9880 not printing 44x100" ...please help

[JoelBelmont]

I'm trying to print a photograph at 44x100", 300 dpi.

It spools the print, but then it never ends up in the printer dialog box.

I have to hang this piece tomorrow... and help would be greatly appreciated.

~Joel Belmont

[Peter Mounier]

Two things might be hanging you up. Older versions of Photoshop had a 30,000 pixel limit (one direction). You are right up against this limit if you're using an old version of PS. You might try printing at 240dpi. The other thing might be that you're not allowing for margins. I'm not familiar with the 9880, but perhaps your size should be 43.6" x 99.9" (to allow for the pixel limit and the margins).

Peter

[Walter Calahan]

I believe the Epson driver will not allow a print as long as 100". Since I've never printed that long on my 9600, I don't know the maximum length Epson sets. To print that long you'll need a RIP to work around the limits of the Epson driver.

I'm sure somewhere there is information on the print length for each of Epson's products.

[JoelBelmont]

Older versions of Photoshop had a 30,000 pixel limit (one direction). You are right up against this limit if you're using an old version of PS.
Peter

I'm using CS3... would you consider this an 'older verison'?

What RIP's would you suggest?

Thanks for your help.

[Peter Mounier]

Here's what Adobe says...

"Large File Printing Limitations
Photoshop CS3 can create and open documents as large as 300,000 x 300,000 pixels. Due to various OS and printer driver limitations, Photoshop can only print documents up to 30,000 x 30,000 pixels. When working with documents larger than 30,000 pixels in either direction, the Print menu item will be disabled. For more information on this issue, see the tech note "Print command unavailable for documents larger than 30,000 pixels (Photoshop CS-CS3)" at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=329548"

To me that means if the Print command is not disabled, then you're file should be ok.

Peter

[Tyler Boley]

if you are on a PC just get Qimage, a RIP will put you in a whole new world of stuff to deal with, you won't be making that print in the next day or so, that's for sure. Unless you get your hands on a version of the Colorburst for Epson that comes with profiles ready to go.
Qimage will let you use existing RGB profiles, your normal driver settings, etc...
Tyler

[Tyler Boley]

a quick caveat- I have no personal experience with Qimage and can not give any advice about using it. My recommendation is based on reports to me from trusted and experienced friends who use it. If you have questions about it, ask here-
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/EpsonWideFormat/
in fact, that would be a great place to ask your original question.
Tyler

[IanMazursky]

ColorBurst is a great mid level RIP but it is based on the Epson print driver. A former CB developer told me.
That means that all of good and bad of the Epson print dialogs exist in the RIP. Thats not to say that the built in profiles aren’t great.
Also if you have your own color management gear, you can create your own. One problem is that have sort of ignored the mac version compared to the PC version.

CB Rips are considered mid level, stepping up are rips from Onyx, GMG and EFI. Onyx is fantastic and geared toward LF, ULF and grand format prints (not the cameras).
Onyx (PC only) has a lot going for it for the LF photographer but the price is a bit steep. They based a lot of their color management on the Gretag engine.
GMG is the leader in proofing and coming up in LF. Also expensive but worth it for the smaller proofing market.
EFi is a mix, they used to be heavy in the embedded rip market but now are edging into everything.
They are running a special with Epson on their proofing line of printers. From what ive seen, it look cool.

On the lower end, you have rips like ImagePrint from ColorByte, Qimage….Most are very capable but lack a lot of the production features of the higher end rips.
ImagePrint takes the KISS approach to everything. Point and click interface and very little flexibility but great for those who just need to print and don’t need anymore features.

By low, mid and high end i don’t mean to say anything about quality. Im talking about features like layout, multiple rips, profiling, supported printers, speed….

Forgot to mention that you might want to drop your PPI to 150-250 and decrease your width. It might be a pixel limit as others have suggested in the Epson driver.
On the Epson driver, check to make sure you are up to date. Also try connecting via the ethernet port and not USB. My 9880 never worked on USB on my macs or PC’s.

[keith schreiber]

I think CS3 has a length limit of 90.5 inches. This may be OS dependent too.

One possible solution (that does not involve buying a rip) may be to save your file as a pdf and print through Acrobat or InDesign.

Good luck,
Keith