line Slide 4000-Line Slide 8000-Line Slide NOTE: High end Lasergraphi...

Important Concepts 33 Bitmaps and Objects Images can contain bitmaps, objects, or both. Bitmaps consist of dots or pixels. Objects consist ofmathematical descriptions of a shape, such as a polygon or line. Applications that create bitmaps areoften called “paint” programs and those that create object...

34 Principle of Operation Which Applications Create Bitmaps or Objects Most images contain either bitmaps or objects, but some images can contain both. Here are some ofthe more popular applications: Bitmaps • Adobe® Photoshop TM • Aldus® PhotoStyler TM • Microsoft ® Paint • ZSoft Corp. Publisher's P...

Printer Settings 35 Chapter 6: Reference This chapter provides detailed information about how to use Windows BLL Generator. Printer Settings Many Windows BLL Generator components will let you modify a wide variety of imaging options. Thissection explains these options in detail. Later sections will ...

36 Reference Note that the time it takes to image a slide will increase with the resolution setting approximately asfollows: Resolution 2k 4k 8k 16k Relative resolution 0.25 1 4 16 Relative imaging time 0.75 1 4 16 Approximate imaging time 30s 40s 150s 600s Relative resolution is the total number of...

Printer Settings 37 Film Type Film Type specifies the type of film in the camera back connected to the film recorder. Windows BLLGenerator supports two types of film, LFC-based and non-LFC based. LFC based film choices rely onso-called LFC files that reside in the LGDATA\LFC directory. These LFC fil...

Printer Settings 39 Background Color Background Color specifies the background color of the image. This setting is ignored if theapplication explicitly sets the background color in the image. Use Background Color to set the color ofunpainted regions to white for text applications like W ord. Otherwi...

40 Reference Contrast Gamma Contrast Gamma allows for very fine contrast adjustment. The range of valid gamma contrast valuesis 0.14 to 7.0. However, values between 0.25 and 2.0 are usually more practical. By adjusting thegamma contrast value you can change the midtones of the image without affectin...

Using the Windows 95/98 Driver 41 Using the Windows 95/98 driver Printing a document or image to a film recorder from an application is just like printing to any ordinaryprinter. This process will vary slightly from application to application, but generally the Print command inthe application’s File...

44 Reference Color balance and gamma correction • Color Balance controls the brightness of the three color channels. • Gamma Correction controls the gamma correction. It is used to brighten or darken mid tones of an image without changing the very dark and very bright pixels.

Using the Windows 95/98 Driver 45 Miscellaneous options • Compression selects a compression type for the BLL. Medium compression optimizes for speed, while high compression optimizes for file size. Use high compression when you want tosend BLLs to a service provider using removable media or the Inte...

Using the Windows 95/98 Driver 47 Changing the Default Printer Settings in Windows 95/98 The document default printer settings are used automatically when an application initializes the printersettings of a document, usually when a document is created and when the selected printer is changed.By sett...

48 Reference Using the Windows NT driver Printer settings in Windows NT Printing a document or image to a film recorder from an application is just like printing to any ordinaryprinter. This process will vary slightly from application to application, but generally the Print commandin the application...

Using the Windows NT Driver 51 • Selecting Gamma Correction: Select 'Gamma Correction' in the upper window, then choose a gamma value between 0.144 and 7. Default is 0.500. • Selecting Color Balance: Select 'Red', 'Green' or 'Blue' in the upper window, then set a balance value between 25 and 400. De...

52 Reference Changing the Default Printer Settings in Windows NT The default document settings are used automatically when an application initializes the printer settingsof a document, usually when a document is created and when the selected printer is changed. Bysetting the document defaults to the...

Managing BLL Generators 53 Managing BLL-Generators Open the BLL management dialog by selecting Start->WinRascol32->BLLConf and pressingAdd/Manage BLL Generators. The dialog looks like this: This is the dialog: Adding a BLL-Generator • Select Add generator. The following dialog is displayed: • ...

54 Reference • Press OK to create the BLL driver. The BLL driver will now appear in the BLL-generator Administration dialog. Changing Destination Path Select Change Path in the BLL-generator administration dialog. A dialog will appear to allow you tochange the destination path. The destination path ...

Managing BLL Generators 55 Modifying Driver Options Open the Global driver settings dialog by selecting Start->WinRascol32->BLLConf and pressingConfigure Drivers. The dialog looks like this: • Disk space usage sets the amount of free disk space the driver leaves minimally before reporting Disk...

When to use the Uninstaller 57 Chapter 7: Uninstalling When to use the Uninstaller The uninstaller is used to remove all components of the Windows BLL Generator from your computer.You will want to do this when • You do not intend to use W indows BLL Generator on your computer any longer. • The Windo...

58 Uninstalling WinRascol How to use the Uninstaller You can uninstall the Windows BLL Generator package by selecting Uninstall in the WinRascol32program group. Uninstall will do the following: • Remove all Windows BLL Generator printer drivers • Remove all Windows BLL Generator system drivers (NT o...

60 Tips and Tricks This section gives tips and tricks on particular image types and applications. Specific Applications Adobe Type Manager (ATM) Windows BLL Generator is fully compatible with Adobe Type Manager (ATM) fonts, version 1.15 ornewer. These fonts produce smooth text at any size and match ...

Specific Applications 61 CorelDRAW 8 CorelDRAW 8 will generate erroneous output when you choose a value higher than 256 for the numberof fountain steps in the miscellaneous printer options. CorelDRAW 8 will even crash while printinggradient fills if the number is very high, like 2000. Freelance Grap...

62 Tips and Tricks where your_Windows BLL Generator_printer_name is the name of the Windows BLL Generator printer as shown in the Installed Printer List of the Control Panel. For example, if you have an LFR, the linesyou should add are: [LFR] NoPatternOnlySolidFill=0 ROPtype=0 StretchImage=0 If you ...

Specifications 63 Appendix A: Specifications Specifications are subject to change without notice. Supported PCs Any IBM PC compatible with a 486 processor or better and at least16 MB of memory. Note that this represents the absolute minimum.You will need more memory if you intend to use W indows NT ...

Index 71 Index 24-bit color, 14 35mm prints, 13 35mm slides, 13 Adobe Type Manager, 33,60 Application Printing from, 22 applications draw, 33 illustration, 33 paint, 33 Arts & Letters, 34, 60 ATM, 33, 60 auto deletion, 28 Background Color, 39, 50 Bitmap, 33 BLL-generator Add, 53 Adding, 19 Chang...