The Seperator is a Chooser level print driver that saves printed documents to TIFF files — rather than printing to a device. Files created by the Seperator may be read by other applications that can read TIFF. TIFF files may be saved as black and white, grayscale, 24 bit color, or CMYK color separated. The size, resolution, and color space of Seperator TIFF files is selectable.
Differences between versions 1.01 and 1.02 of the Seperator:
• 1.02 works better with Quark, ie, all pages in the page range of the Print dialog are printed.
• Works better with applications that do tiling (when the printer page size is smaller than the document's page size the app tiles the image across several printer pages, ie, TIFF files).
Chooser
The Seperator must first be selected from The Chooser. When you select it, a "Setup" button will appear in the lower left.
Setup Dialog
From the Setup dialog you may enter the resolution of TIFF images to create. The resolution is stored in the TIFF file. NOTE: the Seperator behaves like a printer of this resolution.
You may also register your copy of the Seperator from the Setup dialog by clicking on the Register button.
Register Dialog
The registration dialog is used to register a copy of the Seperator. A copy that has not been registered prints a repeating string of "The Seperator" across each printed page. A registered copy does not print this string. Contact Mystic River Software (see the About dialog) to register your copy. Version 1.01 of the Seperator may be registered for a fee of forty dollars per copy. Owners of registered copies are notified of future updates.
Page Setup
The Page size settings define the size of the image that you want to create. The Seperator creates a TIFF image of this size. The units are pixels.
NOTE: Often times an application's document size differs from the Page size. The way such documents are printed in these cases varies from application to application. For example, if a document is smaller than the printer page size an application may scale the document to fit the printer page or it may print it at actual size (perhaps centered in the middle of the printed page).
The resolution settings (set in the Setup dialog) along with the page size, as set here, determine the physical size of the image. So if the page width is 576 pixels and the horizontal resolution is 72 dpi, then the physical size of the image is 576pixels/72dpi = 8 inches wide.
The TIFF button brings up the TIFF dialog from which you enter more TIFF options.
The Color button brings up the Color tone scale mapping dialog. It is enabled only when you are saving to a 24 bit RGB or 32 bit CMYK image (as set in the TIFF dialog).
The Color dialog sets a color tranform curve. The curve is applied to output images prior to the image being written out to the TIFF file. The curve is not stored in the TIFF file. The color transform curve is applied regardless of whether an RGB or CMYK image is being saved.
The CMYK button brings up the CMYK dialog, which lets you set parameters that control the separation process. It is enabled only when the CMYK option was selected in the TIFF dialog.
TIFF dialog
From the TIFF dialog you select the type of TIFF image to create. Note, that some buttons in the Page Setup dialog are dimmed based on the TIFF image type you select.
Color Dialog
From the color dialog you may adjust gamma, contrast, and brightness parameters for full color 24 bit images. If "24 bit RGB" is selected in the TIFF dialog then red, green, and blue appear in this dialog. If "32 bit CMYK" is selected in the TIFF dialog then cyan, magenta, yellow and black appear. The resultant color tranfer curve is applied to an image prior to it being written out. The default values do not affect an image.
CMYK dialog
From the CMYK dialog you may adjust parameters that affect how black (K) is applied in relation to CMY and how CMY is adjusted based on how much black is applied.
Black printer is the amount of black that is used to compensate for CMY not being able to produce black. It is expressed as a percentage of the mimum of CMY for a give pixel. Lets take a pixel that has CMY of (30%,40%,50%), for example. If black printer is set to 100% then 100% of the minimum of CMY is 30%. 30% black is used, ie, K=30%. If black printer is set to 50% then 15% black is used (50% of 30%).
Undercolor removal specifies the amount of CMY that is removed based on the amount of black printer being added. For example, if under color removal is 100%, then 100 % of the black printer is subtracted from each of CMY. If under color removal is 75% then 75% * black printer is subtracted from each CMY.
Print dialog
The page range determines which pages of your document are printed. It works just like in other printer drivers.
Before printing is allowed, and the Print button is enabled, an output file must be specified. The Output button brings up the Standard File dialog, from which you must enter the TIFF output file name. The Seperator appends a suffix to the file name to produce a different file name for each page. For example, if you enter "test" as the output file, then the Seperator creates "test page 1", "test page 2", etc…
Clicking on Print starts the Printing process. When the printing is finished, you have a TIFF file.
ERRORS
Here are some common error codes and their meanings.
-8101 Out of memory.
-8102 Incompatible system version (32 bit Quickdraw is required).
-8103 Out of disk space (while spooling to a PICT).
-8400 Out of memory.
-8501 Out of memory.
-8507 Out of disk space (while writing TIFF file).
MISCELLANEOUS
The Seperator spools printed images to PICT files and later converts them to TIFF files. The Seperator normally deletes the PICT files when it is finished. If you hold down the option key when clicking on the Print dialogs OK button, then the PICT files will not be deleted.
The file type and creator for the created TIFF files may be set by adding the resources 'OFC ' and 'OFT ' with ID = 128. This is useful if you would like to launch a particular application by double clicking on the icon of a Seperator TIFF file. Resedit can be used to add these resources. Set 'OFC ' to the creator string of the application and 'OFT ' to TIFF. In the absence of these resources type and creator are set to that of an Adobe Photoshop TIFF file.
