Margins and Centering

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

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)

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!

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)

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)

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

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