Your approach sounds good - and I applaud you for respecting the "odd" sizes of your images. I think that cropping is extremely important for presenting an image at its best, and forcing your crops into the standard aspect ratios just to fit the paper is never a good idea, IMO.
I find the sizing of the artboard plays a big part in the dramatic effect of any individual image. It changes the focus and emphasis of the elements of the composition and can regenerate an illustration that wasn't working. In a drastic bid to bring an image around I would crop it severely on one side reducing the artboard and push the subject matter around in a different layout to match the new space and (if I'm lucky) all of a sudden the elements I was playing with start to fit together. Too much space or too little (depending) can be the undoing of a composition. It's fair to say after this slog the last thing I care for is that a client can't get their image put into a standard frame lol. If I designed artwork from the start to fit in a standard paper size it wouldn't be the vision that I want it to be.
As for paper not being in perfect alignment and/or marked, I have never experienced that with my 7900. When feeding sheets I am always very fussy about aligning them.
So you rarely have to trim your prints after running them out Peter? They're good to go? except for trimming the end off the roll or whatever?
As for panos, you might want to consider printing them as triptychs or other multi-part formats. Easier to print, mount, frame, and hang with a just as impressive visual effect.
Have to see how I go because they are not really panos as such, maybe I used the wrong term. I looked up Panos on the web and it seemed to suggest there is no strictly defined aspect ratio to be called a pano. So I adopted it for anything longer than a normal page size. For example from memory a few of my pieces are 180 or 190mm x 297mm so noticeably more elongated than a standard ISO page size in proportions, but I would imagine a good stretch short of a true pano definition as defined by many a photographer. Given they're a bit on the short side then, probably not enough for splitting up into multiple areas. I'll keep it in mind though for a future work, it's a nice idea.
As I have been on that path too, it is always fun to see people compute economically / aesthetically pleasing print formats that should correlate with printer widths, frame aspect ratios, camera sensor aspect ratios, standard graphic paper sizes, standard photo paper sizes, odd sizes. All and/or of course. Golden ratio can be added too.
Yes indeed, some information is hard to find online so I end up scratching my head and formulating my own way of sizing things up and trying to have it make sense. That there are different measurements for standard sizes (paper, frames etc) depending on country means that it becomes a bit hard and somewhat irrelevant to try to make my images a certain one size fits all for framing, esp as you know they are odd sizes to begin with. I end up trying to go back to a simple setup, like, how difficult or important can it be, just pick a size and print the darn thing out and let the customer get it framed. By the way what's a 'Golden ratio'?
In practice the largest size roll a printer can handle + one or two roll sizes below that is the most flexible choice on all aspects. On my 44"printer I use both 44"and 36"
and for specific jobs 24" if the roll is used for 90% on that job. For your 3880 a 17" roll + possibly a 13"roll. Cutting up 36" rolls perpendicular at 17" intervals comes to mind too. You could decurl the roll and store maximum sheet lengths the 3880 can handle which is close to 36". Or decurl (reverse rolled) a night in advance of the printjob, cut to sheet(s) before the job starts.
I've had a look at a few suppliers online and the only roll sizes for the paper I'm using are 17", 24" and 44" by 15m roll. I was thinking I could figure out the sizes of each of the images that are panos and a cut the particular length off the roll I need for each image. If I cut the maximum 36" length I might end up with a bit more waste than I needed?
How is de-curl done? Do I cut a length off the roll and place it on a big table with the curl facing upwards and then chuck a bunch of heavy books on it? I heard it needs 2-3 days to flatten.
Nest images on a long sheet with for example Qimage Ultimate so the trailing edge print margins are reduced.
When I am set up I'll test out my printing because Adobe Illustrator has a built-in RIP so I might give it a shot printing straight from Illustrator to the printer first. I'm guessing this would only allow one print at a time though, so might look into Qimage if I get busy and am printing multiples to save paper?