Canon Pro 1000 Centre prints - problem

[Nick Walker]

I appreciate that printers have offsets. To obtain equal margins to produce a white border on my Epson 3800 and 3880 required A4 paper margin settings of left 0.34 cm, right 0.34, top 0.34. bottom 0.32 - cell size 20.00cm x 28.70. I now have a Canon Pro -1000 and find similar problems.

After setting up the Canon Pro -1000 with the same settings as above, except starting with all margins set to the same size, the white border was uneven. It has taken me 12 sheets of paper to obtain a white border of equal proportions using margin settings of 0.36 0.36 0.46 0.32. I attach a screen grab to show the settings - print driver format set to Canon Pro-1000 and A4 paper (not borderless).

Using the unequal margin settings shown on the attached screen grab the image looks 'very slightly' de-centred in the preview (top slightly deeper as 0.46), however the image is centred on the print - Bingo!

I would have thought by setting the margins equally and using A4 borderless the print would be dead centre, as the preview shows, but this is not the case and produces the worst result with margins no where near similar sizes (very thin top and right border, left and bottom wider, close to each other, but not equal).

Searching the web I notice that there are lots of questions about centring problems, often the bottom margin being the culprit.
In this day and age of advanced ink droplets and infinite software controls does it really have to be this annoying to centre a print or am I after all these years making an elementary mistake and should not have to experiment and input margin offsets?

UPDATE - Best margin settings altered to 0.36 0.36 0.50 0.32 after examining results with 8x loupe.

[keithcooper]

Not of direct help, since I don't ever use Lightroom, but in my recent testing of the PRO-1000 I didn't see any image centring issues, once I allowed for the default Canon margins (see screen shot).

However - all my printing (Mac OS X 10.10/11) was from directly from Photoshop or Photoshop/PSP

For precise centring I set the print to centred and then added 1mm to the values shown as an offset to allow for the 3/5mm top/bottom margins (or sides as appropriate) - most times however, with larger sheets and over an inch border, the offset in margins just wasn't worth the effort.

[Mark D Segal]

I see the problem you are experiencing, but unfortunately I cannot retest for this because I returned the loaner from Canon quite some time ago. Unlike Keith, I did do most of my testing from Lightroom (except for printing targets) and I did not experience any issues with uneven margins, so not clear it is a generic problem. The only thing I can think of is some miscommunication between the printer driver and Lightroom to be causing this. As a first step, best to verify whether you are completely up to date on the latest versions of the printer driver and firmware and Lightroom. If you are not, update as indicated and try again. If you continue to have the same problem, or if you are experiencing this issue with the latest of all three installed, I recommend calling Canon tech support for further assistance. As well, perhaps others reading this thread may have had this issue and resolved it - they should chime in.

[Pete Berry]

Far and away the simplest way to get even margins is not to "set" them, but simply to size your image in relationship to paper size, uncheck anything that scales or zooms your image size in any way, and check "center print". For instance, for 1/2" margins on 8.5x11"paper, simply crop and size your image to 7.5x10". Every printer I've ever used (currently a Canon iPF5100) does this precisely with "center" checked.

While the margin/border setting utility is essential for off-setting an image, it's a walk through the minefield of minimum printable margins for getting a centered print.

Pete

[Nick Walker]

I have just tried Canon's Print Studio software with identical borders and this can't get the margins equal either  3mm x 3.5mm x 4mm x 2 mm.

The only solution for me, to save having to resize the image to match the print size (something which I used to do), is to test and set the margins manually. If I set Lightroom's margins for the Canon Pro-1000 to 0.36, 0.36, 0.50 and 0.32 with cell sizes 28.7 x 20.00 (A4 ratio - less 1cm) the borders are identical 5mm all around - examining result with ruler and 8x loupe.

With Lightroom, and especially Canon's printer software, I can't understand in this day and age why this has to be such a pain. It's not as if you can blame the accuracy of a printer's paper transportation systems (other then the odd skew) as the print margins print identically from print to print.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

With Lightroom, and especially Canon's printer software, I can't understand in this day and age why this has to be such a pain. It's not as if you can blame the accuracy of a printer's paper transportation systems (other then the odd skew) as the print margins print identically from print to print.

I agree, it is not the accuracy of the printer, but poor design of the printer driver software interface. Programs like Qimage Ultimate communicate with the printer driver (to determine the printable area and its location on the physical medium) and can easily produce centered prints (either automatically or with a simple fine-tune operation based on numbers), so it is not that difficult. Here is a video that explains all details, for the centered on page, and for the equal bordersize and centered, cases.

Cheers,
Bart

[Nick Walker]

Far and away the simplest way to get even margins is not to "set" them, but simply to size your image in relationship to paper size, uncheck anything that scales or zooms your image size in any way, and check "center print". For instance, for 1/2" margins on 8.5x11"paper, simply crop and size your image to 7.5x10". Every printer I've ever used (currently a Canon iPF5100) does this precisely with "center" checked.

While the margin/border setting utility is essential for off-setting an image, it's a walk through the minefield of minimum printable margins for getting a centered print.

Pete

Pete,

Your suggestion gets close straight off the bat but has never been perfect on any of my printers with narrow borders. I have just resized to 287mm x 200mm to fit on A4 paper - Lightroom, no zoom to fit, etc. The top border is 1mm out - top 4mm, left, right and bottom all 5mm - it looks out to the naked eye. With larger prints and generous borders of equal proportions, this small discrepancy probably wouldn't be noticed.

[Pete Berry]

Pete,

Your suggestion gets close straight off the bat but has never been perfect on any of my printers with narrow borders. I have just resized to 287mm x 200mm to fit on A4 paper - Lightroom, no zoom to fit, etc. The top border is 1mm out - top 4mm, left, right and bottom all 5mm - it looks out to the naked eye. With larger prints and generous borders of equal proportions, this small discrepancy probably wouldn't be noticed.

That's certainly noticeable with the small margins, Nick. Mine are generally on larger papers with 12-25mm margins where 1mm difference would be hard to spot.

I'm betting that your A4 paper is not exactly 210x297mm, and that it's a mm short on the short margin side - has to be that or the image is 1mm longer than spec'd in that dimension with all other margins being 5mm. Just measured my Super-B Ilford GFS paper (exactly 13x19" by specs), and it's 1/32" short on the short side and about the same longer on the long side.

Pete

[Mark D Segal]

I agree, it is not the accuracy of the printer, but poor design of the printer driver software interface. Programs like Qimage Ultimate communicate with the printer driver (to determine the printable area and its location on the physical medium) and can easily produce centered prints (either automatically or with a simple fine-tune operation based on numbers), so it is not that difficult. Here is a video that explains all details, for the centered on page, and for the equal bordersize and centered, cases.

Cheers,
Bart

As I said above, I tested that printer using its driver, with Lightroom, and the prints came out as well centered as they do on any other printer I've used. There is some non-generic issue at play here.

Nick: did you check all relevant software and firmware versions? Have you discussed this with Canon tech support and received any suggestions from them?

[Nick Walker]

As I said above, I tested that printer using its driver, with Lightroom, and the prints came out as well centered as they do on any other printer I've used. There is some non-generic issue at play here.

Nick: did you check all relevant software and firmware versions? Have you discussed this with Canon tech support and received any suggestions from them?

Hi Mark,

Drivers and software are latest versions, downloaded from Canon's website and double checked with Canon tech help - unfortunately Canon haven't offered any solutions for this problem.

[Mark D Segal]

Sorry to hear that. I must say, though, even on other printers often one does not get these borders correct to one millimeter because there is a minimum margin the printer needs unless doing borderless printing; so some counter-balancing offset for the minimum default is required. However, normally between one's printing application and the driver this gets "internalized" in the calculations. If I still had one of those printers here I would do some poking around but I don't so cannot. But I can do a run-through as far as the print set-up in LR with the Canon Driver as shown in the attached screen grab (image copyright). I'm just showing here what I would be dealing with for getting correct margins, and you can see whether what you are doing coheres with this routine. This is for a 13*19 inch sheet, filled with a photo that does not have the same aspect ratio - so the top/bottom margin must differ from the left/right margin, but within each margin set the dimensions on both sides are visually identical. Note that in "Page Set-Up" which I've put in the upper left corner, the dialog has already determined a slightly different paper size based on the printer's requirements. The only other two controls within LR in the Print Menu are the cell size and the margins. With "single image" and "1 cell" selected at the top of the print menu, LR fills the page with the whole photo (no cropping) to the extent determined by the relationship between the paper size, the margin size (which you determine) and the cell size, which latter LR determines based on the information for paper and margin sizes. In principle, if printing from LR, these settings should be determinative. No need to futz with the driver, except in the case of Canon to make sure the media type and media size choices on the printer LCD are consistent with your LR selections. (In the Epson driver, the on-computer driver settings over-ride the LCD by default.) This is as far as I can take it; but I should close by re-iterating I have had no issues centering prints with the Canon Pro-1000 doing all this when I was testing it for my review, so I don't think there is a generic problem with the Canon driver.

[Nick Walker]

Sorry to hear that. I must say, though, even on other printers often one does not get these borders correct to one millimeter because there is a minimum margin the printer needs unless doing borderless printing; so some counter-balancing offset for the minimum default is required. However, normally between one's printing application and the driver this gets "internalized" in the calculations. If I still had one of those printers here I would do some poking around but I don't so cannot. But I can do a run-through as far as the print set-up in LR with the Canon Driver as shown in the attached screen grab (image copyright). I'm just showing here what I would be dealing with for getting correct margins, and you can see whether what you are doing coheres with this routine. This is for a 13*19 inch sheet, filled with a photo that does not have the same aspect ratio - so the top/bottom margin must differ from the left/right margin, but within each margin set the dimensions on both sides are visually identical. Note that in "Page Set-Up" which I've put in the upper left corner, the dialog has already determined a slightly different paper size based on the printer's requirements. The only other two controls within LR in the Print Menu are the cell size and the margins. With "single image" and "1 cell" selected at the top of the print menu, LR fills the page with the whole photo (no cropping) to the extent determined by the relationship between the paper size, the margin size (which you determine) and the cell size, which latter LR determines based on the information for paper and margin sizes. In principle, if printing from LR, these settings should be determinative. No need to futz with the driver, except in the case of Canon to make sure the media type and media size choices on the printer LCD are consistent with your LR selections. (In the Epson driver, the on-computer driver settings over-ride the LCD by default.) This is as far as I can take it; but I should close by re-iterating I have had no issues centering prints with the Canon Pro-1000 doing all this when I was testing it for my review, so I don't think there is a generic problem with the Canon driver.

Mark,

Thanks,

I will go over my settings again tomorrow, thanks for taking the time to post your detailed reply.

[Mark D Segal]

You are welcome. Do keep us informed. It could be useful to any others who experience similar issues.

[Nick Walker]

You are welcome. Do keep us informed. It could be useful to any others who experience similar issues.

Hi Mark,

With Canon UK’s excellent tech help (higher level than original help) I have a solution to centre an image with even margins using the Print Studio Pro (PSP) plugin.

Make sure the image is at least slightly larger than the paper size, images which are smaller can apparently cause problems in PSP with narrow even margins - I didn’t go into why as I covered several other aspects relating to this printer with the Canon chap whilst waiting for test prints to appear from his advice.

PSP Lightroom plugin to centre an A4 print with a 5mm margin all sides.

1. Activate Layout panel and choose default option Bordered (x1) as starting point - fit to paper size ticked

2. Activate crop tool - separate preview window appears, select all of the image - don’t miss any of the image area (unless you want to crop in). Apply crop

3. Layout panel - input margin sizes, in this case 5mm margins - see attached screen grab

4. Make sure the ‘Align with Page Margins’ top and left position sliders are set too the same margin sizes of 5mm - (resulting image size less 5mm margin is correct 200mm x 280)

5. Alignment leave set to none

6. If you accidentally reposition the red bounding box on the image preview click on alignment > centre to keep image centred with same layout settings.

Using this routine the image area prints precisely to 280mm x 200mm, bottom, right and left borders are exactly 5mm and the top 4.5mm. This is close enough right off the bat compared to Lightroom which has been consistently 2mm -3mm out with my Epson’s and new Canon Pro 1000. I have found the only way in Lightroom is to produce test prints, measure with a ruler, ending up with a miss-match of margin sizes to arrive at accurate print margins.

It seems that registering all settings as a preset in PSP wont stick - if PSP is closed down and reopened within Lightroom you have to start all over gain with PSP’s crop tool and re-input the required values. I need to carry out more testing re this.

PS - please note PSP's image properties shows my image at 240 PPI instead of its native 300 PPI - this doesn't happen using PSP in Photoshop, it correctly displays 300 PPI! Canon technician thinks this might be to do with the way Lightroom handles PPI resolution settings within the print module. I tried unticking the print res option in Lightroom's print module and noted after re- launching PSP the image properties this time displayed 300 PPI, however, I cannot replicate this.

I also need to see if PSP picks up other Lightroom settings, especially the easy to use output sharpening settings for paper type. - more wasted paper and inks!

[Mark D Segal]

Good going Nick and thanks for contributing this detailed tutorial. I have no doubt others printing from PSP will find it very helpful.

[Nick Walker]

Good going Nick and thanks for contributing this detailed tutorial. I have no doubt others printing from PSP will find it very helpful.

HI Mark,

I have sent you a PM re Silverfast that might be of interest to you.

[Mark D Segal]

HI Mark,

I have sent you a PM re Silverfast that might be of interest to you.

Hi Nick - yes thanks - got it and responded.

Cheers,

Mark

[Pete Berry]

Pete,

Your suggestion gets close straight off the bat but has never been perfect on any of my printers with narrow borders. I have just resized to 287mm x 200mm to fit on A4 paper - Lightroom, no zoom to fit, etc. The top border is 1mm out - top 4mm, left, right and bottom all 5mm - it looks out to the naked eye. With larger prints and generous borders of equal proportions, this small discrepancy probably wouldn't be noticed.

Nick, as cropping/sizing the image to achieve equal 5mm borders for the paper size and checking "center" was accurate on three of the four borders, and only 1mm short on the other, the only explanations for the 1mm shortage are, (1) the paper is 1mm shorter in that dimension than spec'd, or (2) the image is 1mm wider in that dimension.

Have you accurately measured both the paper and the image to see where that 1mm was lost?

Pete

[Nick Walker]

Nick, as cropping/sizing the image to achieve equal 5mm borders for the paper size and checking "center" was accurate on three of the four borders, and only 1mm short on the other, the only explanations for the 1mm shortage are, (1) the paper is 1mm shorter in that dimension than spec'd, or (2) the image is 1mm wider in that dimension.

Have you accurately measured both the paper and the image to see where that 1mm was lost?

Pete

Hi Pete,

I measured the Ilford gloss fibre silk sheets (examining with 8x loupe) they are precisely 297mm x 210mm.

I have just printed my first A3+ on my new printer and input 15mm all margins as a starting point and to my surprise the borders all measure exactly 15mm on the print!

For me, the problem appears to be with A4 and small borders - the only way I can get even 5mm borders on A4 in Lightroom is to input 0.36, 0.36 (left and right sides), 0.50 (top) and 0.34 (bottom). The image area on the print measures as shown in Lightroom's cell size exactly 287mm x 200mm

[Pete Berry]

Hi Pete,

I measured the Ilford gloss fibre silk sheets (examining with 8x loupe) they are precisely 297mm x 210mm.

I have just printed my first A3+ on my new printer and input 15mm all margins as a starting point and to my surprise the borders all measure exactly 15mm on the print!

For me, the problem appears to be with A4 and small borders - the only way I can get even 5mm borders on A4 in Lightroom is to input 0.36, 0.36 (left and right sides), 0.50 (top) and 0.34 (bottom). The image area on the print measures as shown in Lightroom's cell size exactly 287mm x 200mm

It's great that the printer gets A3+ spot-on with larger borders!

To continue flogging this A4 w/ small borders horse, if the paper measured exactly per specs, and only one margin was "out" - 1mm short - then the actual printed image had to be 1mm greater in that dimension. Measuring the image itself would be instructive in finding why the "simple" method I described wasn't exact on centering, requiring the "hit-and-miss" solution above you eventually found.

Pete

Pete