Life with an Epson Stylus Pro 7900

Finally, an Ink Change (Temporarily)

2012-03-03T10:35:00.001-07:00

To print the series of painting files I mentioned a couple of posts back, I did a PK/MK swap. These prints will be made on Epson "Ultra Premium Presentation Paper", formerly known as Enhanced Matte Paper. The driver installation for the 7900 includes profiles for this paper for both PK and MK ink. When I printed my profile test image on this paper some time ago, the result was clearly superior with MK ink, just as one would expect.

I pressed the button to initiate the swap. The process takes only a couple of minutes; the printer's LCD displays a progress bar while this is happening. However, it's not really finished when the progress bar reaches 100% and the printer returns to its ready mode. After the ink swap, I inserted a piece of plain bond paper and ran a nozzle check print, as usual. Instead of printing as one might expected, a full cleaning cycle ran.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that my LK ink has been showing 1% remaining for some weeks. After the cleanings I ran earlier in the week to clear the clogs in the LLK channel, that ink too dropped to 1%. When the cleaning cycle started today, the printer displayed this.

The display alternated between the two screens. Notice it does not specify which ink is too low to clean. I assumed, since LK had been showing 1% for some time, that it was the one to change.

The procedure is simple; press the button to open the ink bay (you can choose to open the right bay, the left bay, or both). LK is in the right bay. Making the choice from the control panel pops open the appropriate cover(s). I opened a new LK cartridge (150ml) and shook it as indicated on the package. I then pressed in to unlatch the old LK, slid out the cartridge, and inserted the new one, pressing it in place to latch it. When I closed the bay cover, the printer started the cleaning. This took several minutes to complete. There were no further complaints about low ink, despite the LLK being at 1%.

The right ink bay, with the LK cartridge unlatched and ready to remove.

When it finished, the nozzle check printed on the sheet I'd inserted previously. The nozzle check looked fine. I then opened the right ink bay cover, removed the new LK, and inserted the old one. I put a piece of tape over the opening on the back of the new cartridge. It's probably not necessary, but it can't hurt. I've no way to know how long this cartridge will sit on the shelf before being needed again.

I ran the print job, which required five Super A3/B sheets (13 x 19 inches), and 27 inches (69 cm) from a 17 inch roll.

In the next day or two I'll make a number of prints of my snowy owl images to fill orders that have come in recently. While all of these look good on my preferred gloss papers (GGFS and EEF), several look very nice on the softer surface of mat papers. I'll print those on mat, but to complete the orders I'll have to switch back to PK for the prints I'll make on GGFS.

--Jay

The First Clog in Nearly Two Months

2012-02-29T10:25:00.003-07:00

My recent snowy owl prints have been selling very well. Sunday, a gallery about 20 miles (32 km) south of here had an opening reception for its new show. I'm not one of the two featured artists in the show, but I do have a number of pieces displayed there. A few days before the opening I delivered and hung several different owl photos, in several sizes. Most were framed, but I did take some small matted-and-bagged pieces. I attended the Sunday reception; because the owls are still here (no one knows when they'll return to their arctic breeding grounds, but early March is a good bet), there was a lot of interest in the photos. I spoke with a number of people, and some of the small matted prints sold.

Monday I received a call from the gallery owner. She asked for more owl photos. It seems all of the matted pieces sold, along with one of the smaller framed prints. I love getting this kind of phone call! I promised to bring more of these pictures to the gallery Thursday.

Monday evening I made a number of prints on letter-size sheets. These would be used in matted/bagged pieces and in the smallest frame size I use. As is my usual workflow, I made the files ready to print, printed a nozzle check (no clogs), and then made the prints. Entirely routine. I wanted to make one more larger print to frame, but ran out of time.

Yesterday after dinner, and before other business I had to take care of, I had time to make that larger print. I set up the file for printing, made the nozzle check print (no clogs), and then made the owl print on a Super A3/B (13 x 19 inches) sheet of GGFS. I couldn't believe the result. It's the worst print I've ever made. Color was waaaaay off, and the gloss differential was horrible. These are white birds, so there's always a little of that, but I've never found it objectionable with this paper (or EEF) and the 7900. The entire print had a magenta cast, making the foggy-blue sky background an alien, lavender shade. The owls were pink.

What happens when LLK goes away (left). The snippet on the right shows the correct color.

Sorry for the poor reproduction. These are point-n-shoot snapshots of the prints.

Thinking perhaps I'd made an error when setting the profile, I used a scrap sheet of GGFS, one that had been used for testing something a while back but had most of the sheet unprinted, and started over. I went through each step of my workflow very carefully, made the print, and got the same result. By then I was out of time and had to shelve the problem until this morning.

Today I set up to print, checked my workflow carefully, and then made a nozzle check print. Ah, there's the problem! The entire LLK channel was missing—not a single dot printed. All other channels were 100%. Interesting—last evening I printed a perfect nozzle check, and then printed my owl picture just minutes later. In those minutes, the LLK channel disappeared. I should mention there's plenty of LLK in the cartridge. This is the first clog I've seen since 3 January.

I did a cleaning of the Y/LLK pair, and then printed a nozzle check. LLK showed a few line segments in the print, but nearly all of the nozzles were still missing. I did a second cleaning of that pair, this time a "power clean". The nozzle check after that was perfect. Right away I made a small print of last night's failed picture. It looked great. So I resized and sharpened for the larger version, loaded a sheet of GGFS, and made the print. Perfect.

It's all a little puzzling, as the machine has been trouble-free since that last clog was cleaned in early January. I had no trouble with the prints made Monday, the nozzle check printed on Tuesday was perfect. Hmmm....

Tomorrow I'll be making a dozen client prints in various sizes, all on mat paper. I'll be watching carefully as each print emerges from the machine.

--Jay

A New Client, Routine Print Jobs

2012-02-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

I've probably mentioned I'm the Gallery Director at the Sandpiper Art Gallery, a non-profit gallery here in Polson, MT. Nothing to get excited about; it's a volunteer position, as are all others on the gallery's board of directors. In fact, there are no paid employees—it's volunteer-run. It works much like the typical co-op gallery, operated by gallery members, but being a 501-c3 (non-profit), we can't call it a co-op. All of this is a little beside my point, anyway.

One of the SAG's member artists is a very talented and busy watercolor painter. Using a service in Kalispell, MT, she's had several of her paintings scanned, those scans being saved as Photoshop files. The files are 8-bit, in the sRGB color space, and are 300ppi. She's done quite well with prints, which she insists on calling giclées, from these files. I've seen the original paintings in close proximity to the prints; the service bureau did a good job with color matching, etc.

A couple of months ago she got a call from the service bureau, informing her they were shutting down immediately; if she wanted her files, she'd have to go there (about a 100 mile/160 km round trip) and pick up a DVD no later than the next day. She did that, and began looking for a new source for her prints. Although we've known each other for a few years, it never occurred to her that I could print her files, and of course I was unaware of the need. Late last year I made some prints for one of the Sandpiper's other member artists, who passed the word along.

Last week I picked up the DVD and made some test prints on the same paper the service bureau used, Epson's Ultra Premium Presentation Paper (matte), formerly known as Enhanced Matte. I don't use this paper for my own work, but I have some inventory of letter size sheets, which my wife uses when printing color signs and business graphics on an antique HP "PhotoSmart" printer we have on our network. From my earliest days with my now-departed iPF 5000, I also have some A3/B sheets of the stuff. This paper is not lignin-free, and thanks to OBAs is a very bright white. It's inexpensive, and has it's place (obviously, as it's what this client wants), but it's not something I'll use for my own work.

A few days ago I ran the sample prints, using the "EnhancedMattePaper_PK" profile that was installed with the 7900's driver software. I used that because I didn't want to switch to MK ink. I very rarely print on mat papers, so I very rarely use MK, which is why it's still at 52% (since installation in late October). The print jobs were completely routine, starting with a nozzle check (no clogs), and then running the prints.

I delivered the test prints today. We compared them to a few remaining prints from the service bureau. To my eye they're as close to a perfect match as one could expect. My new client was delighted.

I need only up-sample the files from 300 to 360ppi and print. To save the client a little money, I made new files that put two of the smaller size prints on a single 13x19 sheet. I will do the same for the larger size print, which will print on roll paper I'll order for these jobs.

--Jay

One Percent is a LOT, More on LexJet Papers

2012-02-15T11:59:00.004-07:00

Since my last posting I've made a number of prints, spread out over those nine days. In some cases I made several prints on the same day, with some hours between those jobs. In all cases I printed a nozzle check as usual prior to the first job of the day. If I printed later that day I didn't bother with the nozzle check print. Through yesterday, when I made several 13 x 19 inch (Super A3/B) prints, the nozzle check prints have shown no clogs. Given the lambasting the 7900 seems to be getting in various forums and other venues because of clogging issues, I continue to be happily surprised.

Also surprising is that the LK ink is still showing 1%. I have not kept track of the quantity and sizes of prints I've made since LK first dropped to 1%, but I'd guess it's 25-30, not including the nozzle checks. Perhaps half of the prints have been Super A3/B or B size (13 x 19 and 11x17 inches, respectively). At least two have been long panoramas on 17 inch roll paper. The rest have been letter size. This strikes me as a lot of printing from the remaining 1% of a color I suspect is used, to a greater or lesser degree, in nearly every print I make.

I bought LK, VM, and C inks, those showing the lowest levels, back in December. These inks have expiration dates fairly far out—mid-2013. Still, it's clear if one prints at the low volume I do, one should not order ink too soon.

In my last posting I mentioned the LexJet Sunset Portfolio paper sample pack I have, that I wasn't impressed with the papers' overall tone, and that most of the sheets were in poor condition. Since that posting I've made a print on one sheet of Sunset Fibre Gloss 295, and on one sheet of Sunset Fibre Satin 300. Although the tone of the unprinted sheets seems a bit gray, using profiles downloaded from LexJet the resulting prints are very nice. When soft proofing in Photoshop I preferred the look with the relative colorimetric intent, so I used that when printing.

I'm still having fun photographing the snowy owls that arrived here in late December, and I've been fortunate to get some flight shots in very nice, soft light. I made the pictures on a morning when heavy fog was moving through in bands. For a time it would be so foggy I couldn't see the owls (try photographing white birds in fog!). Fifteen minutes later the fog would move out, and in another five the sky would be pure blue. A few minutes later I'd be immersed in fog again. During the transitions, when the thinning (or thickening) fog filtered the morning sun, the light was fantastic. I printed these flight photos on the LexJet papers, and was very pleased with the results. Perhaps the somewhat flat tone of the papers lends itself to the sort of light I had when photographing. I have not yet printed my usual profile test images on these papers.

Unfortunately, when I checked the prices on these papers, I found they are not bargains. I can get my favorite paper, Ilford's GGFS, for very similar prices. Even Epson's Exhibition Fiber isn't much more expensive. Clearly I've no reason to do any testing or otherwise spend time with the LexJet papers.

--Jay

Another Print Job, LexJet Papers

2012-02-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

Things have been a little slow here lately. Although I've been chasing around the snowy owls, as mentioned in previous postings, conditions haven't been good for photography over the past two weeks or so. During that time I've been out shooting only a couple of times (in addition to the owls). I wrapped up a large art repro job in January, and also completed some client print jobs. With nothing in the pipeline I had time to do some printing of my own work.

Over the weekend I received a number of files from a client in Atlanta. He's a very interesting person who has had an amazing medical career, one from which he can't seem to retire. Photography is his attitude adjustment therapy. His photographs are among the most unusual I've seen; very creative, very colorful, often quite surreal. He's got a great eye, and most of his work is heavily manipulated in Photoshop to get the effect he likes. I really enjoy printing his stuff. This time around he sent a series of fairly traditional landscape/scenic photos. Not his usual fare, but still pretty nice.

I started as usual, by printing a nozzle check. No clogs. My LK ink is still showing 1%, as it has for weeks. I made the four prints on 13 x 19 inch ("Super A3/B") sheets of GGFS, after which the LK was still at 1%. Every time I print I expect to have to replace this cartridge in the middle of the job.

I bought the 7900 from LexJet. The sales person asked about my favorite papers. I then let him talk me into buying LexJet's Sunset Portfolio Pack, containing two sheets each of five different fiber-based papers. The salesman claimed these papers were very much like the more expensive GGFS and EEF I most often used. I'd not opened that package until a few days ago.

The first thing I saw was that the sheets were in poor condition, with scratches and other rub marks. Not a great first impression. I also discovered that the sheets are not marked, making it challenging to determine which sheets are which paper. I was about to call for clarification when I realized the sheets where in the pack in the order listed on the included advertising sheet. There's no mention of that, but after examining the sheets it becomes fairly clear.

Since I'd just completed four prints on GGFS, I compared the gloss and satin papers in the LexJet pack to the GGFS sheets drying on my drawing table. GGFS is a warm paper with a soft gloss. It is absolutely my favorite, and most-used, paper. The Sunset Fibre series in my LexJet pack are an odd tone. One is quite warm, much more so than GGFS. The others aren't warm, but they aren't bright white, like EEF, either. The best word I can use to describe the LexJet papers is "gray". The nicest of the lot is the Sunset Fibre Elite, which has a bit more surface texture than GGFS and is cooler in tone. But it's not a bright white—it looks gray to me, rather dull.

I've downloaded LexJet's profiles for these; one day I'll get around to printing my profile test images. However, given the condition of the sheets, and the overall tone of the papers, I'm not expecting much. In the sample pack this stuff cost $4.00 (US) per sheet. My recommendation today: save your money. If I feel differently after printing some test images, I'll report back here.

--Jay

Another Owl Print; No Clogs After Ten Days

2012-02-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

It's been ten days since I made my last print. The 7900 has been on, but in power-save (sleep) mode since 27 January. ANC is off, so the printer does not wake for periodic nozzle checks and cleanings.

Today I made another print of a snowy owl photo, this one a vertical on B size (11 x 17 inches) Canson Infinity Platine Fiber Rag 310. This is a lovely paper, 100% cotton, no optical brightening agents, stiff and very flat, and with a wonderful soft gloss—softer, even than GGFS. I used the profile available on Canson's site. When I made my test prints with this paper and profile, I noted the profile was "just OK", not great. I've read comments on the Luminous Landscape Printers, Papers, and Ink forum from people who think Canson's profiles in general are pretty bad.

I printed a nozzle check as usual, no problems found. Room RH was 40%, temperature 57°F (14C). I was making this print to fit a mat and frame I have on-hand. I set the print size to 10.6 x 15.8 inches (26.9 x 40 cm). To insure a sufficiently wide top margin for hinge mounting, I rotated the image in Photoshop 180°, putting the top of the picture at the bottom. In the print driver dialog I set the paper size to the standard US B 11x17 (sheet), and checked the Center Image checkbox. The image was upside down in the preview.

The print exited the printer bottom first. The measured right and left margins are just under .25 inch. The top margin is slightly more than .75 inch. The print is nice enough; sky color is slightly less blue than on-screen, but it's acceptable. I oversharpened a bit. If I print this picture again I'll sharpen a bit less.

The LK ink is still at 1%. The maintenance cartridge is up to 61%!

The owls are still with us. I'm not getting a lot of photographs, but I still go every couple of days to the area where the birds are hanging out, still hoping to get that flight shot. The latest article on my Web site has a bit more about this, along with some photos.

--Jay

Margins and Centering

2012-01-30T14:31:00.002-07:00

As I've described here before, thanks to a long-standing bug in Epson's Mac OS driver, centering images on cut sheets is a hassle, although it's relatively straight forward when printing on roll paper. Somewhat associated with the centering issue is the 7900's inability to print with very narrow margins (again, on cut sheets), especially the trailing edge of the sheet as it exits the printer. That margin's minimum is slightly more than half an inch (1.3 cm) because the printer needs something to hold on to at the end of the page.

So, just print with half-inch or greater margins, right? Right—that'll work fine, and if you want your image centered (using a Mac), do a little math and enter the appropriate values in the printer driver dialog box.

I'm coming from several years of using a Canon iPF 5000, which could print with 3mm margins (less than 1/8 inch) on all four sides of cut sheets. I regularly made prints with narrow end margins on letter-size sheets. My inventory includes a number of small frames and mats, roughly 17 inches x 13 inches (43 x 33 cm); the mat opening for these is 10.25 x 6.7 inches (26 x 17 cm). I'd make the print about 10.5 inches wide x 7 inches high, and then over mat so there's no white border of paper. In landscape orientation, this left plenty of margin to hinge-mount the print, especially if I printed off center a little to make the top (longest) margin a bit wider than the bottom. This was easily set up and controlled with the Canon driver or print plug-in, so there were no surprises when the print was made. I got exactly what I expected.

Epson's documentation makes it clear that cut sheets should be inserted into the printer in portrait orientation, that is, with a narrow edge first. From the User's Guide: "Make sure you load paper in the portrait orientation (short edge first)." Following those instructions, I'd insert my sheet into the printer, and in the printer driver uncheck the Center Image checkbox. I'd leave the top margin as it was (centered), and set the left margin to something very narrow. I experimented with this, wasting lots of paper, only to learn the printer will not print wider than about 10.2 inches on letter size sheets. I created a custom paper size of 8.5 x 11 inches with zero margins, but even with that, the image would be clipped at 10.2 inches. It appeared I'd not be able to make any new prints for my inventory of these frames.

But there IS a way to make these prints: create a custom paper size of 11 x 8.5 inches, with a .25 inch top margin, zero margins on the remaining sides. Insert the sheet into the printer with the long edge first. This is a challenge for these small sheets, as this orientation leaves no paper edge above the top of the printer. It's necessary to drop the sheet into place. With some practice I was able to drop it straight, and square with the alignment mark on the printer.

The result is shown here. The image size is 6.93 x 10.4 inches (17,2 x 26.4 cm). I measured the actual margins at slightly under .25 inches left, .375 inches right, slightly under .875 inches top, and a little over .625 inches bottom. The print area measured exactly what I expected.

This requires more effort than the old Canon did, but it means I can use my remaining inventory of these frames and mats. Once these frames are gone I won't order more. I'm not keen on making prints this size anyway. I didn't buy the 7900 to make letter-size prints!

--Jay

The Story of a Shockingly Thorough Stylus Pro 7900 Tear-down

2012-01-28T12:21:00.002-07:00

This is amazing; it took very little time for that thread to become quite long, and it'll no doubt grow. Eric and his friend Steve are very brave, and also very generous to share their experience. The photos Eric shares show an incredibly complex machine. Some of his comments (perhaps revelations) are disturbing; for example, he suggests some parts of the printer require annual service. I don't know how a prospective buyer would ever learn that, as Epson certainly hasn't disclosed any such thing in its product literature. Whether it's true or not, it certainly raises some questions.

As my backstory article explains, I chose the 7900 when replacing my Canon imageProGraf in large part because of the cost of replacing the Canon's printheads, and the lack of certainty about their life span. Only time will tell if I made a wise choice, or if my reasoning was valid. That's what this blog is about: one person's long-term experience with one example of the machine.

Best of luck to Eric and Steve. We'll all know in a few days if their hard work and expense paid off.

--Jay

Another Driver Update (Mac Snow Leopard)

2012-01-26T11:37:00.006-07:00

On 24 January Epson posted to the US site an update to the Mac driver for the 7900. This takes the driver from version 8.66 to 8.68. About this update, Epson says, "This version corrects a potential issue when using Auto Expand setting. Common Updater is not required with this driver." I've not yet used the auto-expand setting, which I think is for use when making borderless prints. The release notes also indicate this update is for OS X Leopard (10.5.8, specifically), Snow Leopard, and Lion. I use Snow Leopard, OS X 10.6.8. The download page includes installation instructions, pretty standard fare. There's no mention of a requirement to uninstall the previous driver, so I didn't. After installing the update and checking the version, I see this:

This is similar to what I saw after my update from 8.65 to 8.66 eighteen days ago. My original installation of the printer, back in October, 2011, was with the 8.65 driver. It appears I'll be reminded of that with each new update unless (perhaps) I remove (uninstall) the printer and then install it using the latest driver.

I'll be making some prints later today. These "point level" updates rarely have any obvious changes, and certainly offer no new features, so I don't expect to notice any difference.

--Jay

Printing for ME!

2012-01-25T10:21:00.007-07:00

I've wrapped up my backlog of printing jobs and other client work. I have a show coming up around the middle of next month at a local gallery. I've selected the pieces I'll print for this, to add to the inventory of framed work I already have laid out for the exhibit, but I've simply not had time to do any printing of my own work.

Today I made one print, an assembly of three horizontal frames into a nearly square photo. As usual I printed a nozzle check, and found no clogs. The last clog was 3 January, 22 days ago, and was cleared by cleaning the appropriate nozzle pair. I've used the printer two days each week since 3 Jan, sometimes making a number of prints, other days making only one or two. During this period the relative humidity in the room has been between 36% and 40%, and somewhat cool, rarely over 62° F (17 C). The 7900 seems happy with that!

The arrow points to the flaw on the sheet, but it's nearly
impossible to see at the size of this jpeg. The signature is
only for this jpeg. I don't sign my prints like this!

I made the print on a 13 x 19 inch sheet ("Super A3 / B 13 x 19 inch (sheet)" in Epson's terms) of EEF*. The sheet had a small flaw, a problem I've been seeing in the last few sheets of this paper I've used. EEF isn't cheap; small dark spots or other flaws in the paper are unacceptable. I've got 13 x 19 and 17 x 22 sheets in inventory; I've learned to check each sheet carefully before printing. I'm not alone in having this problem. I plan to contact Epson about it, as I know others have done. As things stand now, I'm unlikely to continue to purchase this paper. It's a shame; I love the surface, the print quality, and the fairly bright white of the paper. My other favorite "soft-gloss" paper, GGFS*, is much warmer in tone, but I find it works well for the majority of my images, and in several years of use I've found no flawed sheets.

In this case, because the image is about 12 inches (30cm) square, it was easy to set the top margin to 1.5 inches (4cm), which left a wide bottom margin which contained the flaw. It will disappear when I cut the sheet prior to matting it.

The LK* ink is still at 1%. With each print I make I'm prepared to install a new LK tank. I'll be making some large panorama prints tomorrow; given how long LK has been showing 1%, I full expect to replace that ink during tomorrow's printing.

--Jay

* See the "Shortcuts used" box in the right column.

Clog-free For Two Weeks (And Counting)

2012-01-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the art repro project I mentioned here in early January. It's been a large job, but its finally winding down. I've got one more painting to complete. I'm doing the photography—some of these are large paintings, requiring multiple exposures later stitched together—and then the Photoshop work to assemble the frames, make various corrections, and do the color matching. I'm not doing the printing. The paintings are oils on canvas, and I've no interest in printing on canvas. Mostly, I've no interest in coating the canvas, in dealing with that learning curve and the potential for generating scrap.

I am proofing my work by making small prints on mat (or "matte", for those who insist) paper. Getting the color right has been easy for some of these pictures, not so easy for others. Regardless, I've been making a fair number of proof prints before finally getting it right.

As usual, prior to making my first proof of the day, I print a nozzle check on plain paper. I print perhaps two or three days a week—never (so far) more than that. The last time I had to clear a clog was 3 January. That was in the Y channel, and was cleared by doing a Y/LLK pair cleaning. There's some consensus that temperature and relative humidity affects the frequency of clogs with these machines. My 7900 is in a room that's heated only when in use, so the temperature swings more than it would in a typical living space. With the heat on, the room is 65 to 70 degrees F (18 - 21 C). With the heat off it can drop as low as 56° F (13 C). When the printer is running, it's usually in the mid-60s. RH varies, too. The lowest I've recorded is 35%; I've seen it as high as 46%. I've only had the printer for a couple of months, those being wintery ones here. In summer that room will be a few degrees warmer. Our humidity levels typically drop, sometimes dramatically, in summer. I note the RH on my nozzle-check prints, so I'll be able to watch the trend.

Printer status display on the Mac

The LK ink is still at 1%. Interestingly, the 7900 today showed the maintenance cartridge at 56%. Since the middle of December, that has varied from 49% up to today's reading. I've no idea how the printer senses that capacity, but I suspect it doesn't sense it at all. I think it's more likely a (rough, apparently) total of the amount of ink used in cleanings, in addition, in this case, to any waste ink from the initial set-up process.

I now have five inks below 20%, which means the printer's LCD, and the status display in the intuitively-named "Epson Printer Utility 4", are showing five ! marks for those inks.

There's always something flashing on this machine. If there's no paper loaded, the paper LED flashes. Unless the printer is asleep, in which case the LCD is blanked, the ! marks are flashing over the status bars for the inks below 20%. I use a large sheet of thin foam, from the original packaging of the printer, as a dust cover. The sheet is not opaque, but it does somewhat dim the flashing stuff, making it a bit less eye-catching when I enter the room.

I've been out doing some winter shooting lately (we've had a mini-irruption of snowy owls here in western Montana's Mission Valley—great fun!); with the repro job winding down, and other client work at a bit lower priority, I should soon have time to print some of my own stuff.

--Jay

Driver Update (Mac Snow Leopard)

2012-01-08T18:33:00.001-07:00

In my previous posting I mentioned Epson had released updates for the 7900 driver, and also for the helpfully-named "Epson LFP Remote Panel 2" for Macintosh OS X 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7 (I use 10.6.8, Snow Leopard). I'd avoided installing those because I'd been working on some client jobs, things were working fine, and I rarely make changes in the middle of a job.

I've wrapped up those print jobs. I will be working on another later this week. I also need to make a couple of prints of my own work for a gallery show that will hang next week. So today I installed both updates. I did nothing but run the installers, hoping the old versions of the software would be found and replaced. That seemed to be the case with the Remote Panel 2 software; after installing, its version appears as 1.30, just as I expected from Epson's meager release notes. As for the driver, I'm really not sure. The previous version was 8.65, the update being 8.66. I ran the installer and then checked the version in the Mac's Print and Fax preferences panel. That still shows 8.65.

But checking Epson's "Printer Utility 4" (one could ask for more useful application names!), I get a mixed message as shown in the screen shot here. I have no idea what's up with Epson's versioning, and I have no idea what I've got after installing that update. Do I have 8.65? 8.66? Some weird hybrid, parts of each? Beats me. Epson, you could have done a couple of things here to help out. Installation instructions would be a good start. Just telling me whether the printer should be removed and then installed from scratch with the new driver, or to install the new driver "over" the old one, would have been sufficient.

Friend Dean, who runs his 7900 from Windows 7, warned that installing Epson's updates deleted any custom paper sizes he'd created. With that in mind I copied the information from the only custom sheet size I've created so I could reproduce that after the update. But that, along with some custom roll paper sizes I didn't need to keep, were preserved after the update.

After this update I made a print of one of my photos on EEF, 17x22 inch sheet. The print is fine, and since I checked the "Center Image" checkbox in the driver, the print is considerably off-center, as is the norm, so the update didn't fix an obvious flaw. With that box checked, my 21 inch wide photo has a .25 inch left margin, and a .75 inch right margin (landscape orientation). Pretty much what I've come to expect.

Prior to the update I'd made ten letter-sized prints for a client, and a 43 inch wide panorama on 17 inch roll paper. After the update and my 17 x 22 inch print, the LK ink is still showing 1% remaining. My recent nozzle checks have shown no clogs, so there have been no cleanings lately.

--Jay

Busy, But Not Busy Printing

2012-01-02T09:57:00.001-07:00

My 7900 has been sitting idle for a while, but I have not. A few days before Christmas I picked up an art repro job, which in the end will require photographing a series of oil-on-canvas paintings, and then assembling and color-correcting the captures. I've no interest in printing on canvas, so the client will have the files I provide printed elsewhere, perhaps at a printing service in Polson, MT, the town nearest to where I live. But when doing this kind of job I print a series of proofs, which I use to verify the color correction work. The proofs are letter-size sheets, quick, simple printing jobs.

My panorama client found the last print I made for him was damaged, most likely in shipping (thanks very much, USPS), so I made another print and shipped it last Tuesday. USPS said it would arrive Thursday (via Priority Mail). It did not, and had not arrived as of Saturday. The Post Office is closed today. If the print hasn't arrived after tomorrow's delivery, I'll be making yet another copy of the 43 inch long bleeding hearts pano shown in my previous (18 December) posting.

I received my order of ink and paper before Christmas. Printing the proofs and the pano have moved the LK ink down to 1%.

Epson has released an updated Mac driver, and also an update for the LFP Remote Panel 2 utility. Epson's release notes are typically terse, but apparently these are very minor updates. I haven't had time to install them.

I ran across this posting on the Luminous Landscape Printers, Papers, and Ink forum. Some of the comments are interesting. This is the sort of information I didn't find when I did my research prior to buying the 7900, leading to the creation of this blog.

I need to print a couple of my own pieces for a show coming up later this month. I'll get that done as soon as I wrap up some of the paying jobs!

--Jay

Granularity

2011-12-18T11:39:00.001-07:00

Printed photo © Stephen E. Ross.

A couple of days ago I made another print for my client who shoots only multi-frame panoramas. As usual, prior to printing the job I made a nozzle check print on plain bond paper. I unloaded the roll paper, printed the nozzle check (no clogs), and then loaded the same roll back into the printer.

While doing this I didn't notice anything unusual on the 7900's LCD. For some time it's been showing three inks, C, VM, and LK, as low, flashing a warning icon above each color on the display. This icon appears when the ink level drops below 20%. I have occasionally looked at the ink levels in the status display. Most of the inks are in the 30%—40% range. This should last quite a while considering the number of prints I'm likely to make over the next several months. The three colors flashing the warnings have been in the low teens each time I've checked, and are clearly the ones I'll need to replace soonest.

Since making the panoramic print I've not needed the printer. When it sleeps the LCD turns off, but the low ink LED continues to flash. Unless I'm setting up to make a print, I generally don't pay much attention. Apparently one learns to ignore the presence even of something as large as the 7900.

Today I was quite surprised to learn that the LK ink level was at 2%. I don't recall it's level the last time I looked at the status menu on the LCD or the printer utility on the computer, but I'm sure it was 8%, maybe 9%. I'd guess that was a week or perhaps ten days ago. In any case, I need to order ink right now.

What's interesting about all of this is the granularity of ink level, and remaining maintenance cartridge capacity, as reported by the 7900. Unless and until I learn otherwise, I'll assume these levels are reported fairly accurately. My Canon iPF 5000 reported these data in 20% increments. When a new ink tank was installed, the printer's LCD would display a "full bar" for that color, and the status report would show 100%, just as one would expect. However, neither the bar nor the status report would change until the ink level dropped to 80%. Then, the bar would shorten by two pixels, and the printed status report would show 80%. These would not change again until the level had dropped to 60%. This limited the usefulness of the information. Once the level reached 20%, there was no way to know when the level had dropped to a point where one should order ink. To be fair to Canon, a later firmware update added a new "level", helpfully shown as "replace soon". I operated that printer long enough to learn when, during the period between 20% and "replace soon", to order ink.

The Epson's 1% granularity is nice, but I need to develop the habit of checking ink status a little more regularly. The LK seems to have dropped suddenly, or rapidly, from the high single digits to 2%. That could indicate some kind of problem, but it's more likely I simply missed seeing levels in between.

--Jay

Fixing the Paper Basket

2011-12-12T18:48:00.003-07:00

I've mentioned that the fabric basket that's supposed to catch prints as they exit the 7900 seems a less than ideal solution. In my 1 December posting I showed a photo of the corner of a panoramic print, as it emerged from the printer, catching on the fabric of the basket. I mentioned I'd rigged a temporary "fix" for this.

Today I ran a small print job for a client. These weren't large prints; they were made on paper from a 17" wide roll. The cut length of each was 19 inches (a bit over 48 cm). Shown here is my hardware hack.

Ugly, but cheap, and effective for reasonably sized prints. Note the extensions
to the Velcro straps, which allow the basket to hang open a bit, providing
an edge, of sorts, to catch the print.

The cardboard sheet is obvious; it provides a smooth and rigid surface over which the corners of the paper slide easily. Less obvious in the picture are the extensions to the pair of Velcro straps that normally hold the paper basket in its closed position. If these straps are released, the paper basket in its front-feed mode becomes a ramp; when the print emerges and is released (or cut) by the printer, the paper slides down that ramp onto the floor. But at least it does that with the print side up. I've sometimes put my large self-healing cutting mat on the floor so the prints could "land" on its smooth, slippery surface rather than the concrete floor.

If the basket is arranged so prints are fed to the rear, the prints drop (or in the case of long panoramic prints, coil up) under the printer, and do so with the printed side down.

My temporary fix to this is for feeding prints to the front, and allows them to exit smoothly, without catching on the fabric. They are caught and held by the basket. Prints are not dumped onto the floor. Of course, for large prints this hack isn't appropriate, and would no doubt present its own set of problems. I think for large prints the basket should be deployed as designed for front-feeding, a piece of cardboard or foam core should be used to prevent the paper from catching on the fabric, and a protective mat, something like the cutting mat I've used, placed on the floor.

If you've found a good solution to this, please share!

Prior to making today's client prints I'd had MK ink loaded. These newest prints were made on Canon HW Satin paper, which I use for most of my contract print jobs, so it was necessary to switch to PK ink. I removed the roll of matte paper and then pressed the printer's ink swap button. The process took a couple of minutes, displaying a progress bar on the LCD. When it finished I inserted a sheet of plain paper and initiated a nozzle check print. The LCD showed "Cleaning" for about six minutes, and then the nozzle check printed. It showed no clogs. I then installed the roll of HW Satin and printed as usual. The prints dropped nicely into my "improved" paper basket.

--Jay

More Client Jobs, and a Firmware Update

2011-12-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

Sunday (4 Dec) I picked up a small photo restoration job. The final prints would be made on a gloss paper (GGFS -- see the shortcuts list at right for definitions of this and other abbreviations). From the previous job, PK ink was already loaded, so I did the restoration job Tuesday and then set up to print as usual. I printed a nozzle check, and found both O and G significantly clogged. I'd recently read a posting on the Luminous Landscape forums in which the poster theorized owners of 7900/9900 printers aren't really seeing nozzle clogs, but rather, a lack of ink being delivered to the head. I've no way to know if that's true, but the result is the same; a nozzle check print looks terrible in one or more channels. In this case, O and G are conveniently paired; doing a cleaning on that pair cleared the clogs. I then made the three 5 inch high by 7.4 inch wide prints on letter size (8.5 x 11 inch) sheets, paper size set to "US Letter (sheet)", with the Center image box checked. The print was off center on the long axis by about half an inch. For the second print, exactly the same size, I unchecked the Center image box, added .25 inches to the left margin, and then printed with no other changes. The print was close to centered, off only a sixteenth of an inch, give or take. For the third same-size print I adjusted the left margin slightly; the print was then exactly centered. Trial and error seems the only way....

With that small job out of the way, I returned to an earlier client's job, the one I mentioned in the 25 November posting. The client was happy with the first set of four prints, and asked that I photograph and print a fifth drawing. Each drawing requires four photographs, which are then stitched using Photoshop's PhotoMerge application. I set up, made the captures, did the Photoshop work, and then prepared to make the print.

The earlier prints were made on matte paper (Moab Entrada Natural 300 gsm). Since PK was loaded, I needed to switch to MK, reversing the process described in my 1 December posting. This took about two minutes. I printed a nozzle check, which showed no clogs. Interestingly, unlike the ink swap on 1 December, this time the printer started up and made the check print immediately. It did not go through the several minute process I'd seen before after an ink swap, in which the head traveled the full width of the carriage several times, the printer made noise for a few minutes, and then, finally, the image printed. I've no idea why the behavior was not consistent. I loaded the roll of Entrada and made the client's print. It was perfect, and it's properly centered, as seems generally to be the case when printing from roll paper. When finished, I removed the roll of Entrada.

I then installed a new firmware update from Epson. This is HN030B9. It had been reported on the Epson UK site a week or so ago, but I decided to wait until it appeared on the US site. It did, so I used the Epson LFP Remote Panel 2 application (Macintosh) to perform the update. The Firmware Updater was unable to find the printer, or reported it as "not ready". Since I'd just completed a print job, I knew there was no communication problem with my networked printer. After trying several times, I realized the "not ready" message should be taken literally. I'd removed the roll paper, and with no paper loaded, the 7900 is "not ready"! I loaded a sheet of plain bond paper and tried again. This time there were no complaints from the Firmware Updater. It found the printer, downloaded the update from some Epson server, installed it, and then restarted the printer.

This afternoon I spoke with the drawing repro client and learned she wants a total of four prints of the most recent drawing. A few minutes ago I printed a nozzle check (no clogs), opened the client's file, loaded the roll of Entrada, set up the print job, and set the quantity to three. It's the first time I've printed more than one of anything as one print job. The 7900 printed each image, cut the paper, and then printed the next. All nicely centered. Rather than stand and watch the process so I could catch each print as it was cut from the roll, I made a slight modification to the catch basket. The basket now catches these smallish prints (17 inches wide by 14 inches high) in front of the printer, rather than dumping them on the floor as the normal "feed to the front" basket arrangement does. I'll describe this more after I make my temporary rigging more permanent.

--Jay

Busy, Busy....

2011-12-01T11:03:00.004-07:00

November was a busy month. It's looking like December won't be much less so. While working against deadlines on several projects, a few days ago I received a print order via my Web site. About the same time I got an order from an existing printing client, to print one of his images. Interestingly, both jobs were for panoramas, although the files to be printed were quite different.

A woman in Connecticut ordered a print of one of my photos of the Mission Mountain range. This was made in January, 2003, on a morning when inversional fog was moving into the valley. It had been a fairly mild winter so far, and the cottonwoods were still in pretty good shape, adding some nice color to the image. I was still shooting film then.

This has always been a difficult image to print. It's a film scan (Fuji Provia F-100), a little grainy to start with. It's also a significant crop, with nearly half the slide cropped out. The buyer wanted a 32 inch (81cm) wide print. I first printed this image with my Canon iPF 5000 for a commission back in 2007. That client wanted the print "as large as you can make it", which turned out to be around 54 inches (137cm) wide. Still, even at 32 inches it is a challenge to sharpen. The image is a little soft, and as mentioned, somewhat grainy.

I sized this as usual in Photoshop, upsampling to 360ppi, bicubic smoother. I used Photoshop's Smart Sharpen and printed several 6 inch test strips, mostly from the right edge of the frame. I wasn't happy with the result. The right-most cottonwood tree, and the fir tree to its left, were softer than I'd remembered from my prints made with the Canon. I have a slightly smaller version of this print, made with the Canon, framed and hangning in a local gallery. I took my test strips to the gallery and compared them to the framed print. Hmmmm.... Pretty close. Perhaps I've become pickier about print quality since the framed print was made (my wife would say that's impossible to imagine).

Returning home, I tweaked the file a bit more and then made the print on Moab Entrada Natural 300, a 17 inch wide roll. To make the print I created a custom paper size, 17 inches x 34 inches. Top and bottom margins: 0.6 inch, left and right margins: 0.25 inch.

The print is perfectly centered. I'd call the print quality acceptable, especially considering the mat-finished paper tends to soften the look a bit, but my work is typically better. When I have some time I'll work on this, perhaps with different software for upsampling. It's possible there's simply not sufficient data to make better prints at this size, but I won't know until I've explored some options.

The second job was quite different. The file was from a client who shoots very wide panoramas. His file was too large for Photoshop's .psd format. He wanted a 34 inch (86cm) wide print. The file easily accommodated 720ppi without upsampling. I printed this on 17" wide Canon Heavyweight Satin 300, the paper I use for most client jobs, and one which this client likes. This required switching the printer from MK (matte black) to PK (photo black) ink. By default the printer does not do this automatically; it requires the press of a button on the machine's control panel. I removed the roll of Entrada, and then printed a nozzle check print on plain paper. This showed clogs in the orange channel. I pressed the button to switch inks. The switch took about two minutes, during which this progress bar was displayed on the printer's LCD. When the progress bar disappeared and the LCD showed the standard "ready" status, I printed a nozzle check. That's when I learned that the ink swap really wasn't finished. Upon setting up to print the nozzle check, the printer made noise and moved the carriage around for over five minutes! I'm guessing it did a head cleaning. Eventually it printed the nozzle check and showed no clogs.

I fed the satin paper (love that roll holder!), set up the print job, and printed. Color and sharpness are perfect.

When printing images from heavier roll papers, the paper curl as it exits the printer is significant. The leading corners of the paper tend to catch on the fabric of the paper basket when the basket is set up to feed paper to the front (that is, spill the paper onto the floor in front of the printer). You can see in the picture at left that the bottom-right corner of the print is hung up on the fabric of the basket. I found it necessary to stand there holding the leading corners to assure smooth feeding of the paper out of the machine. It may have worked fine without my intervention, but I didn't want to risk damaging the print if it hung up on the basket and couldn't feed out of the machine properly.

The alternative is to set up the basket to feed paper under the machine. This would drag the printed side of the paper against the plastic strips supporting the basket. This seems like a bad idea. If the print is long enough it might continue to feed out the rear of the machine onto the floor or, in my case, pile up against the wall behind the printer. Given the design of the paper basket, I think I'm going to be hand-holding the printer's output of large prints. More likely I'll place a sheet of foam-core over the fabric basket, making a smooth ramp over which the paper should slide easily.

The photo being printed is © Stephen E. Ross.

--Jay

Blog Note

2011-11-30T20:12:00.003-07:00

I posted a new article to my site today, about the decision-making process behind my purchase of the 7900. It's a bit longer than my usual monthly articles, but then, it wasn't an easy decision for me to make. The article can be seen as the "backstory" for this blog. I've added a permanent link to the article to the heading at the top of the blog page.

I've also added a block to the right listing abbreviations and other shorthand I tend to use in postings, along with definitions. I've received a few comments from people saying they didn't understand things like "GGFS" in my postings. Since I probably can't break myself of the habit of using such shortcuts, I hope the definitions help.

--Jay

Rolling Along

2011-11-25T18:33:00.001-07:00

Since my last posting I've made a number of prints each day. I'm working on a job for a client, photographing some original artwork and producing smaller-than-original prints. The originals are colored pencil drawings on sheets of textured, very warm-toned drawing paper. The sheets are 22 inches high by a little over 27 inches wide. I photographed each drawing in four "strips", which were then stitched together using Photoshop's PhotoMerge application. This resulted in a high pixel count file for each picture.

I had some challenges matching the prints' colors to those in the original drawings. Getting that right is what took most of the hours I've got into the job; this isn't related to the 7900, so I won't spend time on that part of the story here, except to say the prints from the Epson are excellent matches to what I see on my monitors (which are profiled, of course).

I made the first print five days ago. Prior to that I'd not used the printer in several days. As usual, I started by printing a nozzle check print. No clogs were found. I then made several test strips on a cheap matte paper, tinkering with color between each. The last test strip looked fine, so I loaded my roll of Moab Entrada Natural (a 300 gsm matte paper) and made the final print.

The 7900 handles roll paper very nicely. It's easy to load and unload rolls; once the roll is physically placed in the printer and the paper inserted into the paper path, the rest is automatic. In this regard it's very similar to loading roll paper into my old Canon iPF 5000. Unloading is also similar: press the ePlaten button (who names these things?) and the paper is wound onto the roll, leaving the printer waiting for me to load whatever's next.

Unlike the old iPF, the Epson has only one paper path. This means if roll paper is loaded, it must be removed before a sheet can be fed. I never expected this to be a problem, but given the need to print a nozzle check before doing any other printing, and since it makes sense to print nozzle checks on plain bond paper (cheap), it means unloading the roll, feeding the sheet for the nozzle check print, and then reloading the roll once all nozzles are clean. Fortunately, as already described, loading rolls is easy.

I had a number prints to make for the client, the job requiring several days to complete. Since I was making test strips from each image, and making those on an inexpensive matte paper, after the first day's printing I stopped printing nozzle checks, and just started each day making the first test strip I needed. I saw no evidence of clogged nozzles.

Prior to starting work yesterday (24 November), since I'd not done it in a while, I printed a nozzle check. No clogs found. It's now been nine days since the last clog. I've done at least a little printing most of those days. Since I have the 7900's auto-nozzle check (ANC) turned off, and since I've not switched from MK to PK ink, I assume no cleanings have been done. The capacity of the maintenance cartridge has remained at 53% for some time, which is evidence that no cleanings have been done.

Final thought for today: It is easier to get a print centered on roll paper than it is on sheets. Of course, it's all but impossible on sheets. For my client's final prints, I created a custom paper size of 17" x 14". I set the top and bottom margins to 0.6", the left and right margins to .25", and checked the Center image checkbox. The roll paper is 17" wide. After printing, the 7900 cuts each print 14" high. The printed area is not quite the same for each print, but they're pretty close. They are nicely centered on the paper, with the margins being roughly 1.4".

--Jay

Working With Roll Paper, and the Last Profile Test (for a while)

2011-11-19T14:37:00.001-07:00

I accomplished two things today: I printed a profile test image on Moab Entrada Natural 300 gsm, and I printed on roll paper for the first time with the 7900.

Entrada Natural is a beautiful matte paper. The 300 gsm version (there's a 190, also, which I've not used) is very thick and stiff. The paper has a texture bordering on too much for my taste, but for some images it's very nice. Having no OBA, it's a warm-toned paper. It's reasonably priced, too. I've had a 17" roll for some time, having used this paper with my iPF 5000. I've printed a couple of my own panoramas on it, and I have a printing client who loves this paper.

I downloaded from Moab's site the profile for the 7900/9900, installed it, and then set up to print on the roll of Entrada. As usual, I printed a nozzle check sheet on plain bond paper (no clogs). I then followed Epson's instructions and loaded the roll of Entrada. As has been discussed at length in various forums, the 7900's spindle-less roll feed system is very nice and a snap to load. Once the paper is pushed through the paper path, the printer looks it over just as it does a sheet, moves it around a bit, and is then ready to print. I chose the option to have the print cut the paper when the print is finished.

On the computer I loaded the profile test image into Photoshop and then went into the printer driver. I set up a custom paper size as recommended in the Epson documentation. I made this 17" x 8.5". On the Printer Settings tab I made sure Roll Paper was selected, and set the media type to Ultrasmooth Fine Art Paper per Moab's specification. On the Roll Paper Settings tab I chose Normal Cut, Auto Rotate, and 17 inch, and then saved the settings. Back on the Photoshop printer dialog box I unchecked the Center image box, set the top margin to 0", the left margin to .25". The profile test image is 10" wide X 7.5" high (landscape orientation). What I hoped to get from this was .5" margins top and bottom, since the printer insists on .56" minimum margins top and bottom, and a .25" margin on the left.

The image printed, far toward the left edge of the 17" wide paper, and the sheet was cut. Overall I'd say the 7900's handling of rolls is pretty nice.

I'm very impressed with Moab's profile. The test image is excellent, with nice detail in the blacks, no color problems I could find, great skin tones, etc. An excellent paper made better by an excellent profile (in my opinion, of course).

With the sheet oriented normally in my hand, the left margin is .5". The right margin is several inches wide, this being a 10" wide image on a 17" wide roll. The top and bottom margins are slightly less than 5/8". The cut width of the sheet is about 8 5/8". When I cut the sheet down to 11" wide, the image was centered left and right, with those .5" margins. I came pretty close to getting my image centered, although the sheet size is 1/8" too high. This matches the .06" greater than 1/2" each margin should be.

--Jay

Centering Test, Part II

2011-11-18T19:25:00.001-07:00

Today I made my first call to Epson's support for their large-format printers. I took a little time to prepare for that call, getting my notes together from my attempts to print images centered on sheet paper.

After making my way through the phone tree I waited only a couple of minutes for a support technician. After the usual process of identifying my 7900 (first) and then me (second, which I found a little amusing), I began an explanation of my problem. I'd planned to describe what I'd done thus far, and the results I'd seen, but the tech interrupted before I got very far.

He provided a two-part answer: first, checking the Center image checkbox in the Photoshop driver doesn't mean the print will be centered. I'd learned that myself, of course, but I'd hoped that checkbox had a purpose beyond enabling the position fields when the box is not checked. He then explained that when printing sheets the printer requires top and bottom margins* totaling 1.12 inches, and the bottom margin will always be at least half of that, .56 inch. "So,", I said, "The only way to center an image on a sheet is to get out my calculator and figure the margins, and then enter those into the position fields?" He said that was correct, that I needed to add .56 inch to the top margin.

He quickly followed up that comment with part two of his answer: Just print on roll papers if I want my images centered. (I should note here I've not yet printed anything on roll paper except the printhead alignment pattern when I initially set up the printer.)

I'm very much less than happy with those responses. It also contradicts comments made by friend Dean (see yesterday's posting) based on a test he did recently with his 7900.

After the phone call I ran three test images, all the same file at the same size on letter size sheets. (The prerequisite nozzle check print showed no clogs.) The file was 8.2 inches wide X 5.5 inches high (in landscape mode). If it printed centered, I'd have top and bottom borders (relative to the image) of 1.5 inches, left and right borders of 1.4 inches. This "left and right" corresponds to the driver's top and bottom values. Using only the driver's attempt at centering, i.e. checking the Center image checkbox and making no other adjustments, the print had 1 1/2 inch borders along the long axis (top and bottom relative to the image), but the left border measured 1 3/16 inches, while the right border measured about 1 5/8 inches.

For my second test I unchecked the Center image box, left the left margin field as it was and added .56 inch to the top margin (.56 being half of the 1.12 inches the tech specified as an offset). This sounds completely wrong, but it's exactly the method the tech described. And it doesn't work. My print had a left margin of 1 3/4 inches, and a right margin of 1 1/16 inches. Not an improvement.

For final test I set the top margin to .28 inches larger than the centered value (that being half of .56 inch). On that print the left and right margins differ only by 1/8 inch.

Of course, I was being lazy with the trial and error prints. I should be able to offset the top margin by half the measured difference between the default "Center image" print's left and right margins and have the next print be spot on. Unless it's not.

What does this mean? I think it means the only way I can print centered on cut sheets is:

Size my image so the total "top and bottom" margins are at least 1.12 inches,
Make a print with the Center image box checked,
Measure the actual borders, and finally,
Make a second print after entering an offset based on the measurement in #3.

Of course, doing that would be ridiculous.

*"Top" and "bottom" mean the leading and trailing edges of the page as it's fed through the printer, whether the image itself is in landscape or portrait orientation. In other words, to the driver, top and bottom are page-specific and always the same edges of the sheet, not image-specific. This is confusing, but the print preview in the Photoshop Print dialog box make this a little easier to understand.

--Jay

Centering Test

2011-11-17T19:58:00.001-07:00

I've had lengthy email discussions with friend Dean, who as I've mentioned has had a 7900 for some time, about my centering issue. He said he's not noticed the problem with his prints (and he would if it was there). He printed a small test picture, 7" x 9.288", on a letter size sheet. He said it was perfectly centered (he measured).

A few minutes ago I printed an image for an 11" x 14" mat. I use these in small bins I have in local galleries, the prints being matted and bagged. The mat opening is 8" x 5" -- I like fairly wide mats. I sized my image to 8.2" x 5.47", and after printing a nozzle check (no clogs!), printed with the Center image box checked, and the driver determining image position. This was a horizontal (landscape orientation) picture.

The print's top and bottom margins are identical, as close to 1.5" as I can measure. But the right margin is over 5/16" wider than the left. Pretty far from being centered.

--Jay

Messing with Matte

2011-11-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

I have an image I wanted to print for a show going up later this week. I've printed this before on my now-departed Canon printer, and I like the picture best on matte papers. In this case that's Epson's Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte, formerly known as the much friendlier to type Enhanced Matte. To begin, I made a change to the 7900's default settings: I turned off ANC (auto-nozzle check). I checked ink levels on the printer's display, and then pressed the black ink change button.

The printer made its "thinking about this" sounds for a couple of minutes and showed a progress bar on the LCD. When finished it then displayed "Matte Black" where it had previously shown "Photo Black". I again checked ink levels and found no change to any color, nor to the remaining capacity of the maintenance cartridge. I'd read this process consumes a small amount ink when switching between blacks. Must be a pretty small amount (this is defined in the manual).

I then ran a nozzle check print. This is where something unexpected happened. I inserted a letter size sheet of plain bond paper as usual, and used the printer's control panel to initiate the nozzle check print. The machine started as usual, but instead of printing, the print head made numerous passes across the full width of the carriage, something it had not done before. It did not feed the sheet of paper as it was doing this. Thinking something was wrong I canceled the process, and then tried again. Same result, so I canceled again. I cycled power to the printer and then tried again, with the same result. This time I let the printer run, just to see what would happen. The print head ran back and forth for a couple of minutes (I did not time it), and then the nozzle check printed as it usually does. There were no clogged nozzles (the printer does run a cleaning cycle when the blacks are switched). It's not clear whether this cleaning affects all channels or just the blacks (MK/PK is paired with with LK). I checked ink levels and found C, MK, VM, and LK had all dropped by 1%, which may answer the question regarding other channels being cleaned as well. There was apparently no change to the maintenance cartridge.

I conclude from this that the switch from one black ink to the other is not completed when the progress bar gets to 100% and the process appears to be finished. It completes when the next print job begins. Whether the process appears the same when switching back to PK remains to be seen.

With that out of the way I ran a profile test print using the Epson-supplied profile for the Enhanced Matte paper. Despite the new name, I don't consider this a premium paper, but I rather like it. It's smooth, bright-white, inexpensive, and the profile test image looks very nice. Being a matte paper with far lower Dmax than Ilford's Galerie Gold Fiber Silk or Epson's Exhibition Fiber, the blacks and dark shades don't hold up in side-by-side comparisons, but on its own it looks pretty good. The big gotcha with this paper is its poor archival properties. For the print I started out to make this isn't an issue.

I ran in to trouble right away when I set up to print my picture. This is a vertically oriented image. The top and bottom margins on a letter size sheet must be quite small to accommodate the mat and frame I'd planned to use. I knew when I was setting up I'd likely find the image clipped, and that turned out to be the case. I will not be able to print this image on letter size sheets on the Epson. The Canon iPF 5000 handled the small margins on the sheet just fine. Fortunately, I don't often want to make a print with such small borders, but when I do I'll have to use larger sheets and cut them down after printing. I should make it clear the printer's manual states sheets should be fed with the narrow edge down, but this experiment seemed worth trying.

I wasted about half an hour trying to make the print in landscape mode with the paper fed into the printer with the wide edge down. This should have worked because my side borders on this image are considerably wider than the top and bottom. Feeding the paper "sideways" would give the printer plenty of room to grip the sheet on the trailing edge. But no combination of settings in the driver, nor rotating the image 90° in Photoshop, would alter the orientation of the printed image. I even created a custom paper size and once again tried all of the orientation options, with the same result. I eventually gave up.

So, after all that, I didn't get the print I set out to make.

Since I'd switched to MK, I ran a profile test print on Museo Portfolio Rag, using the profile downloaded from Museo's site. I'm still trying to interpret the results, which are a little strange. I'll set the print aside until tomorrow and then look at it again. This is a heavy, 100% cotton rag paper with a smooth texture and, lacking optical brighteners, a warm tone. I like it, but I've had problems in the past determining which side is to be printed. Even under magnification I can't tell the two sides apart, and in my experience with a single package of cut sheets, Museo has not been consistent in getting the printed side up (or down). There's no indication on the box which side is "up". My box was thoroughly mixed, and I wasted a number of sheets by printing on the wrong side. It's very obviously wrong, but only after printing has begun. I won't be buying any more of this paper, but I do have a small quantity I'd use if I could figure out how. Back when I bought this box, my emailed inquiries to the maker went unanswered.

I have one more matte paper I want to test. Moab's Entrada Natural 300 gsm was wonderful, if one could get past the texture, on the iPF 5000. I have a couple of pictures that look great on this paper. I have a 17" roll, so when I get some time I'll cut a piece from it, download the profile from Moab's site, and run the test print.

--Jay

Something a Little Larger

2011-11-13T14:30:00.013-07:00

I haven't made any large prints. I have yet to order 24" wide paper, although a 24" roll of EEF is supposed to be coming from Epson as part of their incentive/rebate package. I'm hanging some new work in a show later this week, and for that I want a wintry scene from Glacier National Park printed on a 13x19 (A3) sheet. This will be my largest print to date from the 7900.

I ran a nozzle check print, and found O and G almost completely clogged. There was also just a bit of a line missing from the C pattern. I've been tied up with other work, so the printer's been idle for several days. O and G are conveniently paired, so I ran a cleaning on that pair. When the cleaning finished, the printer's LCD reported "INK LOW", with flashing icons on the C and VM channels. C was at 16%, VM at 19%. The 7900 reported no clogs after the cleaning, and I could find none when I inspected the print with my loupe.

I set up as usual to print my photo on EEF, and ran in to a bit of confusion. Installed along with the rest of the Epson software was a profile for EEF, SP7900 9900 EFP PK 2880 v1.icc, dated 18 Dec 2008. This appears as Epson_9900_7900_Exhibition_Fiber_Paper_PK_v1 in Photoshop's list of profiles, and in the drop-down profile list in the printer driver. Also in the printer driver one can select a media type for "Exhibition Fiber Paper". But on the printer's LCD, there is no Exhibition Fiber Paper media type available.

I went to Epson's site and downloaded the profile there for EEF. This seems to be the same profile as the one I have, but the download includes a brief PDF listing printing settings and other details for the paper. That indicates a media type of "Premium Luster Photo Paper (260)" should be used. There IS a matching setting for this in the printer's list.

I made my print using Premium Luster Photo Paper (260) for the profile and media type. The prints looks good, but when I soft-proof in Photoshop I prefer the result using the EEF profile.

I've asked my friend Dean for comments and advice on this, since EEF is one of his preferred papers. Stay tuned.

--Jay

My printing workflow at this early stage

2011-11-09T10:46:00.004-07:00

This will be a long post. Apologies in advance.

In several posts I've said things like "...prep'd the file in the usual way", or "...set the remainder of the print settings as usual." So, what is the usual? Here's a brief run-down of my workflow. I'll begin here after I've made any image adjustments I feel are needed, I've soft-proofed using the appropriate profile, and I'm ready to print.

Resize the image: I had worked out what I felt was the best way to do this when I printed on the Canon iPF 5000, which wanted files at 600ppi. I resized and resampled as necessary to make 600ppi files in the size I wanted. If I didn't do this, the printer driver would, with a result that was not always optimum.

For the 7900, the process is a bit different. I took advantage of comments made by Jeff Schewe in an October posting on Luminous Landscape's "Printers, Papers, and Inks" forum. In part:

"I decided to do some tests and write an article for DPP magazine...the net/net result is that if your native image resolution (at the print dimensions) puts the PPI below 360 (for Epson, 300 for HP & Canon) upsample to 360 PPI (300 PPI) before printing and then do your output sharpening (easy in LR).

If the native rez is above 360 but below 720 PPI (600 PPI for HP & Canon) upsample to 720 PPI (or 600 PPI) and then output sharpen.

The advantages are visible to the naked eye (if you know what to look for) and generally involve a high contrast diagonal or circle and/or super high frequency texture. Test it yourself (I did before writing the article).

It's easy to upsample and then output sharpen in Lightroom...more difficult (but doable) in Photoshop..."

I don't use Lightroom, but I didn't find this a challenge to do with Photoshop. I haven't had time to do exhaustive testing of the 360ppi vs. 720ppi issue, but using Jeff's method seems to work very well. Doing this gets me to the image (print) size I want, at the resolution required by the printer for best results.

Output sharpening: I use Photoshop's Smart Sharpen. I've been very happy with that through my years of printing with the Canon; I have not investigated other sharpening tools. (Note that I do a little capture sharpening in ACR, which certainly affects the output, but is a little beyond the scope of this post.) I set the on-screen size (zoom) to 25% to 33%. I then set the Smart Sharpen amount and radius to values I know will result in a properly sharpened print. This generally looks somewhat over-sharpened, or "crunchy", usually with some haloes, on-screen. Experience has taught me how far to go with this to get a properly sharpened print. I assumed this would hold true when printing with the 7900, and so far it has.

Open the Print dialog: This is where things get interesting for me. I never used the standard print driver with the Canon, choosing instead to use their excellent print plug-in for Photoshop. Epson has nothing like this. The print dialog is a multi-level affair. I use a Mac, but much of this is the same in Windows operating systems.

In the main Print dialog I set "Color management" to Document, set "Photoshop manages color", select the correct profile and rendering intent (so far all of the Epson profiles I have used "perceptual") select portrait or landscape orientation, and then click the Printer Settings... button. This raises a second dialog box, also titled "Print". Here I choose a paper size. If a custom size is needed, or a size with custom margins, I can create it here. So far I've done this only as described in my 28 October posting. This was a mostly-successful attempt to center my profile test prints on the page.

This dialog has a number of tabs, including Layout, Color Matching, Paper Handling, Cover Page and Scheduler. The settings on the Color Matching tab are disabled because the printer is not managing color (Photoshop is). Otherwise, most of these settings can be ignored.

The next set of tabs is where the money is. Under Printer Settings/Basic I select the media (paper) type as needed for the profile I'm using. This can be confusing; not only does Epson have a bizarre naming scheme for its papers, but it changed many of the names a few years ago. Some papers are still identified by the former name. Some roll papers have a different name than the same paper in cut sheets. Friend Dean pointed me to the Epson Professional Media Guide booklet that was included with the printer. Mine's from Fall, 2010; it's been a big help. Selecting the media type automatically selects other options, including the correct black ink, which so far for me has always been Photo Black; output resolution; and the SuperMicroWeave setting. These last two can be changed if the default for the chosen paper type isn't what's needed for the profile (assuming the profile specifies this, which it should). Jeff Schewe recommends checking the "Finest Detail" checkbox if the file resolution is 720ppi. I have not tested this.

The Mac's printing architecture is 16-bit throughout, so I make sure the 16-bit box is checked. This setting is sticky -- it was only necessary to set this once.

The settings under the Advanced Color Settings tab are disabled when Photoshop manages color.

I have not yet printed on roll paper. When the media type is a sheet paper, the settings here are disabled.

Finally, I've done nothing with the settings under the Advanced Media Control tab except leave them at their defaults.

When the Save button is clicked this dialog closes and returns to the earlier Print dialog. Here I can see the margin settings (in the Position box) and see a small preview of the image position on the sheet. As mentioned in earlier posts, getting an image centered has been a hassle; the settings here have let me get close, but with narrow margins clipping is likely.

Print: Now it's time to go to the printer, which is in another room, probably 20 feet away. Prior to my first print of the session I'll make a nozzle check print. This almost always shows clogs; sometimes cleaning nozzle pairs to clear the clogs results in other nozzles becoming clogged. I do pair cleanings as necessary until all look good.

I insert the sheet for my print, allow the printer a minute to find its position and size, and then from the control panel enter a media type (the printer always asks when a sheet is inserted, but it remembers the last media type used). I then return to the Mac and click the Print button.

This is a long and detailed explanation of a process that takes only a couple of minutes (plus nozzle cleaning time, which is not inconsiderable). With a few early exceptions, the prints have been at least very good, more often excellent.

--Jay

More Birds

2011-11-07T19:27:00.001-07:00

Kelly Apgar is a good friend and an outstanding painter. She dabbles in photography and sometimes mixes her photographs, painting, and other media into interesting collages. She's been very generous with both her advice and her art. One of her paintings inspired a photo I spent weeks last winter attempting to capture. The result was worth the effort. When I displayed it in a local gallery I included a small plaque crediting Kelly with the inspiration for the photo.

Blackbilled Magpie, inspired by a Kelly Apgar painting

Kelly loved the photo, and a few weeks later gave me a small painting very similar to her 24" wide X 12" high original.

I've wanted to give her a print of my photo, but have simply not gotten around to making it. No time like the present. I prep'd the file in the usual way, and sized it 15 inches wide for an 11x17 inch sheet of Canson Infinity Platine Fiber Rag. To attempt to center the image on the sheet, I set the left margin to 0.9", the top margin to 1.5". The nozzle check print I ran prior to printing the magpie showed missing nozzles in O and VM. I ran a cleaning on the O/G pair. Six minutes later the 7900's LCD reported cleaning had failed. I printed another nozzle check and found a single missing dot in the C channel. Once again, cleaning a pair seems to have unclogged some nozzles not related to that pair (VM), while a new clog appeared in another channel (C).

I printed the magpie anyway; I can find no problems with the print. It looks fine. The left margin is 1/16" narrower than the right, while the top and bottom margins are identical.

While I was running the machine I printed a couple of additional raven prints, including the best-seller shown in yesterday's posting. These were printed on Ilford's GGFS. On a whim, to print these I sent the printer a file I'd made some time ago, optimized for the Canon iPF 5000. This was upsampled to 600ppi rather than the 360 or 720 the Epson prefers. I expected I was wasting a sheet of paper, but the result is excellent (a little off-center on the sheet, of course). The driver worked whatever magic it does, resulting in a print with the usual good properties the Epson produces, and it's perfectly sharpened despite that having been done for a very different printer.

Today was also the day the remains of the iPF 5000 were hauled away. I felt a little sad about that. I learned a great deal while using that printer, and made many very nice prints. RIP, old friend.

--Jay

A New Print

2011-11-06T13:50:00.003-07:00

My popular 2008 "Snow Raven in Yellowstone" photo.

My most popular image, one I can hardly print fast enough, is of a raven in the snow, seemingly complaining about the bad weather. This was made in May of 2008. Because this picture has been so successful for me, I've continued to look for similarly dynamic images, particularly of ravens in snowy conditions.

I love shooting in snowy weather. It's cold, wet, often windy, and generally just messy. I'll set up my gear, spend 20 minutes working my subject, and when I get back in the car I'll have three inches of snow on my shoulders. I do worry a little about the moisture affecting my gear, but so far I've been lucky and suffered no equipment problems.

We were in Yellowstone in May (2011), and once again spent several days in blizzard conditions (rain at lower elevations). One of the photos I made then was of a raven in snow. Unlike the 2008 situation, this time it was snowing really hard. I was pretty sure at the time the photos would be worthless, but one never knows until the files have been downloaded and examined on a larger screen.

Today I made a print of one of the raven photos from that trip. As usual I started by running a nozzle check print. The 7900 had been idle since 1 November, a full five days. I expected nozzle clogs across the page. But there was none! As mentioned in an earlier posting, I've left the printer's default "Auto Nozzle Check" enabled. My Canon iPF 5000 does regular nozzle checks and cleanings, waking up at all hours, making noise for a few minutes while checking, and then either going to sleep or continuing with the noise to run a cleaning cycle. On the Canon this is not optional -- it can't be turned off. I have never heard the Epson start itself up and do any kind of process. It's either very quiet, or it's not done anything similar to the Canon's process. Regardless, there were no clogs after this five-day idle period.

I wanted the new photo printed on one-half of a 13x19 sheet. I sized the image to 12 3/4" wide by 8 1/2" high to fit a mat and frame size I keep in stock. I sharpened based on past experience with the Canon. Although the two printers use very different dithering patterns and printhead dpi, after resizing the image for the Epson I sharpened for the same look on-screen as I'd always done for the Canon.

The printer driver dialog box, showing the Position fields and the values I used.

I then brought up the print driver, selected the appropriate profile for the Ilford GGFS, selected the sheet size, and then completed the rest of the print settings as usual. When saved this returns to the main printer driver dialog, which has fields for setting up the print position on the sheet. I unchecked the "Center image" box, entered .4" for the top, and 0" for the left. As you can see, this pushed the preview image off the page a little to the right. When I clicked the Print button, a message was raised telling me the image was outside the margins and would be clipped. I OK'd this; a few seconds later the 7900 started printing on the sheet I'd previously inserted.

The resulting print is terrific. The top margin is exactly 1/2", a bit larger than I specified. The left margin is 3/32" wide. The right margin is 1/16" wider. Given the nature of this image, which doesn't have much detail in the background, it's a little hard to tell with certainty, but it appears about 1/16" of the picture was clipped on the right, as the preview indicated, that being the side with the slightly wider margin.

One surprise during printing: On the Canon, when I'd print something like this, an image considerably smaller than the sheet size, the printer would print the image, and when the last of the ink was laid down, eject the sheet. The 7900 printed the image, but continued to feed the empty bottom half of the sheet in the normal way, with the printhead making passes back and forth as if there was something to be printed. It did indeed print that area, laying down a very fine pattern of faint blue-ish dots, which I can only see when I view the page under magnification. I've no idea what's up with that. Of course this means I can't use that "empty" half of the sheet for another print, as I'd planned to do. More to learn....

--Jay

Finally -- Printing a Photograph!

2011-11-01T14:08:00.002-06:00

I've had my fill of printing profile evaluation images, although I'll need to continue this for the couple of mat-finish papers I have. Making these prints is necessary, the only way to determine the quality of the profiles. It's been an interesting exercise, mainly proving what I've read about the build quality and unit-to-unit manufacturing consistency of the Stylus Pro 7900 being extremely high. The profiles provided by Epson are excellent, with Epson-branded papers, of course. And once in a while one can get lucky with other papers, as I seem to have done with the Canon HW Satin. The custom profile I tested for Harman Gloss FB Al was OK, but not great. The two I tested for Ilford Galerie Gold Fiber Silk are both good, but slightly different. I'm delighted with the 7900's output on these eval pages. I don't have the tools to put numbers to these observations, but I am impressed with the color, with the shadow and highlight detail, the total lack of bronzing, and the minimal gloss differential I see in these images. The iPF 5000 was good, but clearly had problems with bronzing and gloss diff.

Enough already with the profile testing! This is a pile of profile eval images made

over the last few days with the 7900. These are in plastic sleeves for easy storage

and access in a three-ring binder. My margin notes include everything needed to
use that paper and profile for printing.

It's (finally!) time to print one of my photographs. It is generally accepted that when one receives a new camera, the first photo taken must be of one's cat. If you've not heard this, you've not spent much time in the camera forums at dpreview. I'm not sure the same requirement holds for printers, but not wanting to take any chances, my first print was to be of PC, our aged calico. I don't take a lot of cat pictures. The only one I have of any reasonable quality was made in 2010 with a point-n-shoot camera.

The profile eval images were printed with no processing in Photoshop. PC's picture would require a little work, since it's a high-ISO photo, shot hand-held with a camera that doesn't do high-ISO well. It's also a crop from a full frame that's not large to start. I resampled the image using values extracted from comments by Jeff Schewe in Lula's printers, etc. forum. I then output sharpened based on my experience with the Canon iPF 5000. When I had the file ready to print, I ran a nozzle check print and found about 30% of the G and LLK nozzles missing. I did a clean on the Y/G pair, which took about six minutes to complete. The nozzle check print I then made showed no clogged nozzles; the LLK clog had magically disappeared. Clearly, doing a clean on a pair moves some ink through other nozzles as well.

I should note that after the initial set-up, ink installation, and charging of the lines and head, the available capacity of the maintenance cartridge was 65%. After this last cleaning, it was 57%. I did not make a note of the ink levels after the initial charging, so I can't say how much ink has been used in the cleanings and printing done so far.

PC's picture has very good color and shadow/highlight detail. There is no bronzing or gloss differential. It's also waaaay over sharpened, which is entirely my fault. Clearly I've got more test prints to make, using files from my DSLR, to learn appropriate sharpening values for the 7900.

I'll be unable to work with the printer for the next few days. I hope to be back at it early next week.

--Jay

A Nice Surprise With an Old Favorite

2011-10-30T18:51:00.002-06:00

A paper I used frequently on the iPF 5000 printer is the Canon-branded "Heavy-weight Satin 300gsm". I've used this paper for much of the contract printing I've done. It's bright white, has a heavy weight and decent satin texture, and has a very durable surface. This durability makes it a good paper for rolling into mailing tubes for shipping. It's also inexpensive.

My friend Dean, long an Epson user, sent a small piece of Epson's "Premium Luster Photo Paper", and also a small piece of their "Premium Photo Paper Semigloss". Comparing these to the Canon HW Satin, I find the Luster is closest in tone and surface, although the Canon paper is somewhat thicker. On a whim I printed eval images on the HW Satin using Epson's profiles for both the luster and semigloss papers. I found a nice surprise in the results. Both profiles are very good with this paper. The semigloss profile seems to have a bit more "punch" in the reds and oranges, but the difference is subtle. Neither shows the slightest trace of the inversion in the light-green color ramp seen on the gloss papers. I'll be able to use my remaining inventory of HW Satin, with excellent results. When that's gone I may replace it with Epson's luster or semigloss, or simply continue using the Canon paper my clients know and like.

I should mention that prior to running these eval images I printed a nozzle check. The 7900 reported no clogs!

--Jay

Clogs Continue

2011-10-28T15:46:00.001-06:00

The 7900 has been idle (powered up, but in sleep mode) for about 36 hours. I still have a couple of gloss papers/profiles to test. Recent experience has shown I need to print a nozzle check before running any print jobs, so I did that as before, with plain bond paper. This showed the light black nozzles clogged, with nearly half of them missing (that is, about half the LK pattern was blank). I ran a cleaning on the MK-PK/LK channel pair. This seemed to take a very long time -- 16 minutes, in fact. When the cleaning finished I printed another nozzle check.

The LK channel looked fine, but there were a few small voids in the O channel, so I ran a cleaning of the O/G pair. This took about 12 minutes. Another nozzle check print showed O was cleared, but now VM had some missing lines, so yet another cleaning, this time of the C/VM pair. When that finished (under 10 minutes) the printer's LCD reported a cleaning failure, but I could find no missing or sloppy lines on any channels when I examined them with my 8x loupe. Enough with cleaning.

I ran a profile eval print using Harman Gloss FB Al and a profile received from a friend. The results aren't bad, but I can't differentiate the darkest blacks as well as I can with the GGFS and EEF. This paper/profile combination also suffers from the previously-described inversion in the light green color ramp on the eval image. Overall, the color images on the eval page look fine. Most likely this is not a paper I'll use, but not because of the profile's performance. I could try the profile from Harman, too, if I liked the paper better. In fact I do like the paper, but I've found a high number of flaws in the surface of the sheets in my sample pack. Given that GGFS and EEF papers cover most of my needs for papers with these types of surfaces, the Harman's surface issues push it down the list for me.

--Jay

A Workaround for the Centering Issue?

2011-10-28T14:20:00.000-06:00

In my 25 October posting I mentioned a centering issue. In a nutshell, when I print these profile evaluation images, which are 7.5" high X 10" wide, on letter size sheets, with the "Center image" option checked in the printer driver, I get top and bottom margins of exactly .5", just as I expect. But the left margin is .25", while the right margin is .75". The image is quite clearly not centered.

For most of my own work that will be matted (whether framed or not), I mostly don't care. But I think handing a client a contract-printed piece that's off-center on the sheet will look amateurish, at best, and if I cut the right edge down so the image IS centered, the sheet is no longer the size I advertise, and on which I base my prices.
Also, I have one "special" print I do that requires pretty precise positioning on the page. I print two pictures on a 13x19 sheet. They have .5" borders on all sides. I need those .5" borders! I put 1" between the pictures, so when I cut them apart I have half-inch borders on that side, too. With the iPF 5000, I'd make a new file that's 18" wide x 12" high (or vice versa) at appropriate resolution. Each picture would be optimized the way I'd want, flattened, pasted into the new document as a layer, and then positioned so it's 1" from the other picture. When printing, I'd choose 13x19 sheet, check the box to center the image on the page, and print. It would come out with perfect 1/2" borders on the four sides. (This doesn't provide a lot of area for hinge mounting, but it's worked fine so far. I use acrylic self-adhesive "conservation corner mounts" on the bottom two corners for additional security.) I've been framing these with Larson-Juhl Digital White mats and Nielsen "standard" frames in graphite. This makes a very nice looking picture that's clearly larger than one can make on a "kitchen-table" printer, doesn't cost a lot to produce, and sells at a reasonable profit. Honestly, I don't know if I can do this with the Epson. I can certainly print one such picture on a sheet, let the Epson print it off-center, and frame it as usual (after cutting down the sheet a little). Doing that doubles my paper cost for these pictures, but if I have to live with that I can. It's about time to raise my price for these 10% or so anyway!

Those are my reasons for being more than a little unhappy that the Epson has this "feature". It just seems ridiculous. I dug around on Luminous Landscape's "Printers, Papers, and Inks" forum and found one other post, from 2009, I think, in which the OP complained about this and asked for help. The consensus was, most users don't care, don't really object to this. I find that pretty amazing, too.

I tried a test in which I created a custom paper size, which is done in the printer driver. This custom size is 8.5" X 11", but has a top margin of .25", with the remaining three margins set to 0.00". When I save this, complete my page set-up in the driver, and then save (which returns to the main printer driver window), the dimensions shown under the "Center image" checkbox are Top: 0.5", Left: 0.375". The preview image shows the entire sheet shifted slightly to the left. When I make the print, the resulting left margin is just slightly under 1/2", while the right margin is about 9/16". Still not quite centered, but I think this is as good as it gets. With these settings the image is dangerously close to being clipped on the right.

--Jay

Nozzle Clogs and Profile Evaluations

2011-10-26T15:59:00.001-06:00

A confession: Yesterday I said I wasn't keeping score, but of course I am. I can't help but filter everything I do with the Epson through the filter of nearly five years using the Canon iPF 5000. Much of the workflow I've developed while using the Canon will remain the same for the Epson, or for any printer. The goal is to produce high-quality, fine-art prints, no matter what printer I'm using; as I climb the learning curve and get comfortable with the 7900 I'll be making lots of comparisons.

Today I wanted to print profile evaluation images for several more papers. I planned to work through my gloss papers, those that will use the printer's photo-black (PK) ink. This includes Epson Exhibition Fiber (EEF), Ilford Galerie Gloss Fiber Silk (who names these things, anyway? I'll call it GGFS), Harman Gloss FB Al, and my most recent find, Canson Infinity Platine Fiber Rag.

I inserted a sheet of EEF, which woke the printer from its power-save (sleep) mode. I followed the normal procedure for feeding the sheet. The printer gave the sheet a look, thought about it for a few seconds, adjusted the sheet's position, and then asked for the media type. From the control panel I selected the Epson-recommended media type. At the computer I loaded the test image into Photoshop and then selected File/Print.... I set up the print dialog, saved, and then clicked the Print button.

Most of the test page looked OK, but there was terrible banding in the sunset image and the red-rock arch image, and also in the orange patterns in the color grid. I loaded a sheet of plain bond paper and printed a nozzle check pattern. The orange grid had missing nozzles. The rest of the colors looked fine.

The nozzle check print showing clogs in the orange channel. Light black (LK),

next-to-last at right, is fine, but doesn't show up well in this scan. The low-rez

scan makes the entire print look rougher than it is.

I ran a head cleaning on the channel pair that includes orange, and then ran a second nozzle check print. The cleaning cleared the clog. I then ran another profile eval print on EEF. The Epson-supplied profile is quite good, in my opinion.

The lesson here: always run a nozzle check print before printing anything that matters.

Inversion in the light-green band

There is one problem area on the eval print. The light-green band in the color ramp section shows what I'd call a severe reversal in the upper third of the band. I assume this is either a problem with the profile, or an issue with this color/tone in the printer. I've read no reports of the Epson having issues with the greens, and in fact the other green ramps and grid samples on the eval print look perfect. For now I'll file this away for future consideration after I've looked at the other papers and their profiles.

Next I made two eval prints for Ilford GGFS. These were made with two different custom profiles received from a friend who's had a 7900 for a couple of years. The two profiles are quite similar except in the reds/oranges/yellows, where one seems somewhat more saturated than the other. I think both profiles will have their uses. Both profiles exhibited the inversion in the green band, but in both this is a bit more subtle than what's shown above for the EEF.

At this point I had to stop to take care of some other business. When I have a few minutes I'll continue with my remaining gloss papers, the Harman and the Canson.

--Jay

The First Print -- Evaluating Profiles

2011-10-25T11:15:00.000-06:00

My first order of business is to run a profile evaluation print for each of the papers I expect to use. In my nearly five years of printing on the Canon iPF 5000 I'd sampled a lot of papers. I'd determined my "favorite" papers and which was appropriate for various purposes and subjects. In my early days using the Canon I'd purchased many sample packs of papers from various makers, including one from Red River Paper. As it turned out, there's nothing there I'd want to use, but I had some sheets left from that pack, so "wasting" some to get started with the new printer seemed a good idea.

I downloaded from Red River a profile for their 68 pound UltraPro Gloss. This is a thin, very glossy paper with a rubbery feel. At the printer I inserted the paper. One aligns the paper to a scribed mark and then lowers it into the printer until it stops. Unlike my Canon, there's no hard guide against which the paper's edge is placed. It feels loose and lacking precision on the Epson. I then used the printer's control panel to set the paper type per Red River's instructions, and then moved to the computer, which is not in the same room as the printer. I opened the evaluation file I've been using for years. This is from Digital Outback Print (DOP), which not only makes the image freely available, but also has a very nice page explaining its use.

During my years using the Canon printer, I'd printed only from Photoshop. I used Canon's excellent printing plug-in for PS, which means I rarely used the standard printer driver. Epson offers nothing comparable to Canon's printing plug-in, so I was stuck using the driver, which seemed pretty foreign. I worked my way through its layers, turning off the driver's color management ("Photoshop Manages Colors"), selecting the correct profile and rendering intent, checking the Center Image box, and then moving to the Print Settings dialog and completing the page set-up there. I saved the settings and then clicked the Print button.

I'd read that these printers are very quiet; as it began processing the print job, the 7900 seemed about the same as the Canon I was used to. And like the Canon, after the printhead had made a few passes the machine quieted considerably. Not that I'm keeping score, but in this regard I'd call it a tie between the two machines.

The 7900 is fast, and this was a small print, only 7.5" high by 10" wide on the letter size sheet, so the job completed quickly. I ejected the page and noticed immediately the image was not centered. The top and bottom margins were .5" exactly. But the left margin was .25", while the right margin was .5" wider. Clearly, the "Center Image" checkbox in the printer driver doesn't. Otherwise, the evaluation print was excellent. I won't be using Red River 60 pound UltraPro Gloss, but if you're looking for a bright-white, high-gloss, thin paper with a typical RC paper feel, you might want to check out the UltraPro Gloss.

Except for the centering issue, my first print was a success. I could tell right away I wasn't going to be very happy with the 7900's paper (output) basket. It seems to be designed to either dump the print onto the floor, or flop it print-side down into the basket beneath the printer. I may not be deploying it properly; I suspect I'll have more to say about the basket.

--Jay

Getting Started

2011-10-24T18:15:00.001-06:00

Sunday (23 October) three friends helped me carry the printer down a flight of stairs and place it on the stand I'd assembled earlier. Even with four people, it was a struggle getting the thing down the stairs. There's no shortage of reports on the Web about receiving, uncrating, and setting up these printers; I'll not repeat any of that here, except to confirm that this printer is big and heavy. Once it's on its stand, it's easy to move around. Mine is on a concrete floor, so it rolls easily. Of course, once I have it in its intended location, I don't expect to move it often. It's installed in the same location where my Canon iPF 5000 had been, and plugged in to the same network connection.

A tale of three printers. The 7900 is large. The 17" Canon iPF 5000 is in

front. A typical HP laser printer is dwarfed in the background.

Prior to receiving the printer I'd downloaded the most recent driver, firmware, and other software. I'd also downloaded the collection of manuals and read them. I'd hoped this would give me a good idea of what to expect as I set up the machine.

I spent most of the day completing the set-up, charging the ink lines and head, and installing software on my Mac Pro. When the ink installation was complete the printer ran a nozzle check. When that finished the printer's LCD reported a cleaning error and offered to repeat the cleaning. I selected "No". I ran a nozzle-check print on letter-size plain bond paper. Viewing each color channel's pattern with an 8-power loupe I found no missing or deformed lines. (Note the nozzle check print shows 10 sets of patterns. The illustration in Epson's manuals shows eleven. Since there are only ten channels in the head, getting a print with eleven patterns isn't possible.)

I installed the most recent printer firmware, dated 6 September 2011 on Epson's site. This is HN028AA 2.10 A000.

Except for setting the time and date, I left all of the printer's settings at their defaults. This includes leaving Auto-Nozzle Check (ANC) on, in its "periodic" mode.

Finally, everything was assembled, installed, charged, and ready. It had been a long day and I was tired. More tomorrow.

--Jay

Welcome!

2011-10-24T15:14:00.002-06:00

I installed an Epson Stylus Pro 7900 in October of 2011. I'll be writing about my experience with the machine, covering general use, maintenance, problems and resolutions, surprises, gripes, and overall impressions. I hope to continue this for some time, creating a long-term usage report.

I did a lot of research before buying this printer. Something I couldn't find was any sort of story about the experience of owning and using the machine over a period of several years. This surprised me, since the printer's been available since 2008. This blog is my attempt to rectify that.

By the time this record is of any interest Epson will no doubt have replaced the 7900 with a newer model. Such is life in the technical end of photography.

This is the initial posting; I'm just getting my feet wet with Blogger. I'll be tinkering with the design as I learn more, and I'll eventually get a profile in place. It's a busy time for me right now, and for the next few weeks, so postings will be sparse for a while.

Thanks for reading. Please check in now and then to see how I'm getting along with my new printer. Please visit www.lumen-perfectus.com to view my landscape and wildlife photography, purchase fine-art prints, and read photo-related articles.

--Jay