Unsharp, blurred or jagged Edges

Unsharp, blurred or jagged Edges

Problem/Question
Your print outs have blurry and/or jagged edges?
This can have several reasons. Some are related to the RIP, some to the printer hardware or media.

1. Native resolution of the printer is too low
Especially small fonts and line drawings need a high printer resolution to avoid the human eyes to see the raster dots. (Side note: For analog film and printing plate production a resolution of 1200 dpi up to 3600 dpi is the normal case.) 300 dpi and less will inevitably lead to such visible steps.
Since this cause is hardware related there is no possibility to take countermeasures in the RIP.

2. X-Resolution =/= Y-Resolution
Since all pixel images (also rip files) are bounded to the pixel matrix it is not possible to have different resolutions for X and Y axis in a file. For printer settings with different resolutions, the RIP just adds whole pixel lines to the image. The rastered file then looks distorted because there are more pixels in one direction. Let's take a circle with a printer resolution of 300 x 600 dpi. The RIP distorts the circle to an oval because the amount of pixels in the Y axis is double compared to the X axis. The printer then pushes them together - this can possibly lead to visible jagged print outs.
There is no chance to influence a raster algorithm. The algorithm does, what it is supposed to and for the whole image at once. Rounding up or down to 1 pixel unit is fully automated. If the calculation sets a pixel or not for shaping a certain segment of a e.g. circle, is out of users hands.

3. PDF/PS interpreter
Vector elements and fonts contained in PDF or PS files need to be rasterized to generate a print file. Since PDF/PS interpreters have their own algorithms, the rastered files can look different using different interpreters.
Making attempts by switching between default and legacy interpreter might bring better results.

4. Antialiasing
For making fonts smooth an antialiasing algorithm softens the edges of the letters by default. This setting can be changed in Application Defaults -> PostScript/PDF Parameters. 
Activating/deactivation Antialiasing can bring better results.

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