Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

 I have a 9180 which I use with windows7 and print through qimage. My 32bit Dell has 3GB of ram. Whilst I can print A4 size ok, When I try to print A3 and A3+ the print is ejected about 20% short og completion. I tried reloading the software but this still happens.The printer can print A3 size if I choose the draft option.
Can anyone help?

First thing to do is read Mike's article on missing print data (missing part of print) and take the check out of Enable Enhanced features,m and also make sure that Qimage/ Edit/Preferences/Printing options is set to RAW.

http://ddisoftware.com/tech/articles/august-2006-enable-advanced-printing-features/

Let us know how you make out.

Fred

Thanks Fred.
I have unchecked the Advanced Printing Features box and the dialogue box shows raw but the same result. In fact it seems like the amount printed has dropped fron 80% to 60%. I also disconnected the printer and reconnected prior to trying this.
regards
Bill

Now, the last thing to try.
Sometimes, the HP drivers, have a mind of their own.
So, Click HELP in Qimage and then reset printer.
After doing that, manually reset the driver to your paper selection, print quality, and whatever other settings you use for making a print.
Of course, no messing with the size, or scaling, or any other page option.
Also do not load any preset saved printer setups that you might have.
Do the printer driver settings manually.
Fred

Thanks Fred
Reset Qimage but still the same result. The print should be 15 inches long but cuts off at 11.5 inches.

I know this is picky, but just want to be sure.
You did click RESET PRINTER in the HELP menu in Qimage?
Also want to clarify: when you say the print is 11.5 but should be 15 inches long, you *are* saying that some of the print is missing, or that the printed size is wrong but you have all of the contents of the print?

Fred

Thanks Fred,
I clicked on Reset Printer Settings and Reset ALL Programe Settings.
The print cuts off without completing the print. I tried it again and it only printed 8 inches before ejecting. I have also printed from Photoshop CS4 and the print was OK.
Bill

The only difference betweern printing in CS4 and Qimage WRT size would be that CS4 never remembers or retains driver settings. Therefore it starts with a fresh default driver.
The only other situation would be the fact that Qimage sends more data to the driver than CS4.
So reset the PPI in Qimage to 300 instead of 600 (whatever the HP default might be.)
You do this by setting the properties (lower right, main screen) to HIGH instead of MAX.
See if that prints full.

Recheck that driver for any squirrely settings as Qimage will remember what it used last time.

Fred

Thanks Fred,
As suggested I reduced the resolution from 1200ppi (max) to 600 (high) and this has provided a full print. Whilst I am grateful to be able to obtain a print, will the overall print quality suffer if i retain this setting for all my future prints?
Thanks again for your help
Bill

I neglected to ask you what the resolution of the image was....
It appears that you have reached the end of your computer's resources.
I doubt if you will actually see any difference. That really is for you to compare the partial print to the full print and see if you see anything different.
Perhaps, later or tomorrow, Mike will clarify the situation.
It still would be helpful to know the image size too.

Glad it worked.
Fred

The image size is 4575pix x 2767 pix @ 300px/inch. My computer has 3gb of ram with my discs less 50% full.

A friend just emailed me that in reading your posts, he saw Windows 7. I must have missed that because 3 gigs of Ram, and trying to print large data files on a memory devouring OS like Vista or W7 seems light to me.
Your file size is well within limits.
Last item, I didn't think to ask was whether you are running the printer through a network or cabled to the computer?
Thanks to Terry for the reminder on that possibility.
Fred

Don't forget you can check, from Qimage, the available memory by going to Help, hold Shift down and click Analize Current Settings.
Terry.

Thanks for your help Fred/Terry,
I  run 2 printers on a network. The HP is directly wired to my computer with a USB cable and the other is an epson printer attached by a LAN cable. When I analyse the current settings as Terry suggests the readings are Start 1564MB, Addl  219MB, Now  1566MB.

I have no idea about windows 7, but under xp, I had something similar a few weeks back. I can not recall the exact cure, I've been breaking a few things recently, but I think it is related to the fact that PS can use additional memory, but not all other progs do. I think my solution was to terminate all other running progs, except for Qimage. As I said, it may not be your case, but nothing else seems to have worked either. :(

Best wishes,

Ray

Thanks Ray, I have tried your suggestion and the print almost made it but ended about an inch short. It seems that this is memory related but I do not know how I can allocate more memory to printing with qimage.
Bill

Hi Bill,

I use the windows print spooler in xp - I'm not sure what you do. The spool file, may well need to use the normal windows swap file, afaik. There is also a built in help system that will point you into how to clean up disk space, release memory, etc. I've no idea about windows 7, nor much else, but maybe your swap file is too small. Best to stick that on a separate hard disk than the os, if you have a choice, for speed purposes. I guess a web search along the lines of 'windows 7 swap file' may bring up some clues , or 'win7 printer spool files'.

You will get it sorted, and then like me you'll probably forget about it  :)

Best wishes,

Ray

Bill,
Is there room in the computer to add more Ram.?
Fred

Fred,
Yes, I could go to 4gb

Then by all means add that extra ram.
In W7, in the gadget area right side of the screen, you can put the built in CPU and mem meter and you will likely see that W7 has taken half of your ram in order to run. It looks like about 1.4 depending on what starts up in your computer when it boots.
By adding 1 more gig of ram, that will all go to the usable part of ram.

Fred

Thanks Fred,
My memory meter is running at 30% with no programmes open. I can increase the memory to 4gb but I had read somewhere that for 32bit windows, 3gb was the maximum windows could handle. Is this the case or will I get some real benefit from increasing to 4gb.
Thanks for your help
Bill

Hi Bill,

this explains how cs2 uses memory http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/320/320005.html . This is probably why it prints fine from there, assuming w7 is not that much different. Adding more memory may increase the speed, but provided the swap file is big enough, all other things being equal, following wind, etc.  it should not effect anything else. I think if you search out for your os and and version of PS, you may get a similar explanation to the link above. You can then understand a bit about what is going on. Then, for the Qimage print problems you are getting, you can possibly home in on what is different. Of course, a lot of software hangs on to memory chunks, etc. Have you tried rebooting the pc, then going straight into Qimage and printing the image? If that works, you know at least that it is capable on your setup - it is then something that is changing that setup.

Best wishes,

Ray

Thanks Ray,
I may have a result! After reading the article I reduced the available RAM for photoshop to use and moved the scratch disc from my c drive to another hard disc. When I printed a 15 inch long print at the max resulution the maximum memory usage shown on the meter was 86% and the print completed fully.
I'm not sure whether what i have done was completely logical but in this case it seems to have worked.
Many thanks to you,Terry and Fred for your patience and advice - what would we do without folk like you!
regards
Bill

I was fascinated reading the exchanges regarding the adjustments to memory and Photo Shop.
Without going into a lot of time, could either of you (Ray or Bill) tell me what is a scratch pad, and what is it used for?
Fred

Me too, both fascinated and wondering about a scratch pad.  ???
Bill, have you done the memory check from Qimage Help since making these changes, would be interesting to see any difference?
Terry

From the CS2 Help files:

When your system does not have enough RAM to perform an operation, Photoshop and ImageReady use a proprietary virtual memory technology, also called scratch disks. A scratch disk is any drive or drive partition with free memory. By default, Photoshop and ImageReady use the hard drive on which the operating system is installed as the primary scratch disk.

In the Plug‑ins & Scratch Disks preferences in Photoshop, you can change the primary scratch disk and designate a second, third, or fourth scratch disk to be used when the primary disk is full. Your primary scratch disk should be your fastest hard disk; make sure it has plenty of defragmented space available.

The following guidelines can help you assign scratch disks:
For best performance, scratch disks should be on a different drive than any large files you are editing.
Scratch disks should be on a different drive than the one used for virtual memory.
Scratch disks should be on a local drive. That is, they should not be accessed over a network.
Scratch disks should be conventional (nonremovable) media.
RAID disks/disk arrays are good choices for dedicated scratch disk volumes.
Drives with scratch disks should be defragmented regularly.

Thank you.... sounds sort of like a swap file in Windows, but much more versatile.
Appreciate the help.
Fred

Hi Bill,

Glad you sorted it, and let us know it worked. Now for a 50inch print ;D

Fred/Terry, as Wolverine mentioned, and you guessed, a swap file system. Also, in some earlier (32 bit) versions of windows, there was a switch to utilise the 3Gb of ram, if available, and in PS you can set how much of that you want to use for PS.

Best wishes,

Ray

Terry,
The memory check from qimage help is still at 1564 -221-1569.
regards
bill