Thanks, all you guys. My friend seems to making some progress, and
now says:

After working so hard to get the Alps working, I've been working on
the project for which it was intended. I kept running test prints
until I could accurately judge the difference between what I saw on
the monitor and what I got from the printer. Fortunately, the color
was quite close. But the density from the printer was much lighter
than the monitor, which also affected color saturation. I made 20 4x6
of the game for an album and a large one for the frame with his
jersey. I made a deep frame and sandwiched the jersey between glass
with the big team photo across the bottom of the jersey. Held it
together with a bunch of glaziers points. Came out rather nice.

Proper cropping is the most critical element in a photo. I wasn't
using more than 20 percent of some of the photos.Resolution suffered
greatly from such heavy cropping. I won't understand why until I print
some I took under better control. 600 dpi isn't too bad when you're
utilizing the entire image. But 20 percent of the image yields 120
dpi.

The Alps still gives the best color of anything I've seen. It will
when I know what I'm doing. I've got to find out more about
dithering. A manual shows an example where dithering makes a
noticeable improvement in acuity. But dithering --- which prints
different colors close together to produce a different visual hue ---
is not something you need for 256 colors, which the Alps is supposed
to provide.

Maybe there's an Alps group out there somewhere dedicated to keeping
these abandoned marvels going and sharing information.

How about it? Anyone know of one?

Gecko