Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: byomtov on January 03, 2019, 06:59:03 pm
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I am using a Mac, OS 10.14.2 (Mojave) and printing to an Epson P800.
When printing on 13 x 19 paper the image is printed smaller than I specified in the Photoshop print dialog. It's only about 3/8 inch, about 5mm, narrower than specified, but that still creates a problem with placement. The image also doesn't quite center properly on the paper.
This happens whether I use the sheet feeder or the front feed, with both papers I've tried - Hahnemuehle Photo Rag Baryta and EpsonGlossy, and it also happens in Lightroom.
Epson insists it's an Adobe problem, as the correct up-to-date driver is installed.
Can anyone provide a clue?
Thank you.
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It could be in the driver settings. I'll use Lr Single Image for this discussion. For sheet size, in Page Set-Up (which takes you into the driver) do you select the "Sheet Maximum" option for the paper size you have selected? When you open Print Settings, for Layout, have you checked that "Border" is set to "None"? Then in the Lr print dialog do you have the 4 borders set to the same width? The combination of "Sheet Maximum" with Borders=None set in the printer driver and the borders all set to the same width in the print module of Lr should give you a full size centered photo. So for example, if you are printing a 13x19 sheet, in the driver reached through Page Set-up you would select A3+ (or Super A3, same thing), Sheet maximum, and in Print Settings Layout set Border to None. Then in Lr, if you want a one inch border, you would select 1 inch for all four dimensions, resulting in a printed area that is extremely close to 11 x 17 inches, and it should be centered.
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In PS, if you want a precise image size of 11x17 on 13x19 paper - yielding 1" borders all 'round - simply crop and size the image to 11x17 in PS, un-check any border settings in the driver, check "center image" and be done with it!
The whole setting borders thing to achieve the same gets you into the minefield of "minimal printable borders", which is generally 3mm (approx 1/8") that will be added to your border, and will have to be subtracted from your border to get close to the desired. Starting with a defined image size as above is 100% precise for image size and borders, assuming paper size is accurate. You should measure your "13x19 paper, as the various flavors, except "Super B, are not precisely 13x19. I find that the borders dialog is useful only for off-setting the image on the paper, but not for precise centering.
Pete
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Thanks, but using the "center image" option in PS produces the same result.
I set the height and width I want, check "center," and it still doesn't come out right.
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Mark,
Thanks.
When I tried printing this from LR I got similar results, though I'm not sure what my settings were exactly.
Regardless, I think I understand the various options and arithmetic. I've tried a lot of things. I think there is some fundamental problem in the computer-printer link, but have no idea what it is.
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Mark,
Thanks.
When I tried printing this from LR I got similar results, though I'm not sure what my settings were exactly.
Regardless, I think I understand the various options and arithmetic. I've tried a lot of things. I think there is some fundamental problem in the computer-printer link, but have no idea what it is.
If you can't keep track of your settings and report them it's hard to be of further assistance, and this is most likely a settings issue, not a "fundamental problem in the computer-printer link".
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Thanks, but using the "center image" option in PS produces the same result.
I set the height and width I want, check "center," and it still doesn't come out right.
What are your desired image dimensions, and have you measured the "13x19" paper to confirm its exact size?
Where are you setting image height and width - in PS with the image cropped and sized to those dimensions and then exported to the driver, or by somehow setting image dimensions in the driver?
Any scaling or reduced/enlarged printing choices checked in driver?
Screen shots of your driver settings might be helpful.
Pete
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Mark,
Please don't patronize me.
First of all, my post described a problem with Photoshop, not LR. I only tried it once in LR to see if the problem recurred. It did.
I used some very simple settings which ought to have produced the image I want. They didn't.
I just tried it again. I set paper to borderless with zero margins. I saw no "Sheet Maximum" setting. I specified cell size of 16.5 x 11.04 inches, which is the aspect ratio of the image. I got 16 5/16 x 10 3/4, not centered.
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Mark,
Please don't patronize me.
First of all, my post described a problem with Photoshop, not LR. I only tried it once in LR to see if the problem recurred. It did.
I used some very simple settings which ought to have produced the image I want. They didn't.
I just tried it again. I set paper to borderless with zero margins. I saw no "Sheet Maximum" setting. I specified cell size of 16.5 x 11.04 inches, which is the aspect ratio of the image. I got 16 5/16 x 10 3/4, not centered.
I'm sorry you think I'm patronizing you - I have no interest in that - my time is too valuable to waste on such non-productive pursuits. If I can't be helpful on this forum in some way I don't post, so in trying to be helpful I need the basic information that allows me to get beyond square one in trying to diagnose a problem. Pete Berry has also been asking you to provide the same kind of information I would find useful. His idea to provide screen grabs of all your driver settings makes sense. Most of the time these issues are settings-related be it in the driver or the host application. If there were a general technical problem with the operating system many, many more people would be reporting it.
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Pete,
My settings from PS are attached. I set the size using the PS window, obviously. Notice that the width is set to 16.499 inches, even though I entered 16.5. I did measure the paper.
The image cam out the same size as in the LR example, about 16 5/16 x 10 3/4. It was just slightly off center - barely at all horizontally and about 1/8 inch vertically. Maybe that's within normal tolerance for the printer. I don't know.
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In the bottom screen grab, where you see Paper Size, could you click on that and see what options open up for the paper you show there?
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Mark,
Sorry to be testy.
I've spent quite a bit of time - not to mention paper and ink - trying to figure out what is going on.
Neither Epson nor Adobe provided any useful information whatsoever, once you do manage to get through to someone. I did in fact think to measure the paper, and learn about non-printable areas. It would be nice if the paper manufacturers provided those dimensions, and if Epson mentioned the non-printable area somewhere other than in an appendix to the manual.
Further, I find it ridiculous that the business of getting an image to print the way I want is so damn complicated. This window, that window, the other setting, etc.
None of that has anything to do with you of course.
But. What I want to do is simple. I want to print the image a certain size in the center of the paper. Should that be a nightmare?
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Mark,
Under 13x19 I find:
13x19
13x19 borderless(retain size)
13x19 front poster board
There are also some roll feed options, but I do not have a roll feeder.
After dealing with the problem a set up a custom size 12.94 x 19 with zero non-printable area, based on my measurements, thinking that might solve the problem. Tat's the size I've used here.
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Hi Byomtov,
Not to worry, I know how frustrating this stuff can be and I share your feelings about it. You don't know how often I've been involved in discussions with our august printer manufacturers and application developers about what can be done to simplify printing without losing quality and flexibility. I think it's a major reason why many people don't print - they're afraid of it. So efforts have been made, for example the Lr print module, Canon's Print Studio Pro, Epson's new Print Layout, etc. I think the basic problems remain and poke their heads through periodically, this time your case. There has to be a "semi-obvious" reason for it that isn't hitting one in the face, and that's what we're trying to get at. I just had a similar issue with my very expensive Swiss Jura coffee machine - I followed their instructions to the letter trying to adjust the amount of water that fills the cup and it landed me in a situation where it filled the bottom of the cup and wouldn't budge. So I phoned their service department and it turns out that one minor detail in the procedure for making the adjustment is incorrectly specified in their manual. Oh boy. Once she set me straight on the button pushing procedure all is well. So ya see..... little details!
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Mark,
Under 13x19 I find:
13x19
13x19 borderless(retain size)
13x19 front poster board
There are also some roll feed options, but I do not have a roll feeder.
After dealing with the problem a set up a custom size 12.94 x 19 with zero non-printable area, based on my measurements, thinking that might solve the problem. Tat's the size I've used here.
Oops - unfortunately I don't have that printer any longer - I'm using a P5000 now, so I deleted the P800 driver and can't see the settings they provide. I'm surprised there is not a setting that says "Sheet-Maximum".
The remainder of your settings look perfectly normal.
OK back to square one, how to resolve it. When you set up the custom paper size, might be a silly question, but did you remember to save those settings as a custom Paper Size preset with its own name to differentiate it? If you didn't, it disappears - I've had that issue before. If it were properly retained, you should be able to access it in your Paper Size driver settings and use it.
Now, even though I don't have a P800 any longer, these drivers all have somewhat similar behaviour, so I went into my P5000 driver and selected the option that I know gives me a well-centered print on 13*19 paper. I attached a screen grab. Try creating a custom Paper Size preset in your P800 with exactly those settings in the last little fly-out and see whether that works.
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Mark,
OK.
I did that. The image centered horizontally just fine. Vertically it was 3mm off. The bottom border was 3mm bigger than the top. Also, it still wasn't 16.5" wide, more like 16 5/16 x 10 7/8.
It looks to me like it is adding some sort of extra margin - maybe duplicating the 3mm non-printable area. Then maybe trying to adjust the overall dimension to keep the aspect ratio the same. Very weird.
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Is it possible that checking the center box is the problem? Is it now expecting equal borders on all 4 sides and since they are not equal it reduces the image size to make equal borders? Just a thought.I print through Lightroom not Photoshop and do not have the center box.
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Dan,
Thanks, but I don't think so. I had similar problems when I tried to calculate the borders myself.
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Mark,
OK.
I did that. The image centered horizontally just fine. Vertically it was 3mm off. The bottom border was 3mm bigger than the top. Also, it still wasn't 16.5" wide, more like 16 5/16 x 10 7/8.
It looks to me like it is adding some sort of extra margin - maybe duplicating the 3mm non-printable area. Then maybe trying to adjust the overall dimension to keep the aspect ratio the same. Very weird.
Getting there, but let's try something else to see if we can't get both the centering and the print dimensions quite exactly right: I just did this with the P5000 Print dialog and the Epson driver (see attached). I created a custom Paper Size that is 13 by 19 inches exactly, with zeros for all four margins and named it as a Test SA3 Size Preset. Then in Photoshop's print module I left "Center" checked. You can see from the screen grab that the photo is perfectly centered in the Preview window. It would print that way too. I suggest trying one with your paper using these settings. I know your paper is sized a bit differently. Nonetheless, it is possible you will still have a centered print that respects the linear dimensions for the photo as set in your Photoshop Image Size settings. The margins would be a bit different than if you were using an exact 13*19 sheet. If it doesn't work, then the next option is to create yet another one with your exact paper size in the custom preset (but I think you tried that already). If it is only the bottom margin that really bothers, then take off the 3mm from the paper size Preset, so that when the printer adds them back you will have what you want.
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Ok, but before I try that let me ask a question, since I'm down to my last sheet of (relatively) inexpensive paper.
The image is a horizontal one, but I have the driver set to portrait mode, with the paper width set to 19", etc. This ought to be OK, but I'm wondering if it is a possible source of trouble.
I don't want to change more than one thing so I want to try your suggestion but it will be a few hours before I can get some more paper. I do have a very lightly printed sheet that would work for a test. Does it do any harm to feed an already printed sheet through a second time?
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No luck, though I did find a couple more sheets of paper.
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You cannot have your paper width set to 19" on a 17" printer.
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Ok, but before I try that let me ask a question, since I'm down to my last sheet of (relatively) inexpensive paper.
The image is a horizontal one, but I have the driver set to portrait mode, with the paper width set to 19", etc. This ought to be OK, but I'm wondering if it is a possible source of trouble.
I don't want to change more than one thing so I want to try your suggestion but it will be a few hours before I can get some more paper. I do have a very lightly printed sheet that would work for a test. Does it do any harm to feed an already printed sheet through a second time?
Best to have the orientation and the paper size settings cohere, noting that the maximum width for that printer is the 17 inches carriage width. So the 19 inch dimension should not be the width. No harm printing on used paper as long as it is dry. I recommend printing on the other side for this purpose. You don't need the coating one way or another.
Oops - no luck in what sense? What didn't work?
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Dan and I were writing and posting in too close a sequence for the warning to come up. Anyhow, we're saying the same thing! :-)
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Almost impossible to make that error in Lightroom, since there is no horizontal or vertical selection.
Put the proper dimensions you would like to print in cell size and the preview will show you if you put it in correctly.
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Pete,
My settings from PS are attached. I set the size using the PS window, obviously. Notice that the width is set to 16.499 inches, even though I entered 16.5. I did measure the paper.
The image cam out the same size as in the LR example, about 16 5/16 x 10 3/4. It was just slightly off center - barely at all horizontally and about 1/8 inch vertically. Maybe that's within normal tolerance for the printer. I don't know.
I see that you are scaling the image in the driver to get near your desired (I think) 16.5x11". Sound to me like you are in the weeds of "mininum printable borders" operating in the background, with it's 3mm offsets.
I think that if you follow my first suggestion of sizing your image in PS, outside the driver, using the Image > Image Size dialog, where you can also re-sample it up to the 360PPI "ideal" Epson printing res. if you wish. You will have then a precise, baked-in size for the printer. Then simply check "center image" and print, assuring first that all scaling and borders dialogs are un-checked.
I've been doing it this way on multiple printers since the dawn of digital printing after getting trapped in the MPB minefield too many times...
Pete
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Pretty much no change. The image dimensions changed very slightly, and it was still off-center vertically by roughly the same amount - maybe 1mm less.
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Sorry, whose "solution" are you responding to here. It's becoming confusing! :-)
I think Pete Berry has hit the nail on the head and hope that is not the one which isn't working.
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I was clarifying my "no luck" response to you.
Pete's solution gave me an image 16 3/4" wide, centered vertically but not horizontally
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OK, keeping track, we were half-way there at Replies 14, 15 and Pete's latest suggestion to now. I got you centered horizontally, he got you centered vertically, now if there were some way of combining the two you'd be centered! :-). OK I know, it's not funny. I'm scratching my head between replies trying to figure this out, amongst other things I doing here.
One more thing to try: Go back to your upper illustration in reply 9. Reset scaling to 100%, and make sure the print is the correct image size you want in print using the Image Size dialog in Photoshop. As well, have a look at "Paper Size Check" option in the printer's LCD menu. If this is on, turn it off, select one of your sizing options for your paper size that is set for 0 margins, print and see what happens.
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Ok.
The dimensions are fine now. I fixed a mistake I had made that probably caused that problem.
The left border is 2mm narrower than the right and the top border is 2mm narrower than the bottom.
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Super. Curious to know what mistake you fixed - this may help anyone else having similar issues.
So when you say it's OK now, presumably you're not concerned about the 2mm?
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Mark,
The mistake was not realizing that the image had a narrow white border in it, and not accounting for that in measuring. The only lesson is to be careful, or you'll look stupid and waste people's time, including your own.
As to the 2mm, no, I'm not thrilled. If it's the case that this is within normal tolerance for this printer then fine, I will live with it. But if it isn't then I would still like to know why it happens, both for future reference on other images and because it's just enough off to be noticeable.
I appreciate your help, and that of Pete and Dan, very much.
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OK thanks, and you are welcome.
If I can think of anything else that may be helpful to the 2mm, I'll post. Meanwhile if you solve it, do please let us know.
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The 2mm discrepancy on the horizontal goes away when I use a custom size precisely measured, with no non-printable area, and calculate the margin needed for centering and enter it. I don't check "center."
The 2mm vertical discrepancy does not give up so easily, so I calculated the top margin needed to center the image and just added 1mm. That works.
Why the "center" check box produces inaccurate results remains a mystery to me.
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You cannot have your paper width set to 19" on a 17" printer.
+1.
A very common mistake of many is to put the size of the “print” in the paper setup sizes when printing a landscape oriented image. The dialog box is asking how wide is the piece of paper you are using, not how wide is the print you are trying to print. After entering the paper width, use the landscape/portrait choices to orient the image correctly. Not doing this can cause countless frustrations with wrong sizes, or even worse partial prints.
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Wayne,
Could you clarify?
I'm not sure what point you are making, especially since there are several dialog boxes involved in the process.
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I think your main problem with this is that the image doesn't fit. In my opinion, resizing the image you want to print is very simple. All you need is to use a special image editing program like Photoshop, PhotoLab, Lightshot, or if you have no place or desire to install various programs, you can always edit everything using online services like https://imglarger.com/ . For example, the service that I have provided can very quickly change the size of the image to the one you need, despite the fact that all you need to do is upload the image and adjust what size you need. Perhaps you have a problem with the drivers or with the printer, but in my opinion it is better to experiment with the picture first, it may solve your problem.
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Maybe this is a stupid question, but is your paper really 13"?
Once I was sure that I put certain size, but I made a mistake during cutting and the print was not centered...
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I have suddenly had a very similar problem, and I strongly suspect that a recent software update for the P800 from Epson may be responsible. Here is my situation:
I do all my printing from Lightroom 6.1, and I have a substantial set of printing presets for common sizes of paper that I use (most often 8.5x11" for test prints, and 13x19" for display prints.) One of my commonest prints sizes is to fill a 10x15" area centered on 13x19" paper. Thus, an image that is actually 10x15" will have borders of 2" on the short sides and 1.5" on the long sides. Prints of other sizes expand to fit either the 10" or 15" of the image area. This preset has worked for me perfectly for as long as LR 6.1 has been out, and I have made hundreds of prints using it.
I printed a couple of prints using this preset just a few days ago, after not printing since February. The P800 did get a new software update before I started printing. The Print Preview showed each print centered perfectly within the 10x15" region, with equal margins on the sides and equal margins top and bottom. However, the actual prints came out with the short side margins of 1" and 2", an effect very much like that of the original poster.
After checking all my settings a dozen times and updating my preset, I made test prints on some 13x19" paper that I don't use any more. All prints were off center in the same way. Curiously, I tried a couple of prints on my standard 8.5x11" preset, and that worked perfectly, with correct margins, as it has hundreds of times in the past. The problem seems to be specific to 13x19" paper.
Next, I tried a workaround: I created a new preset specifying margins of 0.5" on the side that printed with a 2" margin and 2" on the side that printed a half-inch margin. I tried this preset on two sample images. Each time the print preview suggested that the margins were now wrong in the reverse direction from prints using the previous preset, but the actual prints came out perfectly centered.
So this new preset seems to compensate correctly for the error that creeps in somewhere between computer and printer, so I will use this new preset for 13x19" paper until Epson (or whatever malicious mischief-maker) restores the pipeline.
I did also try one sample print using PhtoShop, and the same unequal margins appeared, so I strongly suspect an error in Epson'd latest update.
Sigh!
-Eric M.