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
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