Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Hi--Happy New Year to all.

A bunch of years ago I replaced my Epson R800 with an Epson R2000. It printed great photos, though it was fussy in many ways, for example frequently making false readings of OEM cartridges as aftermarket.

Anyway, about 2 years ago it developed an issue I could not repair, for which I took it to my not-so-local Epson repair shop. I had to decide if it was worth the $300+ or so they wanted to repair it, or if I should replace it, and I bit the bullet and did the repair. Since then it worked great, till a couple of weeks ago (I think). I have been having Qimage print purge sheets every 8 days ago, because I can go weeks or even months without printing a photo, and until about a week ago the printouts were fine. Then I went to print a photo yesterday, and it was way off. I checked profile matches, did nozzle checks and head cleanings--several--made sure all the cartridges were pretty full--all to no avail. My nozzle checks fail, my Qimage unclog/purge printouts are now pink and yellow. I am unwilling to put more money into this printer at this point.

At the time I was dithering about repair or replace, the Canon Pixma Pro 100 was recommended to me as an alternative. With rebates it is far cheaper than the Epson P400. Unfortunately I have a fair amount of Epson paper, alas.) The Epson P400 costs $382 with rebate, the Pro 100 $150 or so with a rebate--plus the paper I will have to buy... (the cartridges will be lost in either case, unless I can sell them).

I am interested in people's experience with that printer or other wide format printers.

Thank you!

Liz 

The Pro-100 is one of the printers we have here.  Probably the best printer we own.  I think you'll be happy with it plus as Fred will tell you, you can often get free paper when you order ink from Canon.  Fred has gotten so much free paper from his ink purchases that he gives me some from time to time because it takes up too much space.  ;)

As for the Epson paper, the Pro-100 isn't as finicky about paper as older Canon printers.  The Pro-100 will print on the Epson paper just fine and the Canon profiles even work reasonably well if you pick a Canon paper that is of the same type (Canon Luster when using Epson Luster paper, Canon semi-gloss when you are using Epson semi-gloss, etc).  You only need a custom profile if you want the highest level of color accuracy.

Regards,
Mike

Thanks Mike! Is there a straightforward way to get Canon profiles for the Epson papers? I would like color accuracy! I especially have a fair amount of Epson Enhanced Matter paper and Epson Premium Glossy.

An off topic question while I have your attention! Is there a way to create a shortcut in Qimage Ultimate for print placement, which as far as I can tell requires going through four sub menus?

Thanks for your help!

Liz

You can have profiles made by sending printed targets for profiling.  Jose Rodriguez does a good job:

http://jtoolman-custom-inkjet-paper-profiles.homestead.com/My-Inkjet-Printing-and-Reflling-Pages.html

For changing print placement method, just click the print placement button under the live view on the main window (the button with the yellow text/letters on it).

Regards,
Mike

Liz if you are using the 2020 version of QU then what you want has been improved and made so easy.

Play this   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flIrKPVzwoQ&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

It's Mikes video. It explains all.
As to the Canon paper and epson paper, please email me for better details
Happy New year
  wathree.ssz@verizon.net
Fred

OMG I had never taken in that yellow button at all, probably because I was using a pale gray skin and the yellow was practically invisible! I changed to a darker skin and now I can see it so easily (though of course now that I know where it is I won't lose it). Thank you so much!

Liz

Soooo, I tried one more repair based on a video by Jose Rodrigues, to no avail, so I ordered the Canon Pixma Pro 100. Meanwhile I deleted my Epson printer and all the Epson paper profiles, and now I can't open Qimage. Obviously I over deleted. What do I need to restore to open it? Or can I just assume that when I install my Canon software all will be ok?

When you say you can't open Qimage, what exactly happens?  Are you getting an error message?

When I try to open first it stays fixed on the loading screen then it shows an error. If I click on Normal, it shows one error, if I click on Safe, another. All screenshots attached.

I am thinking since I deleted Qimage's default printer, and most likely its driver, it can't open. I have a black and white printer but I don't know if Qimage knows that!

Liz Try Holding the Shift key when you open Qimage.
Fred

I tried, no luck. I guess I can uninstall and reinstall Qimage.

ABsolutely Reinstall. I thought you did that already

Ok, I uninstalled, rebooted, re-installed. Same issue persists.

How about for the halibut, reinstall the Epson driver??

I thought of that, but the printer is in my car, ready to be recycles, and when I tried to install the driver it wanted the printer to be connected. And I just don't feel like getting it, schlepping it upstairs, and reconnecting it. It shouldn't be necessary, should it, if I install all the Canon drivers when I get the new printer? And then if need be uninstall and reinstall Qimage?

I agree.  I'd say reinstall the old Epson driver.  If QU loads OK after that, just change the printer in QU to the new printer and close QU and you can then try deleting the old driver again.  I haven't seen this problem before: it's normally fine to delete a driver.  QU will normally just give you a message "Unable to load driver settings for <your old printer>" and it'll just switch to another printer on the list.  I just tried it by installing the Epson P800 driver, setting up QU to use it, then deleting the P800 driver.  The next time you start QU, it just tells you it can't load settings for the P800 and it switches automatically to my Canon Pro-100 without any fuss.  So I'm not sure what happened in your case because it is designed to detect-and-correct when a driver is no longer found on startup.

Regards,
Mike

OKAY, So!

I figured out how to install the Epson driver without having the physical printer connected or even nearby, so I did, then I uninstalled Qimage again, rebooted the computer again, reinstalled Qimage, and IT WORKS! I even remembered to save the Save folder so my old jobs are in tact.

Thank for helping me along this journey!

Liz