Epson 2200 dpi claim exaggerated?

[jimdesu]

(pardon if this is a duplicate -- I'm getting a '"queryString"

required but not supplied' error searching)

 

I've recently acquired an Epson 2200 printer, and have been playing

around with different papers to see what produces better tones, and

in doing so I've run across a problem: when I print a picture with a

dpi of (if I recall correctly) 700 dpi, it chokes and only prints

part of the picture (on 2880dpi setting). Rez'ing down to 360 dpi

makes the print come out fine, but what's the point of 2880 dpi if

you can't use it, right?

 

Has anyone else discovered this, and if so, is there a driver fix

somewhere or is there some kind of fine-print difference between

output dpi and addressable dpi?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

James

[don_cooper]

I believe there is absolutely no connection between the the image dpi and the printer dpi. They are two seperate and distinct items. I've no idea what causes your problem of the printer 'choking' and only printing part of the page, but it doesn't occur with any of my attempts.

[ellis_vener_photography]

The maximum res quality on the Epson 2200 is 2880 x 1440 dpi. I am assuming that is width x height.<P>there is a lot of evidence piling up that you do best by printing at maximum printer resolution for prints that are 8x10 or smaller. for up to 11x14, 1440dpi printer resolution is lookingto be better, and for up to 16x20 (or full printer width) 720 dpi is probably fine. You truy and judge for yourself. Jeff Schewe (www.schewephoto.com) also advocates making a profile for the different resolution settings.<P>it is also recommended that you use printer resolutionsthat are evenly divisible into 2880. Hence 2880, 1440, 720 and 360 dpi. the thinking here is that if you use another resolution setting (like 300ppi) the printer software will automatically re-rez (interpolate) the file to the closest of these evn divisors.<P>I'm not a printing maven and I am just passing on information from my notes fromthe January 2003 P.E.I. Magazine conference & seminars.

[blueviews]

Are you talking about the resolution that you have in the actual image or what you tell the printer driver to print. For example, I have an image that is 8x10 at 360 DPI or 2880 x 3600 in the image. I set the 2200 up to print using the 1440 resolution in the print driver and it works great. I set the print driver to 2880 resolution and the print takes longer to come out but doesn't look so much different.

So are you talking about the resolution of the image or the print driver resolution that you want to use.

Bill

[jimdesu]

To answer Bill, I'm talking about the resolution of the image at the printer. Taking a 5760dpi scan of a 35mm negative, cropping it, then changing the resolution in photoshop to 8x10, resulting in (often) greater than 700 dpi.

 

thanks,

 

James

[david_littleboy__tokyo__ja]

The "2880x1440" dpi is the resolution of the individual dots that make up the dither pattern that the printer uses to implement full color. You need several of those to make one full-color pixel. Each printer dot is one of 7 colors or white, whereas each pixel is one of 2^24 colors.

 

IMHO, if you see odd things happening as you change the resolution of the input image you print, then the program that's feeding the printer driver is broken. The program that's feeding the printer driver should be resampling the image and feeding data that's optimal for the printer driver to the printer driver. If it's not, it's broken. IMHO.

 

FWIW, on the Epson 950, If I start with a high-resolution sharp scan and progressively downsample, it's only when I get below 250 ppi that the quality of the printed image begins to degrade. I'd guess the 2200 would have similar properties.

[jimdesu]

That makes a great deal of sense -- does anyone know what the PIXEL resolution of the 2200 is once the dots have become pixels?

[noshir_patel]

Part of the problem is loose use of terminology. It makes sense to those of us who have done computer graphics work for years, but for others it is confusing to have two different concepts of "dpi".

 

Here's how I would suggest thinking of it. Image resolution is Pixels Per Inch (ppi) and printer resolution is Dots Per Inch (dpi). Now the bit somebody else wrote about many dots being needed to make one arbitrarily colored pixel is basically correct. After a certain point, higher dpi is not so much about making an image sharper or getting more detail as it is creating smoother tones with less of a noticable dither pattern.

 

I can't say what works best on an Epson 2200 (since I don't own one), but for the other Epson "photo" printers there's not much to be gained by sending it more than a 360 ppi image. I'm tempted to say nothing to be gained. Most people wouldn't notice the difference between 240 ppi and 360 ppi (although subtle pixelation can be detected up close).

 

Also, the bit about using even divisors of maximum printer resolution is tempting, and I have to admit that I do it, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter. There is really no reason for it to matter (unlike scanning where it matters a great deal due to sensor alignment).

[jkantor]

You've discovered marketing hype. Once printers hit about 720 dpi, raw resolution became the least important factor in output quality.

 

The printer prints 1440 dots per inch. However, it can overlap those dots vertically by moving the paper in half increments. That's how they get the 2880 number (and why it doesn't make a very big difference to the output). Plus there are secondary relationships, including the dot size (smaller ink droplets), the paper (as you know), and the color gamut of the picture and the ink. The most important factor behind the scenes is the software algorithms they use to create the pixels. The most important factor to you, me, and the client is how it looks on the paper.

 

And maybe you can aswer the question I just posted. Is Epson Enhanced Mat paper durable enough to use for pages in a bound wedding album? (That means the prints themselves become the pages and are not protected by mats.) I'm worried about the physical abrasion of the prints in such circumstances.

[ellis_vener_photography]

<I>"...does anyone know what the PIXEL resolution of the 2200 is once the dots have become pixels?"</I><P>The dots that make up the print you produced with printer will become pixels when you scan the print. Inkjet prints are comprised of dots of ink; images in a digital form --in a computer readable form -- are made up of pixels.

[pdmphoto]

If you are only getting part of the image printing at 700dpi its likely due to a lack of computer resources. The most obvious would be lack of RAM or swap file (vitual memory) space. If you know you have enough of those resources, then look into your computer/software settings.

 

Paul

[audidudi]

Through trial and error, I've learned that I need to have _at least_ 10X the image size free on the hard drive where the Epson program is loaded, otherwise, a portion of the image may be cut off when it prints. I have never seen this documented by Epson anywhere but I have found it to be true of a friend's 7000 and 7600 as well as my 870 and 1270/1280. If all else fails, you might try freeing up some disk space and see whether that solves your cut-off problem.

[upscan]

Has everyone missed the point JAmes is making or Am I off-track? It seems the problem that James is talking about has to do with the computer driver, the computer or the operating system NOT with the printer itself. The computer normally spools the data over to the printer and feeds it as the printer uses it. As the DPI increases so does the amount of data and if something goes wrong and the computer chokes up, only part of the picture will be printed. I had that problem with the first printer driver for the Epson 1280, I think that the abominable Windows ME was part of the problem although I am not sure I remember the details. What is your computer running on, what connection are you using and how much memory do you have?

[john_luke]

File size:

 

Send your files to the Epson at either 360 or 240. Anything higher than 360 will choke your system as you have experienced and has no increase in quality. The Epson print drivers algorithms round better in multiples of 720 as mentioned earlier.

 

 

Printer resolution:

 

I personally see no difference in output settings of 2880 comnpared to 1440 other than more ink consumption and slower output times. People who make large prints on the 40" wide machines often output at 720 as these huge prints will most likely be viewed far away.

 

This ppi to dpi stuff makes us all crazy.

[jimdesu]

I'm running on a quad-pentium windows2000 machine with 2GB of RAM (although windows is too stupid to see two of the processors -- typical microsoft innovation), so system memory is not going to be the cause of it. You were correct that I think it's driver-related, but at the same time, they seem to be saying that it's not capable of what I'm trying to do anyway (aka it isn't really capable of 2880 dpi _that you can specify_, but that most of the dots are for printer dithering use only) and that I shouldn't bother with more than 360ppi anyway.

 

Thanks,

 

James

[beauh44]

I think we're comparing apples to oranges. The dpi of your printer has nothing to do with the dpi you use in Photoshop's print dialog box - usually suggested to be set to 360dpi. Let's say you scan some monster-sized negative and send it straight to your printer... what happens?? Well it gets *interpolated* down just as tho' you checked the "Resize Image" box in PS's Image>Size command except the printer is doing it for you instead of your computer. When I first got my setup at home, I didn't have a clue and sent huge files to my printer - but it never choked up once.

 

The OS could be getting in the way here, but I'd also check a few other things: Free disk space - remember it's spooling that print job to disk first and if it's a big file and there's not enough room, it'll bomb out!! I'd also get in the habit of de-fragging the disk very often - I do it a couple of times a day and can tell when it needs it because my disk will "thrash". Also are you printing using a parallel port? (Lots of tricky settings there in the OS to do with "handshaking" and bidirectionality) USB?? (are you using a hub instead of plugging directly into the PC?) or even Firewire?

 

I think ideally what you might want to try is this: PRE-PLAN your PRINT!! That is, before you even start, think about the size of the print. Let's say you want 9"X6" print from scanning a 35mm chrome. In the scanner software you determine that in order to get a print that big at 360dpi the file size will be 20MB. Go ahead and scan, color-correct and sharpen... but since you planned ahead, you will NOT have to re-size either up or down, or leave it up to either Photoshop or your printer to "throw away" the extraneous pixels it feels you won't need.

 

Another benefit is a much smaller file size!!

 

Now there is a perfectly valid school of thought that says to scan at the maximum resolution every time because you never know if you'll need some huge poster-sized print. So you end up with a 70mb file and use Photoshop's bicubic interpolation to "scrunch" it down. I've read that some people say that this averaging of pixels makes for "better pixels" and I'm not sure if that's true or not. One thing's for sure: As a general rule, the less you mess with your data, the better. So a little pre-planning isn't a bad idea because it keeps you or the printer from having to interpolate at all. What you scan is what you print! WYSIWYP!! (Could I have made a new acronym?!?... Nahhh!!)

 

With regards to printing in 2880 dpi versus 1440, I agree that it's darn near impossible to tell the difference but have heard it put this way: When you print in 2880, the "acutance" of your print will be sharper. "Accutance", according to Ernst Wildi in "The Hasselblad Manual" is explained this way: "Photo technicians have found that the sharpness in a photograph is not so much determined by the resolution of fine detail as by the edge sharpness of lines within the image." So *if* what I heard is correct, you'll get an almost imperceptable improvement in edge sharpness by having your printer set to 2880 dpi. And this has nothing to do with the dpi of your image! My advice is to save the ink because you'd need someone with a very nice loupe and darn good eyes to tell the difference.

 

I recently purchased "Mastering Digital Printing" by Harald Johnson and he goes very much in-depth about all this. Highly recommended! Best wishes!! ...Beau

[john_luke]

James-

 

A pixel is the smallest discreet piece of information you can have. It is a specific size, and a specific color. How many dots the printer lays down to make that pixel is what the output resolution is all about.

 

Assume an original file that is 1� x 2� @ 360 ppi for all examples. If your file size is 360 ppi, the image has 360 �pixels� for each inch in one dimension, lets say height for example. The pixel size and print dimensions stay constant for each example.

 

If you set the printer output size at 360dpi, each incoming pixel will be printed by 1 dot. (By the time the printer get to the next pixel, there will be some gaps between the pixels, true continous tone does not exist, the tone looks choppy)

 

If you set the printer output size at 720 dpi, each incoming pixel will be printed by 2 dots

 

If you set the printer output size at 1440 dpi, each incoming pixel will be printed by 4 dots. (At this point, by the time the printer gets to the next pixel, it has pretty much filled in all the space from the last pixel it printed with tightly laid down dots, creating the illusion of "continuos tone")

 

If you set the printer output size at 2880, each incoming pixel will be printed by 8 dots

 

From what the people at TSS Photo say, and this has been confirmed at a numbr of other forums, the Epson driver disregards anything above 360 ppi going into it. It is simply too much data for any purpose. Settle on 360ppi or 240ppi as your �standard� file size, and control your quality of print by using the printer resolution setting. Matte papers for instance, usually won't resolve anything above 1440 because the dots spread slightly on the matte surface and the image looks as good as the paper will allow it to look. High gloss paper may allow you to see a difference between 1440 and 2880, but it really, really hard to see with the unaided eye.

[andy_piper2]

John Luke: Most of your comments are very accurate - but I'd quibble with your "dot math", because, since dots and pixels cover AREA and not just a linear dimension, you have to square the amount each time.

 

Assuming 1 ink: At 360dpi, each incoming pixel will be printed by 1 dot

 

...at 720 dpi, each incoming pixel will be printed by FOUR dots (the pixel is two dots wide AND two dots tall - !)

 

...at 1440 dpi, each incoming pixel will be printed by SIXTEEN dots (4 dots wide by 4 dots tall)

 

...at 2880, each incoming pixel will be printed by SIXTY-FOUR dots (8-dot by 8-dot array).

 

If you're printing in color, then you must multiply these numbers by the number of inks being used - but that varies with the color of the pixel (i.e. you don't use any cyan or black ink to print a bright red pixel). On average each pixel probably uses from 2 to 4 inks, depending on color and saturation.

 

(actually, even this is an oversimplification - otherwise a 360-ppi image printed at 360 dpi would be a posterization - each pixel, being represented by only one dot (or no dot) would print solid ink or white. Epson's algorithms do a whole lot behind the scenes to translate image data into dither patterns - there is not a direct mapping of pixels to printer dots, per se.)

 

James: you probably 'got' this already - but the printer dot-resolution setting (which you set in the page setup dialogue) is almost totally distinct from your file resolution (which you set in Photoshop's "Image Size" dialogue).

 

You could re-res an image to be very low-res (say, 72 ppi web resolution) and still print it at ANY of the Epson print-dot frequencies (360/720/1440/2880). You would see the 'jaggies' from the low-res image in any print-out - even the individual pixels - but the ink dots making up those jaggies would get finer and finer, and the colors purer and smoother, as the printer dot frequency goes up.

[andy_piper2]

James: to get back to your original question about the software 'hanging' with big image files -

 

The Epson print software spools your image to a buffer file - a temporary working space on disk and in memory where it does its calculations and determines which dots to put where. It then ships the printer data from the spool file to the printer.

 

If you are tight on disk space or memory this may be causing the 'hang'. On a Mac (and with an older Epson driver) the fix was to find the Epson Status Monitor file in the System folder and increase the memory allotment. If you're using background printing I believe you can increase the memory allotment to PrintMonitor for the same effect. At any rate there should be SOME place in your system where you can adjust the printing memory or spool file size allotment to give Epson LOTS of elbow room for 'crunching' big image files.

[brian_c._miller]

"although windows is too stupid to see two of the processors -- typical microsoft innovation"

 

Your problem is you are using Windows 2000 without the _extra_ _licences_ for the processors. Microsoft decided that they needed more revenue, so one of the changes between NT 4.0 and W2K is licensing the number of processors. There are seperate versions of W2K for 1-2, 4, and 8+ processor computers.

 

If you were running NT 4.0 then all of your processors would be available to the OS.

 

<sarcasm> Cute, huh? </sarcasm>

 

I've also recently purchased an Epson 2200, and it sounds like you have some kind of a driver/OS issue. Do you have the latest service pack for W2K? Also, try freeing up disk space and put temporary files onto a different drive or partition with lots of free space. Last night I printed out an 8"x22" panorama at 2880, no problems.

 

As far as the printer setup resolution is concerned, looking at the prints (not the calculator!!) I do see a difference between 720, 1440, and 2880 on matte paper. At 720 there isn't much difference between the Epson 2200 and my HP 932C. I can see more pixels in shadow areas at 1440 than 2880. At 2880 and Epson RC photo paper, it really looks like a chemical print!

[david_bradley1]

The fact that images are cut short when printing large and/or hi-res images on Epson printers has been asked frequently on photo.net and other forms such as the Photoshop discussion board at www.adobeforums.com. This really should be in an FAQ somewhere. I suggest doing a search to find what the previous answers have been.

<P>

Here are the fixes that I use myself or have read about:

<OL>

<LI>Make sure you have enough free space in your TEMP directory. The Epson driver fails silently when it runs out of disk space, and simply prints a truncated image rather than displaying an error message. My spool files are sometimes as large as 180MB or so.

<LI>As an alternative to spooling to your TEMP directory, you can explicitly tell the Epson driver to a different partition. Go to Printing Preferences -> Speed & Progress and set your "High Speed Copy Folder". (As an aside, if you happen to have a RAID array on your computer, for example, for use as your Photoshop scratch disk, you can <I>significantly</I> reduce your print prep time by spooling to a partition on your RAID array instead of your default Windows TEMP directory.)

<LI>Reduce the amount of memory allocated to Photoshop. I have 2 GB of RAM on my dual processor system but I still have to lower my PS memory to as low as 25% to prevent truncation. I edit with PS memory set much higher, of course, but when I print I lower it to 25% and restart PS. Yes, this is annoying and should not be necessary, but it appears to be the way it is.

<LI>Others have reported truncation because a low quality USB cable was used to connect the printer or because of loose USB connections.

</OL>

If your images are being truncated because of insufficient disk and/or RAM resources then the truncation will probably show up in Epson's "print preview" window. In other words, you can find out if the image has been truncated without wasting any paper and ink. This approach does not work if the problem lies with your USB connection.

[qdb]

I print to an Epson 7600.

 

It is a complete waste of time sending this or any other current Epson printer more than 360 ppi. In fact, you can get away with 240ppi for larger prints with no noticeable quality loss, unless you examine the print under a high powered loup. You do not get a better print by sending the printer more than 360 ppi.

 

I recommend you resample to 360 ppi before you send your file to print.

 

Something else you might try is to close Photoshop, and use a printing utility like qimage to print. Use "high/high" not "max/max" with qimage.

 

Quentin