Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I need to print two 11" x 153" (12.75 feet) images on a 24 inch roll. I am printing borderless and want the two images pressed against the edges of the page (2' x 12.75'). I the moment I can't seem to be able to do it and what I am seeing on the screen is too small to work with accurately.

Brian A

Hi Brian,
What printer brand and model?
Please clarify

and want the two images pressed against the edges of the page (2' x 12.75').

You want the two 11" images to each be pressed against opposite sides of the 24" sheet, with 2 inches of blank between, or do you want one pressed against the side, and the second pressed against that print so you have 2" of space on one side???
Fred

I want the two images at the sides, with two inches between them. The layout view is tiny, but I can see what appears to be white space at the sides.

Brian A

OK Now we have something with which to work!! The only thing I don't know is which printer and model. Then I can make the settings using your driver.
So, lacking that, I will guess at an Epson 7900...

We need to set a paper size in the driver. Roll paper 24" wide....   OK we have to set the page length to 154" to accommodate the 153" long print.
We set the paper width to 23.77 inches.  That size + borderless will give you a printable area of 24.002"  (Just what we want!!

We need to set ROLL PAPER/BANNER MODE in the driver. ... and Borderless.  (Of course, I leave the color and quality, plus paper type to you)
We have a printable area, now, of 24.002" x 154.0".

Then we open Print properties and set the print size in CUSTOM: 153" x 11". That gives us 2 guides on the preview screen.
Click the + sign on each of the two thumbnails for the images you want.
All that is left is to place them.
(You mentioned that the view in preview was too small to be sure of anything; agreed). So that's where the Page Editor comes in handy.

Go into the Page Editor and select the SIZE/LOC tab!
In the editor all you do is click to select the upper image, and CTRL UP ARROW.  Done!
Click to select the lower image. CTRL DOWN ARROW. Done.

See screen snaps.

The snap shows 13.00 inches from the lower print to the top. That's 11 for the print and 2" for the space.. Same for the other print.

Write back if it needs more clarification.

Fred
To check the placement just look at the LOCATION

OK, so a few follow up questions:

Can I run two copies of Qimage (one at home and one at work), as I do with Lightroom? Or would I have to purchase two copies to do that? All this would have been extremely easy in Lr, but I need Qimage to overcome the pixel length limit of the driver.

Why 154" for a 153" print? If I do a 24" x 36" print on a 24" roll, I set the height to 36", not 37". The print comes out at 36". (Epson 9890 btw)

Why 23.77 inches. What would be wrong with setting it to 24" with auto expand on. The two inches in the middle are of no concern to me, apart from being a trimming nightmare - the two will be cut apart roughly and then trimed.

I am with you on roll paper and banner mode, but still not sure why not 24" and auto expand. Seems like to get 24.02", I would have to turn off the printers auto paper size check.

I think the Page Editor is what I am missing out on: how do I can it to show?

I will try out your setting later today when I go into work. Thanks for you help so far.

Brian A

The criterion is that only one copy of QU is in use at any given time. So you can have a copy and use it in both places.

The 154 inches was for the paper size. The print is still 153. The extra inch was to give you a finger size to grab the sheet without marking the print.
Set that page size to 153 if you wish.


The object of your job specifications was to produce 2 11" wide prints at either edge (borderless) and leave 2" in the middle between prints.
To do that we need *** 24" of PRINTABLE AREA."**
With borderless on, you have to tweak the paper size to get exactly 24" of Printable Area!!!


The Page editor has two tabs for use. Cropping tab, and Size Location Tab.
You want the size location Tab.
To get to it, See screen snap and click that icon, or with one image selected, Right Click; Edit Page, or the unknown shortcut, double click on a blank area off the right side of the Preview screen.

See both screen snaps.
Glad to help.

Fred

PS I missed this one.

If you don't need the 2" spacing, then set the roll width to anything at all over 22 inches.
If you set it for 23" and still follow the set up instruction, your center space will be how wuch over 22" you set roll width.

It works exactly the same in LR and QU because you are using the same driver.  You need to understand how your printer driver options work so that you can print accurately.  Continuing with a 24 x 36 example for ease of demonstration, if you just set your user defined paper size to 24 x 36 inches without changing anything else (from defaults), you will not get a 36 inch print!  Nor will it be 24 inches wide.  It will be 23.766 x 35.766 inches because that is the maximum allowable size without borderless.  It doesn't matter what software you use: they all use the same driver and all of them will be able to print an absolute maximum of 23.766 x 35.766 inches as that is a physical limitation of the printer (in non-borderless mode).

Here's the rub: Adobe thinks you won't care that your print isn't actually 24 x 36 and there's a 1/4 inch missing from both measurements so if you tell LR (or PhotoShop) to print a 24 x 36, it'll just cut off 1/4 inch without telling you and you'll think you got a full 24 x 36 inch print but it is 1/4 shy in both dimensions.  Measure it and you will see.  Being actually designed for printing, Qimage is more precise than that and actually lets you know exactly what you are getting so you can't do things like place a 24 x 36 inch print on a setup that Qimage knows is only 23.766 x 34.766 inches.

The only way to fill the 24 inch width is to check the "borderless" checkbox.  Continuing with the 24 x 36 example, with Epson, you have two options in borderless (click the "Expansion" button in the driver):

Option 1, Retain Size: your paper size will be 24.233 x 36.0 inches.  In this mode, the print is not expanded (stretched) nor is there any overspray, but Epson gives you a ~.12 inch slack on either side of the paper where you can actually print off the edges of the paper.  In this case, when you print two 12 inch wide prints or one 24 x 36, as long as you are using a centered print placement type (like Optimal spaced), it'll center your 24 inch print on the paper and get very close to having the entire image print with no white slivers missing on either edge.  They give you the "slack" so you can slide the print one way or another (left or right) to compensate for the paper feeder not loading the paper exactly centered.  Keep in mind that when doing borderless printing (trying to print exactly 24 inches wide on a 24 inch roll) you are always going to get a tiny amount of loading "slop" and you'll almost always end up with a tiny white sliver of unprinted area on either the left or right because paper simply cannot be loaded (and stay rolling) that accurately.  To prevent this, you can actually print a 24.233 x 36 inch print (use "Fit to Page" size in QU) and that will print a small amount off the edge on each side to prevent the white space.  Down side is you lose a tiny amount of the print on both sides because it is actually being printed off the edge of the paper onto the sponge.

Option 2, Auto Expand: In auto expand mode, the print width will actually show 23.997 inches BUT the driver auto-expands the print to be about 24.26 inches.  So in this mode, if you want some overspray at the edges to prevent the white slivers, you can "order" or send to the driver a 24 (23.997) inch print and the driver will actually print it at 24.26 inches, overspraying some of the print past the edges.

Personally, I like option 1 because I can control how much overspray I want.  I typically use option 1 and select a size of 24.15 inches because that'll give me just a hint more than 1/16 inch overspray on the left/right edges so that I don't get a white sliver down one edge due to paper loading tolerances.  With option 1, I can also just expand the width (for example, the 24.15 inches) without expanding the height (leave that at 36.0).

So, knowing how the driver operates should allow you to take the above example and get whatever you like.  QU isn't doing anything differently or "mysterious": it is simply allowing you to work on a 1:1 basis with the driver and that's how it should be done because the driver dictates all print limitations and features.  The key is understanding how the driver works and what it is doing, particularly if you are printing any combination that requires you to print exactly 24 inches across a physical 24 inch wide roll.

HTH,
Mike

Thanks for all the help so far.

It looks like I lose auto expand when I select roll banner printing, and I need roll banner selected to overcome the Epson pixel length limit. So it looks like I will have to use Mike's Option 1.

I want two long prints from a 24" roll that are 11" x 153", after trimming. I want to avoid having to trim both edges of both prints, hence the borderless printing.

So the question is how to implement that? Do I set the sheet size in the driver to 24" x 153" and somewhere in QImage set the two image sizes to wider than 11"?

Brian A

Brian,
We went over this already. As long as you don't care about the width of the space between the prints, this is easy.

Set the page size to 24.02 x 153" Set Borderless on so the prints will be at both edges and no trimming needed.
Printable area becomes 24.25 x 153"

Set the print size to 11 x 153"

Add your two images.

Go into Page Editor as instructed before, and select lower image with the mouse. Hold the CTRL key and tap the Down Arrow on the keyboard.
That sets the lower image to the edge of the paper.

Do the same with the upper image; select, hold the CTRL key, and tap the UP arrow key.

Click Done! Back to main screen, now you click Print!

That's all there is to it.

Fred

Sometimes, drivers can be tricky. If you prefer a video, I can make it and send it to you.

The problem is that when I set the print size to 11" x 153", I am losing a few millimeters on the edge. So the cut print will end up less than 11".

What I have done is resampled the print to 11.128" x 153" in Photoshop, and I am now trying to work out where to position the two image so I lose about 1/16 off the sides to over spray. Or I may even just go with trimming both edges, which I am sure I will regret when it comes to actually trim it tomorrow.

Brian A

I think what I am not getting is the "set the paper width to 23.77 inches". I know how to set it as such, but what is it doing for me?

Brian A

Brian,
I don't know what else you are adding to the mix.
If you follow what I sent you in steps,
You get this: See screen snap!
That shows that Qimage is sending that print size to the driver.
Did you mess with the expansion as Mike mentioned.??

Back it out!!
Make sure you have selected RETAIN SIZE in the driver.

Fred
PS
Since you said you no longer need 2" exactly between prints we changed to the ABOVE . You keep changing what you want.
Will a video help you?

As I mentioned above, I cannot set auto expand when I have roll banner selected


No A video will not help. I am familiar with the dialog.

Perhaps I have not made myself clear. I don't care what space is between the two, it will be around 2 inches give or take. What I need is a 24" x 153" piece of paper with same image printed two up, in such a way that there is absolutely no white showing at the two side edges, and when trimmed/cut I end up with two prints exactly 11" x 153" - hopefully having only to trim the two inside edges.

Brian A

Follow the instructions in http://ddisoftware.com/tech/qimage-ultimate/i-need-zero-margins-how-to/msg15522/#msg15522

Brian,

What does Qimage report in the Resolution box.?

See screen snap
Fred

Yes, remember when you see 24.233 inches, that .233 inches is overspray so if you "bump" the prints all the way to the edge as Fred instructed, about .12 inches of the print is going to print off the page: you can see in the page editor that their location is "0.00" inches from the sides which is beyond the edge of the physical paper (by about .12 inches).

If it is paramount that you have exactly 11 inch wide prints, there are two simple ways to deal with this.  If the prints are 1/8 inch shy of 11 inches, just add that back: specify a size of 11.125 x 153 instead of 11 x 153 and then do exactly as Fred instructed. Don't know why you'd resample in PhotoShop when it won't do as good a job at resampling: just specify 11.125 x 153 in QU and print using Fred's instructions about bumping using the Ctrl-arrow method.  The other way to do it is to experiment with distances on the left/right.  Instead of bumping both sides to 0.00, you could try 0.1 (just enter the numbers in the location boxes in the page editor).

The down side to the second method of trying to perfectly dial in the edge is that after printing a print that is more than 12 feet in length, if you think that paper isn't going to shift left or right by a millimeter or more and by the time you get to the end you'll see a small white sliver, you're in for a rude awakening.  You are going to run into this problem in any software and on any printer when trying to get exact alignment printing borderless.  In fact, no matter how you do it, if you are printing a 12 foot long print, I wouldn't be surprised if your print itself ends up being exactly 11 inches when you start yet one of them grows by 1 or 2 mm and the other one shrinks by the same amount by the time you get to the trailing edge of that print.  You are asking the printer to do the impossible: to be accurate down to almost the atom in feeding that paper.  The only way to really ensure exactly 11 inches is to not print all the way against the edge (don't do borderless).

I think the closest you are going to get (without trimming) is to just specify 11.125 x 153 inch prints and then do exactly as Fred instructed.  If that ends up off by a fraction of a millimeter (possibly only on one print), you'll have to modify the numbers so they match the "slop" in your particular printer.  No two 9890's are going to load prints at exactly the same locations WRT roll and even how the roll is first loaded, type of paper, and humidity will affect things.  I've even seen two rolls of the exact same paper shift left/right by 2-3 mm just based on how it is loaded on the cardboard tube inside and it even feeds slightly differently at the end than it does at the beginning of the roll.  These are all factors you'll have to deal with if you are trying to print borderless and get exact sizes right up against the edge of the paper.

If you've already done (at least a few inches of) a test print, you have all the data you need.  Let's say you did as Fred instructed and the print down the left side of the page was 1/8" shy of 11 inches and the one on the right was 1/16" shy of 11 inches (they may or may not be the same).  Then just add those back: make the left print 11.125 x 153 and the one on the right 11.063 x 153.  Then repeat Fred's instructions above and you'll get as close as you can possibly get.

BTW a fair amount of this "borderless conundrum" is covered in the second learning video on this page:

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/learn.htm

Mike