Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: drralph on January 18, 2019, 01:56:48 pm

Title: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: drralph on January 18, 2019, 01:56:48 pm
A new problem cropped up today (pun intended).  I set up an image in the print module of Lr with nice wide margins all around.  But each time I printed it, the left margin was just 0.5".  Couldn't get it to center on the page in multiple tries.

I am attaching a screen shot of my print settings and preview, and a shot of the print.

Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Mark D Segal on January 18, 2019, 02:43:17 pm
The set-up in Lr Print Tab looks fine. Could you please post screen grabs of what shows for Page Set-Up and Printer Settings.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: drralph on January 18, 2019, 02:58:15 pm
As requested.  I don't see anything changed from what has always worked.

Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Mark D Segal on January 18, 2019, 03:38:19 pm
In Page Set-Up, for Paper Size, please check in the dropdown whether there is a setting for "US Letter Sheet-borders, Maximum". If so please select it.

In Print Settings, in the Layout Tab, please make sure "Borders" is set to "None". In the Paper Handling Tab, please insure that "Scale to Fit Paper Size" is UNchecked.

If anything you have differs from the above and your version of the P800 driver allows you to select as above, please do so and try a print.

Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Wayne Fox on January 19, 2019, 03:29:09 am
If the image in Lightroom appears at a 90 degree angle, it’s usually an indication  that you need to change the orientation choice in the page setup dialog box. You are printing a landscape oriented image so it seems you should have that choice selected in page setup.  Not using the correct orientation is a weird thing, because sometimes the print looks fine, but other times you end up with very odd results similar to what you posted.

It took me some time to realize this but I’ve discovered that when using the single image option as the layout style, the image will always appear normally oriented on your screen if the correct orientation is chosen. Makes it pretty easy to figure out if you have the right orientation selected in the Page setup dialog.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: David Eckels on January 19, 2019, 08:56:03 am
This happened to me recently on a Canon ipf8400. Found out I had checked "No spaces at the top or bottom (Conserve Paper)" in the driver's Layout tab. Don't know if Epson has something similar. Everything in LR was perfect. Drove me nuts for a day! You can't go wrong with advice from Mark and Wayne.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: PBC on February 03, 2019, 09:35:46 am
Did you have resolve this?

I am having the same problems with my Epson 3880 on Mac 10.14.2

All my settings are as I have always had them but the image is coming out with different magins and not central to the page.   The preview in Lightroom is correct but when it prints it is all off-center

Thanks

Phil
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Garnick on February 03, 2019, 11:08:34 am
I don't have much experience printing in Lightroom, but I immediately found it strange that for a horizontal image you have the orientation set for a vertical image.  That would probably work fine if you had flipped the image 90º before sending it to the printer.  Also, your screen shot of the print preview is not correct unless you actually did flip the image.  Otherwise it should show as a horizontal image.  Most of my printing is done in Photoshop, and occasionally when my mind is somewhere else I will do the same thing and the results are somewhat similar to what I see here.  Of course to me the immediate response is the same as your's, "I did everything correctly".  However, after a few tries my thoughts start to return to the present and the problem becomes crystal clear, the wrong orientation.  Voila, problem fixed.  I believe Wayne is correct, but you should also follow Mark's advice.  That combination will likely get you back on track

Gary
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: nirpat89 on February 03, 2019, 08:33:58 pm
I don't have much experience printing in Lightroom, but I immediately found it strange that for a horizontal image you have the orientation set for a vertical image.  That would probably work fine if you had flipped the image 90% before sending it to the printer.  Also, your screen shot of the print preview is not correct unless you actually did flip the image.  Otherwise it should show as a horizontal image.  Most of my printing is done in Photoshop, and occasionally when my mind is somewhere else I will do the same thing and the results are somewhat similar to what I see here.  Of course to me the immediate response is the same as your's, "I did everything correctly".  However, after a few tries my thoughts start to return to the present and the problem becomes crystal clear, the wrong orientation.  Voila, problem fixed.  I believe Wayne is correct, but you should also follow Mark's advice.  That combination will likely get you back on track

Gary

Don't know about LR, but Photoshop Print Setting page has the layout shown on the left side that should be the first clue.  I never hit Print without first checking there.  I have never seen the layout not match the final print.  Must have developed that habit after few of my own mind-was-somehere episodes.... :)
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Garnick on February 03, 2019, 09:09:43 pm
Don't know about LR, but Photoshop Print Setting page has the layout shown on the left side that should be the first clue.  I never hit Print without first checking there.  I have never seen the layout not match the final print.  Must have developed that habit after few of my own mind-was-somehere episodes.... :)

And of course in Photoshop, when printing to sheets you have two alternatives when printing a vertical.  You can choose the vertical orientation or flip the image 90º and use the horizontal orientation.  And of course the same thing is true with a horizontal image.  The thing to be aware of is that the orientation in the print dialog must match the orientation of the print itself.  Of course when printing to roll one must be sure the orientation of the image will fit the paper size selected.  A horizontal image wider than the width of the roll must be flipped 90% and printed as a vertical, even though it might actually be a horizontal image.  I once had a customer watching me print one of his horizontal images on roll and asked how I get a horizontal print by printing it as a vertical.  I managed to keep a straight face until I took the print off and laid it on the work bench as it came off of the printer.  I then slowly turned it 90º and we both had a huge laugh at his expense.  Just one of those obvious moments that wasn't so obvious to the onlooker, my customer.

Gary     
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: rasworth on February 04, 2019, 09:49:37 am
I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to printer driver software - put as little "strain" on it as possible.  Therefore always print portrait at the driver, don't force it to do a 90 degree rotation of the image, let Photoshop or LR do the pixel processing.  Similarly with color management, keep it turned off in the driver, do it upstream.  Printer design engineers are less skilled at software, probably not as bad as it used to be but still IMO a good rule to go by.

Richard Southworth
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Wayne Fox on February 04, 2019, 02:06:07 pm
I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to printer driver software - put as little "strain" on it as possible.  Therefore always print portrait at the driver, don't force it to do a 90 degree rotation of the image, let Photoshop or LR do the pixel processing.  Similarly with color management, keep it turned off in the driver, do it upstream.  Printer design engineers are less skilled at software, probably not as bad as it used to be but still IMO a good rule to go by.

Richard Southworth
A 90 degree rotation is simple math.  No issues.  If you always keep portrait in the driver, you add a lot of work in that you have to rotate the image in photoshop and save that file.

I’ve printed thousands of images from Lightroom and have virtually no issues which I see common place. Lightroom is doing the work, not the driver.

I have customers who purchase epson printers from me and come back with half prints, weird borders and other issues when printing from Lightroom.

A couple of minutes and they never come back with those problems.  For the benefit of those reading this thread trying to find an answer to similar problems ...

First, understand when putting a paper size into the dialog box, the printer doesn’t care if your image is a portrait or a landscape oriented image.  You are telling the printer what size of a piece of paper you are putting into the printer, or if a roll how wide the roll is and how long of a piece you want it to cut off, not how big this particular print is.  So in the width box, you don’t put the width of your desired finished print.  You put the width of the roll or the piece of paper into that box.  Transposing those numbers can lead to all kinds of weird things, they seem to be hit and miss because if you put the wrong size in, but then put in another “wrong” setting they can balance themselves out.

At that point in Lightroom you can easily tell if you have the correct orientation set in the Page Setup dialog.  Just look at the preview image.  If the image is normal, the setting is right.  If the image is sideways, it’s wrong and you need to change the orientation in Page Setup. First one below is right, will print fine.  Second one ... all bets are off as to what you will get. might work, might be weird borders, might be ½ a print.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Garnick on February 04, 2019, 02:45:40 pm
I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to printer driver software - put as little "strain" on it as possible.  Therefore always print portrait at the driver, don't force it to do a 90 degree rotation of the image, let Photoshop or LR do the pixel processing.  Similarly with color management, keep it turned off in the driver, do it upstream.  Printer design engineers are less skilled at software, probably not as bad as it used to be but still IMO a good rule to go by.

Richard Southworth

Hi Richard,

I think either you misinterpreted my latest reply or I failed to offer a proper explanation.  When I mentioned "flipping"/rotating the print 90º" to fit the orientation in the driver preview, I was not referring to the driver doing the "flipping" at all.  I totally agree with your assessment of NOT burdening the driver any more than necessary.  When I mention "flipping" the print I mean before it is sent to the printer.  "Similarly with color management, keep it turned off in the driver, do it upstream".  However, if by this you mean let the printer manage colour, I could not disagree more.  Any upstream colour management doesn't mean much if you don't follow through in the driver.  This topic has been thrown around here several times during the many years I've been a member, and it has never garnered much support at all.  However, we all have our ways of working with images.  And perhaps in very few situations letting the printer manage colour could possibly have some merits, but none that I can think of.

EDIT:  I must also include a caveat here.  Everything I have written here pertains only to printing in Photoshop, not Lightroom.  I believe that should be obvious, but perhaps not  ???     

Gary
   

Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: na goodman on February 04, 2019, 02:57:16 pm
In Page Set-Up, for Paper Size, please check in the dropdown whether there is a setting for "US Letter Sheet-borders, Maximum". If so please select it.

In Print Settings, in the Layout Tab, please make sure "Borders" is set to "None". In the Paper Handling Tab, please insure that "Scale to Fit Paper Size" is UNchecked.

If anything you have differs from the above and your version of the P800 driver allows you to select as above, please do so and try a print.

Why is a 13x19 showing 19.02?
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: rasworth on February 04, 2019, 04:10:00 pm
Wayne,
Yes, a 90 degree rotation is simple math, but it does require a hunk of memory, and again I don't trust printer driver software writers.  I've never found it much extra work to rotate and ship it to the printer.  IMO the simplest instruction for new users is never check that landscape box in the printer driver.

Garnick,
I should have been more clear, I only do color management in Photoshop or LR, always turned off in the printer driver.

Richard Southworth

Added by edit - Wayne - yes, if I'm using LR, I agree, use rotate to fit and don't muck with the image.  From PS I do it myself.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: faberryman on February 04, 2019, 04:13:38 pm
Why is a 13x19 showing 19.02?
Because that is the exact number of inches based on pixel calculations for your crop.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Garnick on February 04, 2019, 05:00:21 pm
Hi again Richard,

"I should have been more clear, I only do color management in Photoshop or LR, always turned off in the printer driver".

Thanks for clarifying that.  I thought you were referring to the final print dialog where you have the option of either printer OR the app (Photoshop etc) managing colours, in which case I could not imagine ever letting the printer manage colours.  I guess we both had some clarifications to attend to.

Gary
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: tonysiciliano1 on February 05, 2019, 12:14:40 am
I experienced a similiar problem printing from my MacPro using Lr printing to an Epson 3880. Turned out the problem was my USB cord: it was too long and had a cheap funky extension. Since getting rid of the extension and moving my 3880 and MacPro closer together, the problem has not returned.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Pete Berry on February 05, 2019, 03:45:51 pm
Because that is the exact number of inches based on pixel calculations for your crop.

How can that be, as his image dimensions were 13x7.95"?

19.02" is the actual width of A2+ paper, with a height of 12.95", which the printer chose for "13x19". See the screen cap in the OP's 2nd post. The only exact 13x19" paper size is "Super B" AFAIK, which Canon LF printer drivers include. Don't know about Epson...

Pete
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: mbaginy on February 05, 2019, 10:49:48 pm
I experienced a similiar problem printing from my MacPro using Lr printing to an Epson 3880. Turned out the problem was my USB cord: it was too long and had a cheap funky extension. Since getting rid of the extension and moving my 3880 and MacPro closer together, the problem has not returned.
I had the same problem when I first bought my 3880.  A shorter USB cord was needed.  My Canon printers don't mind the longer USB cord.

Also, I kept seeing odd printing when clicking the (left hand) Print command.  Only part of an image would print.  My solution is to click the (right hand) Printer...  Odd, but it works.  This happened with my 3880 which died about a year ago.  I haven't tried clicking Print with my Canon printers, don't want to waste paper and ink again.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Wayne Fox on February 06, 2019, 03:46:57 pm
Also, I kept seeing odd printing when clicking the (left hand) Print command.  Only part of an image would print.  My solution is to click the (right hand) Printer...  Odd, but it works.  This happened with my 3880 which died about a year ago.  I haven't tried clicking Print with my Canon printers, don't want to waste paper and ink again.
And I print using the Print button 90% of the time (dozens of prints a day)  and I never have a problem.

There isn’t really anything magic about either button.  If you use the Print button then whatever settings are in the driver will be used. The result will be identical to clicking the Printer... button and then just clicking Print there.  All the LR Print button does is bypass the Print Settings dialog box. If after Clicking the Printer... button if you need to make changes in the Print Settings dialog box, then clicking Print would have not made those changes.

All of those settings are stored in LR templates, and it’s pretty easy to change something using the left side Page Setup and Print Settings... buttons to tweak something and forget to save those to the template.  If you make a new template and setup everything except Print Settings then whatever was loaded in the driver (which may be from another program if you just launched LR) is saved in the template until you explicitly open Print Settings... , enter your desired settings, and then save them to the template.

All of settings in the driver are stored in the templates but it can be easy to forget that.  Obviously going through  the Printer... button is a safe route and doesn’t take much time, but if you are just clicking Printer .. then clicking Print and not checking and changing anything, there will be no difference in the results.

As to your situation and why it seems an anomaly, I can’t say.  I do know after printing from LR since beta and working with dozens of customers who purchased Epson printers and printing from Lightroom with similar problems, they have always come down to two issues on a Mac.  I myself struggled with this as I began doing my own printing, and when I became part of my current retail operation in 2010 the staff here had terrible problems with the first issue below (I offer this for the sake of those reading this thread in the future that are struggling with issues like this, and not directed to any one person on the thread.  Additionally, I haven’t used Canon printers for quite some time so I’m not sure how the Canon printer driver operates, other than I think it’s pretty safe to say all the Print button does is by pass the Print Settings dialog box no matter what printer you have attached).

First is  understanding that in the printer dialog boxes,  paper size (width and length) and orientation (Portrait and Landscape) have nothing at all to do with the size of the print you are making based on the orientation of the finished image.  The paper size is the width of the paper that is being put into the printer as width and then length of the print.  The orientation is whether the image needs to be turned 90 degrees to fit that sheet of paper.  If I have a 13x19 piece of paper but my image is a landscape orientation so I put 19” as width and 13” as height into the Page Setup, the printer is now expecting me to put a 19” wide piece of paper into it. (obviously a problem with a 17” printer).  I need to tell the printer the size of the paper (13” width and 19” height).  As far as the orientation, the driver is asking if the image needs to be rotated 90 degrees based on the piece of paper going through it.  So if I had a landscape oriented image, and I’m using a p9000, and to shorten the printing time I create a page size that is 19” wide and 13” high and insert the paper accordingly (I do this with almost all sheet paper), then this image to the printer is Portrait orientation .. it doesn’t need to be rotated. At first it seems confusing but that’s because we are dealing with two different things, and the printer settings don’t have a clue and don’t care what you are putting on the paper so all it can do is assume the paper you inserted is  the size you entered and whether it needs to rotate the image.

The other thing that can really mess an image up quick and is quite common is using a Macintosh OS printing preset inside the Print Settings dialog box.  This is the one setting that LR cannot reliably store in the template.  So if you are using a Macintosh OS printing preset inside the Print Settings dialog box to set your paper size etc. inside a template, you can get some really weird stuff when you use that template.  The Mac OS preset store all settings just iike the LR template does, and the two can conflict with each other.  I don’t know how Lightroom and the driver handle conflicts (or cases where the Mac OS preset is no longer there), but   to get reliability out of your templates you need to make sure the Mac OS Presets:  popup is set to Default Settings, then make all of your changes to both dialog boxes, then right click on the template and save them. ( I also see users that will click on the template, then right click on the template to save the changes, which of course doesn’t work because as soon as you click on the template all of the settings reverted to what was already stored in the template.). If you want to use the Mac OS presets to store your prints settings(maybe because you use them in another program), then this is one time I would say using the Print button might not be a good idea, so you can click Printer... and make sure the Mac OS preset is correct and all your other settings are correct. I would add that if you are using LR templates however, it would be far more efficient to just setup all those settings and then save them in the template rather than relying the Mac OS preset.

I have over 100 templates in Lightroom, everything from multiple prints with borders on various sheets of paper to 44”x84” prints.  I had issues with odd things as well when I first starting printing many years ago (an Epson 9600) , but I’m pretty sure it was from using incorrect settings, as now that I pay attention to these two things, I never get partial prints, sideways prints, incorrect prints or really weird borders anymore.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: mbaginy on February 06, 2019, 04:05:37 pm
Wayne, that's a very detailed explanation, thanks.  I've encountered the problem of only partial printing a few times in the past when clicking Print (used to be called print one, I believe).  Every time I clicked Printer... the image printed properly.  When I clicked Print the image was cut off.

I know what LR is supposed to do (as you explained), but my experience shows that in real life results differ.  I haven't a clue if it's limited to my former 3880 or my iMac or another freak combination of hard and software.  All I can say is that I've experienced this a few times and since I no longer click Print, I no longer have the problem.

If I would experience the same performance (oddity) with my current Canon Pro 1000 I can't say.  I won't push my luck and alter my current printing workflow - it works and I don't mind the (one) extra click.
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on February 06, 2019, 08:37:25 pm
I have encountered the problem with LR presets that Wayne mentioned.

When I upgraded my printer from a 3800 to a P800, I had to update a big bunch of my old presets.

Then one day I made a print from a familiar paper on the new printer and the margins were all wrong. I thought I checked everything, and tried several more prints, with the same bad margins.

In desperation I then switched to a different paper using its preset, and the margins were fine. That gave me the clue that something was wrong with the first preset, and comparing the two I finally found the problem. If I recall correctly, it did indeed have to do with rotating the image at some point in the bad preset.

Sigh!
Title: Re: Margins Incorrect when Printing From Lr
Post by: rdonson on February 06, 2019, 08:48:29 pm
The only time I've experienced what drralph showed it was because I screwed up a custom paper size (13x38).  Not the dimensions of the sheet but a needed parameter in the Page Setup.

In the Page Setup window there is a field "Non-Printable Area:"  If left at "User Defined" and some funky values or 0 for "Left, Top, Right and Bottom" you get results like drralph showed.

The solution was to click on the "User Defined" box and choose "EPSON SC-P800 Series".  That's when life returned to normal for me.