Epson P7000 Media Type Setting for Epson Hot Press Natural

[DeanChriss]

Maybe I'm missing something, but while the P7000 driver has a selection for Hot Press Natural paper the printer itself only lists Velvet Fine Art, Watercolor Paper, UltraSmooth Fine Art, and two types of canvas. I looked through all of the paper type menus and can't find Hot Press Natural or Hot Press Bright anywhere. The driver/printer insists you select the paper type at the printer and I don't know what the correct selection is. I believe the printer firmware and driver are both up to date.

Edit: I should mention that I'm using the canned Epson profile for Hot Press Natural and picked UltraSmooth Fine Art at the printer since I think it's the most similar. That seems to work alright, but it seems odd that there's no "Hot Press" setting in the printer menu.

Edit 2: In case anyone else runs into this: I tried both the "UltraSmooth Fine Art" and Velvet Fine Art media settings at the printer using the same profiles and driver settings. The Velvet Fine Art setting is best, but not by much. With the VFA setting the deepest shadows have slightly more detail.

[datro]

Dean,

When you print with the Epson driver, your Media Type (and all of its paper settings) in the driver overrides whatever you have set in the printer itself, i.e. they are sent to the printer as part of initiating the print job. The only exception to this is the ink type (PK or MK) which must match between the two (unless you have configured "Auto Ink Switch" in the printer in which case the printer will automatically switch the black ink type if needed when the print job is initiated).

So in practice the approach is to select a paper type on the printer which is "close" to the type of paper you are loading.  That's all you need to do.  For example, if I'm loading up Hot Press Bright, I typically select Velvet Fine Art.  In fact, you really don't even have to select anything at the printer.  I often just load the paper and don't bother selecting the paper type at the printer (in other words I don't complete the menu sequence at the printer console).  When you print, your Media Type setting in the driver will send all the appropriate paper configuration settings (Platen Gap, roll tension, thickness, ink density, etc. etc.) to the printer and the printer will start the printing.  Note however, that the printer display will still indicate the paper type which you selected at the printer console (or which was defaulted if you didn't set it) while the printer is printing.  But the printer is actually using all the settings it received from the driver.

Hope this helps.

Dave

[DeanChriss]

Dean,

When you print with the Epson driver, your Media Type (and all of its paper settings) in the driver overrides whatever you have set in the printer itself, i.e. they are sent to the printer as part of initiating the print job. The only exception to this is the ink type (PK or MK) which must match between the two (unless you have configured "Auto Ink Switch" in the printer in which case the printer will automatically switch the black ink type if needed when the print job is initiated).

So in practice the approach is to select a paper type on the printer which is "close" to the type of paper you are loading.  That's all you need to do.  For example, if I'm loading up Hot Press Bright, I typically select Velvet Fine Art.  In fact, you really don't even have to select anything at the printer.  I often just load the paper and don't bother selecting the paper type at the printer (in other words I don't complete the menu sequence at the printer console).  When you print, your Media Type setting in the driver will send all the appropriate paper configuration settings (Platen Gap, roll tension, thickness, ink density, etc. etc.) to the printer and the printer will start the printing.  Note however, that the printer display will still indicate the paper type which you selected at the printer console (or which was defaulted if you didn't set it) while the printer is printing.  But the printer is actually using all the settings it received from the driver.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Thanks, Dave.

My 7900 seemed to work exactly as you describe. In fact I never selected any media type at the printer. I'd just select everything in the driver, send a print job, and off it would go. But, when I got the P7000 I found that the printer will not print until a media type is selected at the printer. Assuming sheet media, it requires that you select either the same media as already selected or change media type, in which case you are offered the list of possible media. If you do not make a selection at the printer the print job will never print. After some amount of time I believe you get a message saying something like "action required at printer". It's because of this that I assumed the selection at the printer must really matter (or else why would they force that selection when they had not done so in the past).

[datro]

Hmmm . . . my P9000 (and my 7900)  behaves as I have described.   Not sure why the P7000 would be different. When I get back to the studio I'll try to investigate further.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[DeanChriss]

Hmmm . . . my P9000 (and my 7900)  behaves as I have described.   Not sure why the P7000 would be different. When I get back to the studio I'll try to investigate further.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

I've investigated this further and here's what I found:

1. If you first send a job to the printer and then load a sheet of paper, the printer prints the job without any media type selection at the printer. That is as you described.

2. If you first load a sheet of paper with no pending print job, the printer asks whether you want to keep the same media setting or change it. If you do not answer and send a job to the printer, the printer will not print it until you select the media type at the printer control panel. That is as I described it, and I'm sure my 7900 did not do this. Since I usually load the paper first I noticed the difference immediately.

In short I guess we were both right. I also think the driver settings are used by the printer regardless of whether you load the paper before or after sending the print job. Now that both of the prints I made (USFA and VFA setting in scenario 2 above) are completely dry I can't tell them apart. Maybe these little changes are made just to keep us on our toes! OTOH, maybe if there's no pending job the printer has no way of "knowing" whether media type information is included in the next job? Regardless, it's a non-issue that I hope didn't take much of your time.

Thanks again.

[datro]

I've investigated this further and here's what I found:

2. If you first load a sheet of paper with no pending print job, the printer asks whether you want to keep the same media setting or change it. If you do not answer and send a job to the printer, the printer will not print it until you select the media type at the printer control panel. That is as I described it, and I'm sure my 7900 did not do this. Since I usually load the paper first I noticed the difference immediately.

Today I checked this again and my P9000 behaves as I described above and prints the job without any need to acknowledge the menu prompt, which is not what you are seeing on your P7000 . Here is my typical procedure:

• Insert sheet to be printed, press the "Down" key on the console to start the loading sequence.
• Printer positions sheet, then prompts "Selected paper type:  Premium Luster Sheet;  * Keep Settings?  *Change settings?"  I do not respond to this prompt on the printer.  (Note:  Premium Luster Sheet was the last paper type I used in an earlier printing session before powering down the printer.  The printer always remembers the previous paper type used.)
• I proceed to setup my print job in Photoshop and then print.  In the test I just completed, I purposely chose a different Media Type (Premium Glossy 250 in this case) than the indicated "default" in the printer.
• The printer accepts the job from Photoshop and starts printing without any further intervention.

Assuming that the P7000 and P9000 are running the same basic code in firmware, I can only conclude that there is some configuration difference between your machine and mine that is causing the different behavior.  Here's a quick summary of my setup:

• P9000 printer connected via ethernet
• Firmware:  LW006GA (latest)
• Printer driver version:  6.70 (latest)
• Windows 10 64-bit

I've tested this with both the Epson driver and QTR and get the same behavior.  (It should be noted that QTR does NOT have the ability to select a Media Type to be sent to the printer as part of the print job, so when using QTR it is vitally important to select the appropriate paper type on the printer before printing).

I also use the Epson LFP Accounting Tool here to track my print jobs and ink/paper utilization and I can see in the Tool's database that the Media Type used for my test job was indeed "Premium Glossy 250", not the Premium Luster Sheet which is what you see on the printer console while the job is printing.  (Hmm, I would really like to see Epson show the actual media type being used when printing...I'll have to call them to suggest this enhancement to the firmware.)

In any case, let us know if your setup/configuration is notably different than what I've listed above...there has to be a reason for the different behavior.

Dave

[DeanChriss]

I am not in the same location with my printer at the moment so I can't quote the exact text or version numbers, but I did check that both the driver and firmware are the latest on the Epson (USA) website. I have I noted the differences in the behavior I am seeing in bold underline within what you have written below. There are only two differences. I'm also using Win 10 64-bit and have the Epson LFP Accounting Tool installed. I have noticed the same discrepancy you note below between the paper type in the driver / printer LCD / Accounting tool.

The biggest difference between our setups seems to be Ethernet versus USB connection to the printer. I think the maximum USB cable length is 10 feet. With Ethernet one could be in a different room, or several flights of stairs away from the printer. Given that, I wonder if Epson does away with the "safeguard" of forcing printer control panel input of the media type only when users are most likely to be remote. If a person is using a program like QTR where printer control panel input is essential, forcing the choice is a safeguard. But, if you're 5 flights of stairs away from the printer this would be extremely annoying.

Today I checked this again and my P9000 behaves as I described above and prints the job without any need to acknowledge the menu prompt, which is not what you are seeing on your P7000 . Here is my typical procedure:

• Insert sheet to be printed, press the "Down" key on the console to start the loading sequence.
• Printer positions sheet, then prompts "Selected paper type:  Premium Luster Sheet;  * Keep Settings?  *Change settings?"  I do not respond to this prompt on the printer.  (Note:  Premium Luster Sheet was the last paper type I used in an earlier printing session before powering down the printer.  The printer always remembers the previous paper type used.)
• I proceed to setup my print job in Photoshop and then print.  In the test I just completed, I purposely chose a different Media Type (Premium Glossy 250 in this case) than the indicated "default" in the printer.
• The printer accepts the job from Photoshop and starts printing without any further intervention. My P7000 does not start printing and the driver gives a message on the computer monitor that an action is required at the printer.

Assuming that the P7000 and P9000 are running the same basic code in firmware, I can only conclude that there is some configuration difference between your machine and mine that is causing the different behavior.  Here's a quick summary of my setup:

• P9000 printer connected via ethernet  My printer is connected by USB.
• Firmware:  LW006GA (latest)
• Printer driver version:  6.70 (latest)
• Windows 10 64-bit

I've tested this with both the Epson driver and QTR and get the same behavior.  (It should be noted that QTR does NOT have the ability to select a Media Type to be sent to the printer as part of the print job, so when using QTR it is vitally important to select the appropriate paper type on the printer before printing).

I also use the Epson LFP Accounting Tool here to track my print jobs and ink/paper utilization and I can see in the Tool's database that the Media Type used for my test job was indeed "Premium Glossy 250", not the Premium Luster Sheet which is what you see on the printer console while the job is printing.  (Hmm, I would really like to see Epson show the actual media type being used when printing...I'll have to call them to suggest this enhancement to the firmware.)

In any case, let us know if your setup/configuration is notably different than what I've listed above...there has to be a reason for the different behavior.

Dave

[datro]

It would not surprise me at all if certain printer behavior is affected by whether one is using USB or Ethernet (that statement goes for any brand of printer, not just Epson).  So I'm willing to bet that the "USB mode" of the driver/printer is the culprit here.  I have always preferred network configuration for my printers which gives maximum flexibility in printer location and access.  I think it would be worth trying a network setup if you can.

Dave