11 color-tone evaluations for designing printouts (I)

First, performance testing: color laser printer

In order to make our test results more objective and comprehensive reflect the user's experience in actual use, so that our test results for the user's procurement more valuable reference, "PC" laboratory carefully designed test items and tests method. Our investigation projects mainly include two test suites for commercial applications and high-end graphics and image applications. We selected a variety of typical office applications including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Acrobat Reader, and Adobe Photoshop CS, as well as documents in corresponding formats to participate in this performance evaluation. The purpose is to better help readers save valuable time and unnecessary costs and choose more suitable products.

In order to complete the test work, we set up a new test platform: using Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz processor, 512MB DDR400 memory, Intel motherboard with 875 chipset and built-in USB2.0 interface, and 7200rpm 120GB SATA hard disk. The test platform uses Windows XP Chinese Professional Edition + SP2 operating system, installed Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop CS, CorelDraw 11 and other application software. In addition, in order to be able to get closer to the daily business situations of commercial users, we use ordinary 80 g A4 copy paper as the print media throughout the testing process.

In order to ensure the accuracy of the test results, we will restart the system before running each test and ensure that the printer under test is not in the energy-saving or hibernation state, and all timed test contents are repeated twice if the error of the two results exceeds. At 5%, we will re-test until the error is less than 5%. In addition, we also use Ghost software to restore the original system (without any print driver information installed) before testing each product to avoid interference between different drive information. In order to compare the printing effect of each product, we refer to the ISO standard to establish a uniform subjective observation environment using a high color rendering standard light source. The evaluation engineer analyzes the printing results from several aspects such as resolution, color characteristics, and dynamic range.

Second, the print speed test method introduced

Print speed is undoubtedly a very important measurement factor for a printer. It not only directly influences the execution efficiency in practical applications, but also reflects the performance of a printer's engine, memory, and processor. This is an indicator that we can quantify accurately. The focus of the test on this topic is also here. In addition, the home page output time is also one of the indicators that cannot be ignored.

In most application environments, the job with the highest print frequency is usually only one or two pages. From the test results, the first page output time of most test items usually accounts for a large proportion of the total print time. This shows that the first page output time not only directly affects the execution efficiency of the entire print job, but also affects the user's actual experience in use. We carefully selected 13 samples in 7 data formats to test the speed of the printer. These samples basically cover the range of documents used in daily work and are representative.

PrinterBench: This is a software developed by the "Personal Computer" Lab to test the speed of printers. We mainly use it to test the following two aspects: First page output time, print a very simple file, and make the file into the printer's spool file EMF in advance, thus eliminating the explanation time of the program. This test is mainly used to observe the printer. The engine's startup speed; traffic testing, printing 12 pages of almost blank files. During the test, the software prints 4 dots (different shades of gray) at the output paper's header. In this case, the printer engine is nearly idle, so the recorded results are closer to the fastest output that each product can achieve. speed. From the test results, we can see that, with the exception of individual products, the output speed of most of the tested products is basically the same as their nominal values.

Microsoft Word 2003: Generally speaking, this is the most frequently used application software for users. We will print 42 pages of color graphics files, 30 pages of color text files with special formats, and 30 pages of various special fonts. Black and white document. In order to examine the output speed of office texts and the processing ability of continuous jobs, this kind of operation is more common for users, and the home page output time of the machine will have a certain influence on the final test results.

Microsoft Excel 2003: 3 page charts, including some of the graphics often used in Excel - histograms, bar charts, pie charts, line charts, etc., the file is very complex, mainly to examine the rasterization of the printer for vector graphics And shadow effects processing power.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2003: 12-page PowerPoint file, mainly composed of vector graphics and bitmaps, which poses a severe test for the rasterization capabilities of printers, those with efficient drivers, faster processors, and larger memory Will take an advantage in this item.

Adobe Acrobat Reader: A PDF document for laser photocopying in 8 pages of commercial printing. The document consists of vector graphics, photographs, and colorful text in various fonts. This test examines the communication capabilities between the driver and application of the printer and the ability of the program to rasterize the graphics.