printing large file to desktop printer Epson 4000 (5.6 gig)

LH
Posted By
Larry Heath
Sep 24, 2005
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569
Replies
5
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Closed
Okay guys, here’s the deal, I’m fairly new to both Photoshop CS and the Epson Pro stylist 4000 desktop printer. I am a traditional silver gelatin printmaker that due to a hurricane has lost my access to my darkroom and therefore have gone the digital route for my output. My system consists of a Dell 9100 running the new dual core processor at 3 GHz, I have four gigs of memory onboard and 610 gigs of hard disk space. I am scanning traditional negatives into the system using an Epson 4990 scanner. My negatives consist of 2 1/4 and 4 x 5 transparencies for the most part and some negative film, in those formats.

I have a transparency, that I have scanned into the system for which I wish to make a print that will be 16 by 42 inches. I have produced some quite lovely prints in both black and white and color in the 16 x 20 range with no trouble, at approximately 2 gigs size, and excellent quality, but this large panorama seems to be defeating me. This transparency was scanned at 48 bit color, and 1200 dots per inch resolution for a final file size of approximately 5.6 gigs. According to what I see in the documentation CS is capable of handling files up to 300,000 by 300,000 and the Epson printer using the Epson drivers is capable of printing page sizes up to 17" x 44". The problem being when I go into CS to print the print function is grayed out. CS seems to have no problem in loading this file into the system and displaying it on the desktop, but printing seems not to be an option with my CS/ Epson 4000 printer combination. I have spent yesterday evening, casting about on both the Adobe and Epson sites trying to find any information that may bear on this problem, but have found nothing, that seems in any way, capable of alleviating this problem. So the question becomes, is there some specific file size above which CS will not print, or is it the Epson drivers that will not function with this file size and or paper size? Do I need to go to some aftermarket third-party Rip? Is there something that my general level of ignorance of these two products is keeping me from printing this file?

Thank you for your time and efforts my behalf.
Lawrence Heath
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J
Jim
Sep 24, 2005
"Larry Heath" wrote in message
Okay guys, here’s the deal, I’m fairly new to both Photoshop CS and the Epson Pro stylist 4000 desktop printer. I am a traditional silver gelatin printmaker that due to a hurricane has lost my access to my darkroom and therefore have gone the digital route for my output. My system consists of a Dell 9100 running the new dual core processor at 3 GHz, I have four gigs of memory onboard and 610 gigs of hard disk space. I am scanning traditional negatives into the system using an Epson 4990 scanner. My negatives consist of 2 1/4 and 4 x 5 transparencies for the most part and some negative film, in those formats.

I have a transparency, that I have scanned into the system for which I wish to make a print that will be 16 by 42 inches. I have produced some quite lovely prints in both black and white and color in the 16 x 20 range with no trouble, at approximately 2 gigs size, and excellent quality, but this large panorama seems to be defeating me. This transparency was scanned at 48 bit color, and 1200 dots per inch resolution for a final file size of approximately 5.6 gigs. According to what I see in the documentation CS is capable of handling files up to 300,000 by 300,000 and the Epson printer using the Epson drivers is capable of printing page sizes up to 17" x 44". The problem being when I go into CS to print the print function is grayed out. CS seems to have no problem in loading this file into the system and displaying it on the desktop, but printing seems not to be an option with my CS/ Epson 4000 printer combination. I have spent yesterday evening, casting about on both the Adobe and Epson sites trying to find any information that may bear on this problem, but have found nothing, that seems in any way, capable of alleviating this problem. So the question becomes, is there some specific file size above which CS will not print, or is it the Epson drivers that will not function with this file size and or paper size? Do I need to go to some aftermarket third-party Rip? Is there something that my general level of ignorance of these two products is keeping me from printing this file?
Thank you for your time and efforts my behalf.
Lawrence Heath
You will need space for a very large spool file somewhere. PS prints by preparing a spool file (at least as big as your image) and by sending the file to the printer. Perhaps that has some bearing on your problem. Jim
B
bmoag
Sep 25, 2005
I would advise you become seriously realistic about file sizes, color depths and printer drivers as you are trying to print a file that is far too large and much bigger than it needs to be.
Even with a computer as powerful as what you describe it must take a long time to churn through an image manipulation.
What I would do:
Realize that your printer is an 8/24 bit device. If you send it a 48bit image of any size that file is going to be converted to 8/24 bit color. Therefore it behooves you to implement color management in such a way that you make that down conversion from 48bit to to24bit color in a way that you have some control over and can prejudge, as much as color management allows this, what the effect of the conversion will be prior to printing such a large image.Essentially this involves using a system where you can convert the image to the particular printer/paper profile you are using prior to printing. This is implemented somewhat differently depending on the monitor/printer calibration system you use.
If you are printing an image that physically large you also need to consider the dpi you are using, Realistically printers do not resolve greater than 300dpi and for an image this large 200dpi is likely more than adequate. Experimenting with dpi in Photoshop will help to optimize the balance between file size and image quality. For example you can print a portion of the image on 8.5 x12 paper, view it at the proper distance and decide if the dpi is adequate for your use. You can also check if the color/contrast is correct prior to committing to printing such a physically large image.
O
OzzyBizza
Sep 29, 2005
"bmoag" wrote in
news:0uFZe.360$:

Realistically printers do not resolve greater than 300dpi and for an image this large 200dpi is likely more than adequate. Experimenting with dpi in Photoshop will help to optimize the balance between file size and image quality. For example you can print a portion of the image on 8.5 x12 paper, view it at the proper distance and decide if the dpi is adequate for your use.

bomag is absolutely right. larger the final print size, lesser the dpi you need. because, the optimal viewing distance increases with the size of the image. at larger distances, the human eye cannot resolve to such dpi’s. 1200 is definitely overkill.

as a rule of thumb, 600 dpi is adequate for an 8×10 image viewed at 12-18 inches away. if you can do 1200dpi, fine. extrapolate the required dpi’s from this. for example, a 16×20 image viewed at abot 24inches need half the resolution.

the biggest print i ever handled was 10 feet wide, for a trade show. 30 dpi was just enough. we went with 50 dpi. 100 dpi was definitely overkill.

(i’m talking about the image quality. the printer was 300 dpi)
LH
Larry Heath
Oct 1, 2005
"OzzyBizza" wrote in message
"bmoag" wrote in
news:0uFZe.360$:

Realistically printers do not resolve greater than 300dpi and for an image this large 200dpi is likely more than adequate. Experimenting with dpi in Photoshop will help to optimize the balance between file size and image quality. For example you can print a portion of the image on 8.5 x12 paper, view it at the proper distance and decide if the dpi is adequate for your use.

bomag is absolutely right. larger the final print size, lesser the dpi you need. because, the optimal viewing distance increases with the size of the image. at larger distances, the human eye cannot resolve to such dpi’s. 1200 is definitely overkill.

as a rule of thumb, 600 dpi is adequate for an 8×10 image viewed at 12-18 inches away. if you can do 1200dpi, fine. extrapolate the required dpi’s from this. for example, a 16×20 image viewed at abot 24inches need half the resolution.

the biggest print i ever handled was 10 feet wide, for a trade show. 30 dpi was just enough. we went with 50 dpi. 100 dpi was definitely overkill.

(i’m talking about the image quality. the printer was 300 dpi)

Thank you all for the info, I think that this has me going in the right direction now.

Later Larry
GL
Greg Latiak
Oct 9, 2005
Larry,

I went though the same sort of learning curve when I started to scan in my 120 and 4×5 transparencies and negatives. My scans are still huge — for decent color correction in photoshop, minimizing posterization, I go for the greatest color depth my Epson scanner will support. The scan density is typically 1600 and occasionally 3200 dpi — which means the images are very large. 10,000 rpm ultrascsi disks are not overkill and multilayer DVDs will be your friend for archiving — forget CDs, too small!

What I learned is that the meaning of ‘dpi’ is not uniform across the digital workflow — this creates a lot of confusion. Scanner ‘dpi’ is not the same as printer ‘dpi’. You might want to dig into the low level details on each from the manufacturers and some of the great digital darkroom websites that are out there.

Essentially, I scan things in typically at 1600 dpi/48 bit color. This gives me a raw image around 250-500mb. I keep the original at this level untill I am ready to print, then I let Photoshop CS2 downres to 350dpi for printing on the Epson at 1440dpi (probably diddles per inch) — the later appears to control how densely the Epson prints its color dots, seems to have little to do with the actual print resolution. This works well for 13×19 and the occasional panorama on 13" paper.

Oh — one small note. The Epson driver and the print spooler do require disk space for rasterizing the image and feeding it to the printer. If you have one large disk this may not be much you can do if lack of disk space is a problem. But if you have a smaller system disk and one or more additional drives, it is possible to move the temporary and spool areas to other places. Placement of the photoshop temporary files can also be optimized.

Hope this is helpful.

greg

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