Epson 9900: Large Prints From LR4

[John Caldwell]

Only today have I for the first time attempted large prints from LR. Up to now LR has shown no limitations in getting data to the Epson driver. Attempting to print a custom paper size of 44" wide x 68" long results in no ink being laid down, and a hurried feed of all 68" of blank media, and a media cut. We're left with a 44" x 68" blank page. Printing a 44" x 30" file, in contrast, from LR works fine.

All manner of driver reinstall, deleting the printer from setup, changing from wireless to hardwired network connection yield no change. Epson says that LR must be at fault, given that I Can print from PS CS6 to this 68" long paper size.

Can LR print only certain file sizes or paper lengths? We are on OS 10.7.5, an iMac with 32GB RAM.

Many thanks,

John Caldwell

[Ken Doo]

John,

I don't know if my comments will be helpful to you as I use a PC workstation.  Typically you are limited to about a 90" print absent use of a RIP or other printer utility like Qimage.  Your print is not really that large in this regard.  This past week I had difficulty printing some 8 foot long (96") prints that were not an issue before---and similarly, my 9900 would print some/most of the image, stop, and then shoot out the remaining canvas (yup, all 96") before cutting it.  Frustrating as I've printed many larger prints before without issue using a 9800 and 9900 with Qimage.

I figured out my issue---and you might want to check for something similar.  It's basically a spooler issue.  In the printer settings, under print quality settings, I had inadvertently checked "finest details" which then told Qimage to print at 720ppi.  Thirty plus feet of canvas later, I figured it out.  Unchecked the finest details box and all was well.  Apparently for very large images, checking that finest details box is a no-no.   

ken

[John Caldwell]

Thank you, Ken. I don't have Finest Details engaged, but I do have 16 bit output and Super Microweave selected. I hadn't considered their impact so I'll pursue this further.

Thanks, Ken.

John-

[Wayne Fox]

Attempting to print a custom paper size of 44" wide x 68" long results in no ink being laid down, and a hurried feed of all 68" of blank media, and a media cut. We're left with a 44" x 68" blank page.

 I have no problems printing longer prints than that (96") but it might choke if you are using 16bit. If you happen to get the two sizes switched in the custom paper dialog box the printer can do some really strange things like feeding blank paper.

[Paul2660]

John,

Curious on the print that failed, did you have print preview checked and did it show the image correctly?  I have never had a problem if the preview shows the image correctly.   

I have had a similar problem but in my case it was CS5, CS6, that were failing to print, in this case a 36" x 72" print.  I was using 2011 Crystalline which required a paper type of Proofing Paper Pub, and for some reason on longer prints, I would get a preview where I would see 1/2 or 1/4 of the image the rest was blank.  I could take the same print over to LR and with the same settings it printed fine. 

Since you are on a 9900 and this much be a borderless print 44" x 68", it may have something to do with that I have not every tried a image that long and borderless. 

Paul Caldwell

[John Caldwell]

OK, Paul, Wayne and Ken. Thanks for your interest.

The problem was my attempting a 16bit, rather than 8 bit, print on a 44" x 66" 360dpi file. Sending the same print job from LR at 8 bit allowed the job to spool and print. The previous experience that photoshop was able to print, when LR couldn't, related to inadvertent use of 8 bit, rather than 16, selection.

Epson tech support was surprised when I got back to them to relate my discovery. What Epson did confirm is that factors which affect the volume of data being spooled are listed here. Most are intuitive, aside perhaps, from the Fine Details selection.

1) Printed image dimensions and resolution - it's a linear relationship: Double the number of pixels at a given bit depth, you double the volume of data being spooled.
2) 16 bit vs. 8 bit - Again a linear relationship; 16 bit is twice the file bulk as 8 bit, just like you were "Saving" a 16 bit file.
3) Epson driver "Fine Details" engaged increases the volume of data, but the person I talked to could not quantify the increase. This particular Epson tech allowed that, in her opinion, Fine Details could/should be eliminated as a driver choice.
4) Epson driver "1440 vs. 2880" - no impact on data mass
5) Epson driver "Super MicroWeave" engaged  - no impact on data mass
6) Epson driver "High Speed" engaged  - no impact on data mass

To summarize my Epson 9900 experience: Running of LR4 on my 10.7.5 system would not allow me to print a 44" x 66" 360 dpi file at 16 bit, but did allow the same file to spool as an 8 bit job. The largest 16 bit file I have successfully printed is 44 x30. I hope this helps.

John Caldwell

[Tony Jay]

Thanks for relating the issues and the solutions John.
This will be a solid addition to the corporate knowledge base on LuLa.
We all like printing big if we can.

Tony Jay

[Schewe]

3) Epson driver "Fine Details" engaged increases the volume of data, but the person I talked to could not quantify the increase. This particular Epson tech allowed that, in her opinion, Fine Details could/should be eliminated as a driver choice.

Then it would be useful for her to get a friggin' clue...Finest Detail allows you to send 720PPI (yes, 2x the resolution of 360) to the print dither...and, it can and does make a different if your original file has enough native resolution. It makes the biggest difference in high frequency image detail as well as vectors, diagonals and circles. But don't worry, she is not in charge of what should or should not be eliminated from the driver. If you want to learn more, read this: The Right Resolution...

And no, you don't need Finest Detail when you are printing really large images nor on watercolor/fine art papers or canvas.

[John Caldwell]

...you don't need Finest Detail when you are printing really large images ...

So your implication wrt to Finest Details is that as print size grows, we will no longer benefit from using Finest Details and, possibly serendipitously, we will gain the benefit that spooled data is kept leaner so as to reduce the pipeline burden (which is also growing as print size increases). This is a convenient trade possibly, but do we have any idea how much bulk of data increase with Finest Details, Jeff? Is there a way of measuring the mass of data actually spooled when a job is printed? Ken offers that he had a large print job choke on a Windows machine with Finest Details in use, so Ken may have just been at the breaking point.

I'll have to say that were it not for Ken, in his reply above, getting me thinking about the issue of choices I'd made at the driver level that impacted sheer bulk of data, I'd not have solved this problem yet. I was on the phone with Epson Pro Graphics support for a full 2:40 minutes running through all manner of trouble shooting, with the tech logging into my Mac remotely and examining all relevant windows, and neither of us considered the impact of the 16 bit selection. I now feel completely foolish of course, meaning how could that not have be apparent to either of us?

John-

[Shane Webster]

John, I posted a similar response in a different forum you had posted this issue and I had a similar problem printing that large of an image at 16 bit and the culprit was Apple's CUPS print system being unable to accept print files larger than 2 gig. Apparently there is a CUPS implementation that can handle files larger than 2 gig but Apple hasn't adopted it yet.

[JohnHeerema]

Attempting to print a custom paper size of 44" wide x 68" long results in no ink being laid down, and a hurried feed of all 68" of blank media, and a media cut. We're left with a 44" x 68" blank page.

Yeah, that happens sometimes. I've found that my blood pressure stays healthier with auto-cut turned off.

There is indeed a 2 Gb file size limitation in CUPS. I haven't seen a version of CUPS that handles bigger files, but it's been a while since I looked. In any event, installing a new version of CUPS requires a significant level of UNIX knowledge (but CUPS has a good web site, and there is a community of active CUPS users who contribute their expertise).

Image files greater than 32 kpels in the long dimension seem to be one of the things that can annoyingly cause an empty page to be printed, but I haven't done systematic testing to see if that's the only potential cause, or if there might also be a range of spool file sizes under 2Gb that cause this to happen.

Since I typically print big, I find it very common to have files that won't print in Lightroom. Since I like the easy output sharpening in Lightroom, I'll resize to a multiple of 180 ppi in Lightroom to keep the long dimension under 32kpels. Some people report being able to print files from Lightroom with a long dimension in excess of 32kpels, but I'm not one of them.

Printing in 8-bit colour depth is my next avenue of attack. This cuts the printer spool file size by almost half. If the spool file is still too big for CUPS, I'll resize more. 

It makes me a bit sad to have big high resolution files that I can't print at the Epson 9900's best resolution, but that just seems to be the current reality.

Just to be clear, the only time that I save a resized file file is when I flatten and save my high-resolution Photoshop file down to a .psd file, since Lightroom can't read .psb files. Once Lightroom is able to read an image file I just resize the print output size in the Print module of Lightroom.

Hope that helps.