Panorama on Epson 1280 - help

[huckbunny]

I created a panorama by stitching nine digital photos. Original shots
were 2560 X 1920 (Minoltal A1) with about 50% overlap and the resulting
panorama is 7807 X 1338 with a file size of 28,249KB. I want to print
this on an Epson Stylus Photo 1280 using 8.3 in. roll paper to get a
44 inch long panorama. I have tried to print using Epson Film Factory,
Paint Shop Pro 8, and Photoshop CS and each of the programs hangs and
the task manager indicates the program is not responding.

A couple of years ago I printed 24 inch panoramas on 4 inch roll paper
on an Epson Stylus 980 with no problem. I used Paint Shop Pro 7 to do
the printing if I my recollection is correct.

Can anybody help me get this panorama on paper?

Thanks,

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

I created a panorama by stitching nine digital photos. Original shots
were 2560 X 1920 (Minoltal A1) with about 50% overlap and the resulting
panorama is 7807 X 1338 with a file size of 28,249KB. I want to print
this on an Epson Stylus Photo 1280 using 8.3 in. roll paper to get a
44 inch long panorama. I have tried to print using Epson Film Factory,
Paint Shop Pro 8, and Photoshop CS and each of the programs hangs and
the task manager indicates the program is not responding.

A couple of years ago I printed 24 inch panoramas on 4 inch roll paper
on an Epson Stylus 980 with no problem. I used Paint Shop Pro 7 to do
the printing if I my recollection is correct.

Can anybody help me get this panorama on paper?

How much memory and free disk space do you have in your system? The
1280 will resample the image to 720ppi as part of the rendering process,
and this is spooled somewhere, usually on disk. Even though the
original image is only 28Mbyte, an 8.3"x44" image at 720ppi needs more
than half a gigabyte of free space, just to spool - before the dot
placement algorithms set to work.

 

[bmoag]

The correct answer: your file is too big.
The range of programs you cite suggest that file size and the relation
between computer and printer dpi have not been considered. Only Photoshop
can handle something like this, maybe.

For images of this size I hope you have at least 512mbs of ram (double or
quadruple that would be better) and a very fast processor and a lot of space
on your Photoshop scratch disc. A reasonable rule is that a file requires 5
times the amount of RAM (100mb file needs at least 512mbs installed RAM).

If you use Photoshop CS check under Image/Image size.

Type in the EXACT dimensions (width 44 inches, height 8 inches) you want and
a dpi no greater than 360 (probably 260 is adequate) and see what the image
size becomes. For practical purposes if the image size is still greater than
100mbs you will probably not be able to print it because the computer will
freeze (assuming you have at least 512mbs ram). Neither Windows or Mac
(which until OSX was even worse than Windows about controlling memory) can
reliably handle files of this size for printing. To give your computer a
chance close every other program and unnecessary process that might be
running, especially virus programs or other utilities that might try to
access the CPU and memory.

 

[huckbunny]

How much memory and free disk space do you have in your system? The
1280 will resample the image to 720ppi as part of the rendering process,
and this is spooled somewhere, usually on disk. Even though the
original image is only 28Mbyte, an 8.3"x44" image at 720ppi needs more
than half a gigabyte of free space, just to spool - before the dot
placement algorithms set to work.

12 gig free on C: and I have 1 gig of ram. I have a second disk with
134 gig free. Guess I could move my picture files to that disk and
free up about 20 gig on C:. I assume that print files are spooled to
C:. Any way to have them spool to F:? Most of my time is spent on
SGI and LINUX machines and I am not in any way an expert on Windows.
I am running XP home edition.

Huck

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

12 gig free on C: and I have 1 gig of ram.

Hmm - that *should* be enough to do the job.

I have a second disk with
134 gig free. Guess I could move my picture files to that disk and
free up about 20 gig on C:. I assume that print files are spooled to
C:. Any way to have them spool to F:?

Not aware of any way to do this with the printer files themselves, but
you can set the Photoshop temp file to where you want it, and this is
what the big data is spooled to. In PS7 this is set under the
Preferences|Scratch disk option - I guess that PS-cs will be similar.
The file is created in the Temp folder of the disk selected.

Have you tried selecting the Print Preview in the Epson driver options
and then increasing the print length to find what size causes the crash?
By using the preview option, you can cancel the print before it actually
wastes any paper. Since the Epson 1280 actually prints borderless
images slightly oversize (to accommodate paper size and position
tolerances) it might be that the 44" setting you are using actually
results in it just being over the limit.

I have, for example, just test printed a 15840x4680 pixel RGB image on a
13" roll to get a 44" panorama using Photoshop and it worked fine on a
1270 printer, although this does not support borderless prints. This
was spooling onto a C: drive with 14Gb free - similar to your situation.

Using the file size you have though, if you happen to have the
borderless print option set, the driver might be trying to scale the
height up to 8.3inch, which would produce a width greater than the
maximum 44inch, causing an out of range error. This shouldn't lock up,
but who knows with Billygateware. Some investigation with empty test
images and the print preview option might help you track down exactly
what the limit you are hitting is and how to overcome it.

 

[Yianni]

were 2560 X 1920 (Minoltal A1) with about 50% overlap and the
resulting
This file in 720dpi is exactly 14Gb of information. I don't know how big
file the eposn produces (if it uses 720dpi or higher resolution). So, 12Gb
of free disk space is not enough, that's why you have had problems.

 

[huckbunny]

Hmm - that *should* be enough to do the job.



Not aware of any way to do this with the printer files themselves, but
you can set the Photoshop temp file to where you want it, and this is
what the big data is spooled to. In PS7 this is set under the
Preferences|Scratch disk option - I guess that PS-cs will be similar.
The file is created in the Temp folder of the disk selected.

Have you tried selecting the Print Preview in the Epson driver options
and then increasing the print length to find what size causes the crash?
By using the preview option, you can cancel the print before it actually
wastes any paper. Since the Epson 1280 actually prints borderless
images slightly oversize (to accommodate paper size and position
tolerances) it might be that the 44" setting you are using actually
results in it just being over the limit.

I have, for example, just test printed a 15840x4680 pixel RGB image on a
13" roll to get a 44" panorama using Photoshop and it worked fine on a
1270 printer, although this does not support borderless prints. This
was spooling onto a C: drive with 14Gb free - similar to your situation.

Using the file size you have though, if you happen to have the
borderless print option set, the driver might be trying to scale the
height up to 8.3inch, which would produce a width greater than the
maximum 44inch, causing an out of range error. This shouldn't lock up,
but who knows with Billygateware. Some investigation with empty test
images and the print preview option might help you track down exactly
what the limit you are hitting is and how to overcome it.

Success! From Photoshop CS I set user defined size of the print in the
Epson 1280 properties to 820 X 4375 (8.2" X 34.75") and it printed with
no problem. It gave me a very small border at the top margin, no border
on the bottom, and of course the sides can be trimmed to whatever is
appropriate. I'll use a custom frame and mat to size. A nice panorama
of Half Moon Cay (Little San Sebastian Island) in the Bahamas with
Holland Ameerica Line's MS Zuiderdam anchored just offshore.

Thanks for the time spent in research and replying to all who posted
answers. I'll certainly be visiting this newsgroup frequently!

Huck

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

This file in 720dpi is exactly 14Gb of information. I don't know how big
file the eposn produces (if it uses 720dpi or higher resolution). So, 12Gb
of free disk space is not enough, that's why you have had problems.

How do you figure that out? 7807x1338 pixels x 3 bytes per pixel is
about 31MBytes which is the raw, uncompressed image file size - the
720ppi has nothing to do with this calculation. Where the 720ppi comes
in is the actual physical print size. In this case, 44inches wide by 44
x 1338 / 7807 = 7.54inch tall. The resulting file at 720ppi with 3
bytes per pixel is 44 x 720 x 7.54 x 720 x 3 = 515MBytes, or just over
half a gigabyte.

I am genuinely interested in how you computed a value of 14GBytes for
this, since I can't see any combination of these numbers that produce
that sort of result. Having just printed a file that is larger, with
around the same disk space as Huckbunny has available, I am fairly
certain the spooled image size is nowhere near as big as you estimate,
hence I would like to see how you arrived at such a number.