printing bufferedimage to a printer

Question

i have an application from which i want to print an image. The image is loaded as a BufferedImage object. The problem is, when i print the image (to the postscript or to the pdf file), the quality is really poor.
When i'm using some other tools (basically any picture viewer application which can print the image) the result is significantly better.
I know there can be some problems with the DPI vs resolution but i'm not exactly sure how to compute the correct values for printing.
I tried to google and tried some methods, but nothing seems to work as i expected. Basicaly i just want to print an image (in resolution let's say 3000x2000) to a printer (with DPI for example 600x600).

This is how i create the print job:

PrintRequestAttributeSet printAttributes = new HashPrintRequestAttributeSet();
printAttributes.add(PrintQuality.HIGH);
printAttributes.add(new PrinterResolution(600, 600 PrinterResolution.DPI)); 
printAttributes.add(new Destination(URI.create("file:/tmp/test.ps")));
PageFormat pf = printerJob.defaultPage();
Paper paper = pf.getPaper();
double xMargin = 0.0;
double yMargin = 0.0;
paper.setImageableArea(xMargin, yMargin, paper.getWidth() - 2 * xMargin, paper.getHeight() - 2 * yMargin);
pf.setPaper(paper);

// create new Printable for the specified image
printerJob.setPrintable(PrintableImage.get(image), pf)

if (printerJob.printDialog(printAttributes)) {
    printerJob.print(printAttributes);
}

Where image is BufferedImage and PrintableImage.get returns new instance which implements Printable Then the actual print is doing this way (i let the commented code which i tried but didn't work for me)

@Override
public int print(Graphics graphics, PageFormat pageFormat, int pageIndex) throws PrinterException {
if (image == null)
    throw new PrinterException("no image specified to be printed");

// We have only one page, and 'page' is zero-based
if (pageIndex > 0) {
    return NO_SUCH_PAGE;
}

// tranlate the coordinates (according to the orientations, margins, etc)
Graphics2D printerGraphics = (Graphics2D) graphics;

//g.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION, RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BICUBIC);
//g.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
//g.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_RENDERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_RENDER_QUALITY);

printerGraphics.translate(pageFormat.getImageableX(), pageFormat.getImageableY());

// THIS IS A TEST - javax.printing api uses 72 DPI, but we have 600DPI set for the printer
//AffineTransform at = printerGraphics.getTransform();
//printerGraphics.scale((double)72 / (double)600, (double)72 / (double)600);
//printerGraphics.drawRenderedImage(image, null);
//printerGraphics.setTransform(at);
//if(printerGraphics != null)
    //return PAGE_EXISTS;

double scale = 72.0 / 600.0;

Dimension pictureSize = new Dimension((int)Math.round(image.getWidth() / scale), (int) Math.round(image.getHeight() / scale));


// center the image horizontaly and verticaly on the page
int xMargin = (int) ((pageFormat.getImageableWidth() - image.getWidth()) / 2);
int yMargin = (int) ((pageFormat.getImageableHeight() - image.getHeight()) / 2);
xMargin = yMargin = 0;

System.out.println(String.format("page size [%.2f x %.2f], picture size [%.2f x %.2f], margins [%d x %d]", pageFormat.getImageableWidth(), pageFormat.getImageableHeight(), pictureSize.getWidth(), pictureSize.getHeight(), xMargin, yMargin));

printerGraphics.drawImage(image, xMargin, yMargin, (int)pageFormat.getWidth(), (int)pageFormat.getHeight(), null);

//printerGraphics.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
//printerGraphics.drawImage(image, xMargin, yMargin, pictureSize.width, pictureSize.height, null);
//printerGraphics.drawImage(image, xMargin, yMargin, (int) pageFormat.getImageableWidth(), (int) pageFormat.getImageableHeight(), 0, 0, pictureSize.width, pictureSize.height, null);
//printerGraphics.drawImage(image, 0, 0, (int) pageFormat.getWidth() - xMargin, (int) pageFormat.getHeight() - yMargin, 0, 0, pictureSize.width, pictureSize.height, null);

return PAGE_EXISTS;
}

Does anybody solves the same problem?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Matej

Answer 1

This is how I did it. It works smoothly. Note that this code snippet doesn't center the image.

public int print(Graphics g, PageFormat pageFormat, int pageIndex) throws PrinterException {
                if (pageIndex > 0) {
                    return (NO_SUCH_PAGE);
                } else {
                    double pageHeight = pageFormat.getImageableHeight(), pageWidth = pageFormat.getImageableWidth();

                    Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
                    g2d.translate(pageFormat.getImageableX(), pageFormat.getImageableY());
                    if (pageHeight < image.getHeight() || pageWidth < image.getWidth()) {
                        g2d.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_INTERPOLATION,
                                RenderingHints.VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR);
                        g2d.drawImage(image, 0, 0, (int) pageWidth, (int) pageHeight - textSize, null);
                    } else {
                        g2d.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
                    }
                    g2d.dispose();
                    return (PAGE_EXISTS);
                }
            }

Answer 2

@Viktor Fonic Thank you for this, I was searching a lot to do this! You're solution works perfectly, but has a small error, textSize was not declared, so:

int textSize =  (int) (pageHeight - image.getHeight()*pageWidth/image.getWidth());