Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Has anyone seen this before?  I'm not sure how to describe it, so thats why I sent this attachment.  I'm printing multiple prints from the same file, but sometimes one of them is a different color.  What gives?  Please help! :-\

Could you tell me what I am looking at?
What size are you printing, and am I looking at the preview screen in Qimage, or a print preview screen from the driver, or the scan of a print? Is it a softproof?

Did you place the same image in the queue 3 times, or did you tell the driver to make 3 copies?

Sorry to sound liek an interrogator, but need more facts.

Fred

You are looking at a scan of a print.  I was printing a 3.5in x 5in sports image and I told the driver to make 3 copies.  Got anything?

So if I have this right, you put one copy of the image in the queue of Qimage. The print size was 3.5 x 5. You made 3 copies of the 3.5 x 5 print.
One of the three prints was different; lighter?   Maybe one sheet of paper was different.?
The scan you show is the three prints laying side by side.

Can we have a screen snap of the Qimage main screen, if that is too large, then the area of the right side with preview panel and print and job properties.

Do I assume you have 4 x 6 paper, and what printer is it?
Are you using a profile? If so, what settings are called for in the driver.

If Qimage is sending *ONE* image to the printer, and the printer is making 3 copies from the one image, better have a hard look at the printer.

Try putting three of the same image in the queue, and just tell Qimage to print.
Check the results.

We really need information, please!

Fred
 

One possible cause of the problem is if it was multiple copies of the same image in the queue, a custom profile (the wrong one) had been set accidently for one of the images in the queue. This feature is accessed by a right mouse click on the preview and shows with a small paint pot icon in the bottom left corner of the image on the preview ans full page editor.
Just a thought,
Terry.

Sorry about the info, you'll have to guide me, I won't know what to give you till you ask me.  We are using the Epson Stylus Pro 7900.  We use roll paper, 24 inches wide, by 100 ft in length.  We are using an epson profile ep 78_98 LJsunset_eSatin300g_720icm  Our Settings:   Res:  Mas 300ppi, Res:  High - 180 ppi, Interp: Hybrid, Sharepn: 5 Default. 
The Monitor profile we use is: SRGB IEC61996-2.1

Those prints in attachment we all layed out in qimage next to each other so the paper was the same.  If you will tell me how to do a screen snap I will certainly do that too.

Thanks, Shannon

A useful free (open source) program is Greenshot
http://sourceforge.net/projects/greenshot/
There are others like PicPick but the licence costs for commercial organisations.
Terry

So far the information is fine, but both Terry and I are at a loss to reconstruct your steps to make the three prints.
What size is the page you described for the three prints?
Are you sure you used *one* image, and the driver made three copies?
Terry's suggestion about changing the profile settings for one of three images in the queue is possible, but not if you did as you said, you put one image in the queue, and had the driver print it three times.
It's a great waste of paper, (roll paper) if you print one at a time 3.5 x 5.

Can you describe step by step how you got to the point of clicking print!

Fred

Okay,
We work on a network, so we use a pc with qimage on it to print from.  When I'm ready to queue up a page, I open qimage, then navigate to the clients folder who's order I want to print.  Depending on the size of the order will determine the size of my page.  It's always 24 in. wide, but the length varies.  I think that particular page was about 32 inches long, because that was a sports job where there are a lot of different kids in one folder.  I click on the thumbnail in the qimage screen, set the number of prints the client wants of that pose and size in the box that says Copies to add and go over to the Print properties section where the different sizes of portraits are kept.  I pull down the menu and select the size I want.   
I did try investigating why random images are printing lighter.  On the computer screen you can't see that the print is lighter or is going to be lighter.  It's only after the print comes out of the printer that I know its wrong.  I did double click on the image to see if there was anything different about it in qimage, but I didn't see anything.  There was no paint bucket or anything. 
I called the company where we purchased our printer from and they told me it was qimage, so thats why I'm asking you guys.  I emailed Mike a couple days ago, but he has not gotten back to me yet.  I hope this info helps, my boss is getting frustrated with the amt. of waste we are getting from this problem!  I appreciate all the help so far!

Hi Shannon,
Have you tried soft proofing? If you do this from the full page editor (there's a button) you'll possibly be able to see if there's any variation per print due a to profile variation.
I printed an A4 page of 15 identical images this morning, there was no variation whatsoever so there's no problem with Qimage Ultimate here. You have not said which version of Qimage you are using, I would not think any of the other versions, Q Pro, Q-SE would have a problem either.
Have you checked whether there is some weird setting in the driver than can apply different colour management settings (profile, rendering intent etc.) to different prints on the same page?
Terry

Shannon,
Now we are getting somewhere regarding the information.
By selecting the number of prints you want of that imge using Number Of Copies., that tells us that you have placed that number copies of the same image into the queue, and the printer is not making the copies.
It also tells us that all the copies are alike.

Now we go one step further.
If Qimage is somehow adjusting one image, it would have to be a manual selection of a profile change or a rendering intent change.
If there is something like that turned on for one print, it will show in softproof in the Full Page Editor. But as Terry pointed out, you will see a marker showing that a change was made to one print.
Next step:  Turn on Print Preview in the print driver. This will show any difference between images if that difference originated from some setting in Qimage.
If they all look exactly alike, then move on to your printer.

I don't have a 7900 driver handy, but I most certainly would click on HELP in Qimage and then RESET Printer.

I also would like to know if that anomaly only occurs with *that* image or other images, and whether it happens on every attempt to print that image or any other one that does the same thing.
Last question for now. If you look carefully at the thumbnails, is it possible that you have the same image in there twice; once with a particular color profile embedded, and a second copy with a different color space embedded? Of course, someone would have added one image with a different color space.

Just grasping at straws here.
I looked at my 7800 driver and cant really find where you could go wrong.

Fred

Hi Terry,
If you mean by soft proofing, making the image big on the screen then yes, I just tried that.  I was just printing some wallets.  We can fit a row of 9 wallets on a 24 in wide page.  I had three rows of the same image queued (27 wallets all together) and after it printed I could see that the third wallet from the left side in the third row was a lighter color.  Just that one.  Every other wallet was fine.  Anyway so I double clicked on that lighter wallet in the queue which brought it up bigger and I didn't see anything suspicious.  I figured out how to take some screen snapshots so I'm attaching some of them. 

Hi Fred,
I will try your suggestions.  But no this anomaly occurs very randomly on different images.  The snapshots I'm attaching are from this morning and a different image.  The image that printed lighter is highlighted in the queue.

Thanks, Shannon

Shannon,

Never got any email from you, but glad to help here.  It is highly unlikely that the fault lies with Qimage.  Here's why.  When you print the same image in the same orientation/size multiple times, the image is only loaded once and then the exact same data is sent to the printer multiple times.  Only thing changed is the location (x,y position on the page) which means when you are using a profile, that profile is only applied one time (when the image is loaded) so there's no way for it to change.  The only thing that could change that is printer specific color management settings.  To be sure, you'd have to right click on that print on the page and select "Custom Color Management Settings" and see if "Custom" or "General" is checked.

The quickest way to find the root of the problem might be to enable print preview in the driver.  That way the driver will show you what it is going to print before it actually starts printing.  Do that and if the print preview doesn't show the problem, it's a guarantee that the driver is at fault.  If the problem does show in the driver pre-print preview, then we can't tell anything but there are other tests you could to like printing to file to see if the printed files have the problem or not.

Mike

Shannon,
I have been with Qimage a long time and so have many on here, especially Terry.
If I have *all* the facts of your setup, I would say I want to investigate the printer.
Qimage just cannot possibly make one print of a row of identical images lighter unless you changed the profile for that image.
It looks  like, as best as I can see, Adobe rgb is on all of them.
So here's what I suggest.  Can you try a piece of sheet paper fed through a different slot feed of the printer? See what you get.
Can you divert the printing to a different printer as a test?

Next question, Is it always the same print; third wallet in from the left?
You have 9 wallets. Can you move some of them off that pattern to see if the lighter print is always in the same place in the printer/paper?
Can you make a lighter print other than 3rd from the left?

Fred

Hi Fred,
Thanks for all your help, everyone else too.  I'm out of my league here, can't figure it out.  We're calling in our computer dudes, bringing in the big guns!  I have another issue if you're interested.  We work on a network here, that may be useful info.  Everytime I open a folder from our network that was altered on our computer C (we have three Mac's that we retouch and crop on, A,B & C) I get a warning sign (see attached).  Then if I have to go back into that folder later on (say for instance for a remake) Qimage shuts down when I click on the folder.  Any suggestions?  Shannon

Looks like Qimage is telling you that you have unsupported formatted images in the folder.
I cannot tell you which and why, but perhaps the Mac is nutzing up the files, or some other intermediate software that you use is saving its files in some proprietary format.

If you were to make a NEW FOLDER and transfer all  the images three at a time perhaps, to the new folder, and open Qimage looking at the them 3 at a time, and keep doing that until you get that error message from opening the New Folder, you could isolate one or all bad formatted images.

Email one to me...  wathree.ssz@verizon.net and then we can see why it wont open.

Fred

I have seen the following occur - printing imagery stored on a server and the Server strips off the ICC profile (from the image) especially if the imagery originated from a Macs.

cvt

Should be another thread but I'll reply.

I had a folder in which I had some test targets called Getty something that I downloaded in zip format. QImage would crash all the time that folder was accessed. They were created I believe with Macs. I did not get the warning, just a shut down of Q. After I reset everything in Q so it did not open that folder as last used it stayed open until that folder was accessed. Macs at some point in time in some formats use a different byte order than PCs and sometimes in network transport that order gets reversed. I think its tiff version is one.

Maybe my experience helps.

The tif files are different 'twixt mac and pcs. If you save the file in photoshop, it gives you the choice of byte order - IBM PC or Macintosh. There are also different pixel orders and image compression choices, (as well as 16 bit and 32 bit) which may also mess things up.