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Author Topic: Long prints on the PRO-2000??  (Read 2604 times)

keithcooper

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Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« on: July 03, 2016, 03:51:02 pm »

Has anyone printed a very long image on a PRO-2000 (or 4000)?

I've tried printing a panoramic shot (~26k pixels wide) at just under 3m and it fails big time at about 2m into the print. Attempting to download to disk before printing caused the printer to once reboot and once to lock up completely (pulling the mains plug needed to restart)

I'm printing from CS6 on OS X 10.10 and 10.11.  Canon satin200 paper.

Once this one is solved I have the file from my 14 metre print to try. That's the one that took a lot of work to print on my iPF8300 (basically I found a ~62k pixel width limit, rather than the 18 metre limit claimed)
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keithcooper

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Firmware Update fixes problem
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2016, 04:01:20 pm »

Got a new firmware version from Canon (not yet available via the autoupdate) and my 3 metre print comes out just fine. I'm told that shipping printers should be fine

Attempting a narrower version of my 14m pano print from 2012 reveals that the limits on very large print size (printed from Photoshop) are the same as I found a few years ago with my 8300  (60k pixels wide prints fine, but the original file at~170k pixels just chokes)

 Time to explore some other solutions... :-)
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keithcooper

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Ink use for 7m print
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2016, 06:48:16 pm »

Just printed the 7m print (using the 2nd roll unit as in uptake mode) and here's the job report if anyone is curious about ink usage

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Richard.Wills

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2016, 07:46:40 am »

Cool. Assuming the inks don't go up too far in cost over the 8x00 machines, that looks around £3.00/sqm - not too bad.

Did you notice any issues with drying, using the take up roll?
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keithcooper

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2016, 08:17:59 am »

Cool. Assuming the inks don't go up too far in cost over the 8x00 machines, that looks around £3.00/sqm - not too bad.

Did you notice any issues with drying, using the take up roll?

None at all - it's a fairly quick drying paper and there is nearly 2 feet of print before it reaches the take up spool. I've plenty of photos I'll include in the review.

I spooled it onto an old 3" core and then left it to unroll a bit to 'breathe' - no ink problems, but I'd still like to leave it unrolled to dry properly. However my home doesn't have too many places a 24 foot print can be played out ;-)
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GrahamBy

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #5 on: July 12, 2016, 10:14:22 am »

Thanks for the info :) Were you using a standard CO mode? I was surprised to see the CO usage was lower than several of the regular inks, whereas from memory it had the highest consumption by some margin on the pro-1000.
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keithcooper

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2016, 10:21:32 am »

Thanks for the info :) Were you using a standard CO mode? I was surprised to see the CO usage was lower than several of the regular inks, whereas from memory it had the highest consumption by some margin on the pro-1000.
Yes, CO Auto.

It's a standard Canon photo paper, but with my own profile.

I was surprised by this too. It would seem to be very image dependent.

There is a custom media setting base media with CO turned off that you can use, but it seems best for showing why CO should generally be left on ;-)

This is the image (the 'full size' version on glossy canvas) with me for scale


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Mark D Segal

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2016, 01:43:09 pm »

Thanks for the info :) Were you using a standard CO mode? I was surprised to see the CO usage was lower than several of the regular inks, whereas from memory it had the highest consumption by some margin on the pro-1000.

If you have the CO on Auto, it coats the page selectively depending on the density of coverage with the other inks. If you have it set to coat the whole page, obviously it will deplete faster than the other inks, none of which cover a whole page.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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GrahamBy

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #8 on: July 13, 2016, 05:39:56 am »

depending on the density of coverage with the other inks.

This makes me realise there is something I don't know, presumably of academic interest, but who knows: to what extent does total ink density vary?

To take a simple case, a BW image with a single black ink would vary ink density almost linearly with optical density. However once you are mixing 3 different shades of grey/black, the situation will be very different: I would guess the total ink density would be reasonably constant down to the tone corresponding to the lightest of the greys, then drop linearly below that. Presumably the situation is similar but more complex when mixing CcMmY, plus a couple of primaries, plus the greys...

Which leads to question B: does the CO taper down with total ink density, by trying to cover only the actual points of ink; or does it attempt to "fill the gaps", in which case CO would be anti-correlated with ink density? Since we know CO Auto does not coat paper-white areas, it seems more likely to me that it correlates with density, ie the first option. If that is the case, I wouldn't expect a dramatic change in the ratio of CO to total other ink. If otoh it anti-correlates, then the ratio would swing dramatically, with low CO use on saturated images (like Keith's pano) and high use where the image is low in saturation but not paper-white.

Hmmm.

Has anyone printed a fine mesh of white on black, to see if auto-CO switches off even for very small pieces of 0%, or does it only switch off on larger burnt out highlights?
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keithcooper

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #9 on: July 13, 2016, 06:20:41 am »

...

Has anyone printed a fine mesh of white on black, to see if auto-CO switches off even for very small pieces of 0%, or does it only switch off on larger burnt out highlights?
My B&W test image has such a pattern on it, however, it is -really- difficult to see when CO turns off - if only it glowed under UV or something ;-) :-)

It will be interesting to see, when they have the version of TBW for the PRO-2000 what curve they apply for the CO channel.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #10 on: July 13, 2016, 07:19:17 am »

This makes me realise there is something I don't know, presumably of academic interest, but who knows: to what extent does total ink density vary?

To take a simple case, a BW image with a single black ink would vary ink density almost linearly with optical density. However once you are mixing 3 different shades of grey/black, the situation will be very different: I would guess the total ink density would be reasonably constant down to the tone corresponding to the lightest of the greys, then drop linearly below that. Presumably the situation is similar but more complex when mixing CcMmY, plus a couple of primaries, plus the greys...

Which leads to question B: does the CO taper down with total ink density, by trying to cover only the actual points of ink; or does it attempt to "fill the gaps", in which case CO would be anti-correlated with ink density? Since we know CO Auto does not coat paper-white areas, it seems more likely to me that it correlates with density, ie the first option. If that is the case, I wouldn't expect a dramatic change in the ratio of CO to total other ink. If otoh it anti-correlates, then the ratio would swing dramatically, with low CO use on saturated images (like Keith's pano) and high use where the image is low in saturation but not paper-white.

Hmmm.

Has anyone printed a fine mesh of white on black, to see if auto-CO switches off even for very small pieces of 0%, or does it only switch off on larger burnt out highlights?

To start with the obvious: total ink density varies according to the tonal range of the photo. If you photograph a snow scene in rural Iceland mid-February the ink density will be very low. If you photograph in the Grand Canyon during the summer ink density will be quite high. The differences can be dramatic as I was able to measure from individual prints of varying character using the Epson 4900. I can't do it for an Epson P800 because Epson has excluded the ability to make such measurements. At the time I had the Canon Pro-1000 for review, the OSX-based utility for reporting ink consumption was not yet available so I could not repeat such tests. Keith, however, did have both the utility and the printer on hand when he did his work, so he may have some additional insight on that, as well more currently for the Pro-2000.

Only Canon's engineers would know the exact behaviour of the CO algorithm in respect to how the laydown of CO varies according to the density of the colours. It is designed to bring out chroma, so if there is no chroma to being out there is no point to covering such areas and that is what their "Auto" setting is designed to achieve. More than that I don't know.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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GrahamBy

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Re: Long prints on the PRO-2000??
« Reply #11 on: July 13, 2016, 12:16:14 pm »

To start with the obvious: total ink density varies according to the tonal range of the photo.
Yes, that is what I said. However if you print a uniform image in a tone that corresponds perfectly to the LGY ink, it will presumably use a very similar amount of ink to a uniform BLK. So the correlation will only apply at the lightest tones.

I guess a simple test would be to look at the CO use in the ink use reporting when printing a uniform 2% grey, vs a uniform 95% grey (in case the driver does something special to achieve very deep blacks). Then I'm not sure I'd be sufficiently interested to do it if I owned one myself :)
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