LR with P600 - prints scaling larger than cell size in LR

[Rusty0404]

Hi All.

I am hoping someone may have experienced this issue and can point me in the right direction.

I use LR CC on a MacBook Pro with an Epson P600 printer.

Like many photographic clubs, my local club has a size restriction on prints being submitted for competitions. I like to maximise the size of the prints I submit (within the restrictions) and keep my mat margins to 60mm. This means I need to be reasonably accurate with the size of the printed area, allowing 2-3mm overlap with the mat on each edge.

Within the Print module LR allows you to set the cell size, and I use that as a means of creating a print of the size I need to meet my needs.

Today I printed one print (portrait orientation, A3+ Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth 305 GSM, front fed) and it printed exactly the right size. Happy camper!

I then used the same sizing technique and printed a second print (same set-up, same 100% scaling, same paper, same profile, same user pre-set, same page set-up... you get the picture!) except it was a different photo with a landscape orientation.

Bad news - Both the long (horizontal) edge and the short (vertical) edge were scaled up by a little over 3% - which put my horizontal out by 10mm. Now that doesn't sound much, but as I said I am working with fine parameters. Also, I recently printed out a large landscape print on roll paper and when I tried to use my pre-cut mat with it, the print was at least 20mm too large... I had to get the mat professionally re-cut which was costly. I am now thinking it was the same issue although I thought I measured it wrong the first time.

Now, I don't know if this has anything to do with portrait versus landscape, or something else, but the idea of doing a quick draft print on cheap paper to check the dimensions every time I need to print is going to drive me mad, not too mention waste ink of not good paper.

Anyone else had this experience? Any ideas / fixes? Or do I just alter my expectations around the accuracy of this stuff?

Appreciate any help. Cheers!

PS - At one stage I was going to get smart and just reduce the cell size in LR by around 3% thinking I would just out-smart whatever the issue is - that was until the portrait photo worked out exactly. If it is a ratio/landscape thing, I wonder what the magic ratio is that the scaling starts kicking in? Something tells me that's a road that's going nowhere near the real solution.

 

[Gnits]

I also print my images for club competitions. I do the reverse ... I make sure my image is a few mm inside the mount opening. In that way the full image is visible.


If you click on show guides and dimensions .......

then ..... you will see the exact print dimensions on the preview.... compare that to your mount opening dimensions.

I know exactly the size of image I want to put on the paper, so this is always a double check for me before I hit the Print button.

Further ......

I usually have my images resized and sharpened (in Ps) to my final print size so I am getting exactly 360 ppi or 720 ppi.

By clicking on and off the Print Resolution option you will also see what resolution your image will actually be printed at.

In most cases I expect the resolution to be 360 dpi ... so that is double confirmation that I have the correct size on the paper.

Finally ..... as well as using the cell size ...... you need to make sure that the margins are set correctly.... what works fine in portrait mode may not work in landscape and vica versa....

 

[Rusty0404]

Thank you for your reply, Gnits. My setup mirrors yours with some very minor exceptions (margins of 3mm instead of 4mm). It was comforting to see someone else's setup to confirm I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't be.

Begs the question, why is it still scaling in landscape?

The answer, it turns out, was my own error. As I returned to check everything again I noticed that in Page Setup the paper size had changed from "A3+ (Front - FineArt)" to "A3+ (Fr.-FineArt(Borderless, Auto Expand))". Not sure how that happened, but I'll blame myself - possibly selected the wrong item when I was going through checking everything between the two prints - it was the next item down the list. I changed it back to the former and it worked perfectly - correct size .

User error. Figures. Another item to add to my "check before you print" checklist.

Thanks again for your help.

Regards.

 

[happycranker]

This is a big issue and find all the time that I have to go back and check, that everything is set correctly even between one print and the next. The obvious way round the issue is to create custom settings in the Epson driver, so that everything is locked down. The fact that the settings are not sticky, is really annoying and waste time and more importantly paper!

 

[Gnits]

I have given up depending on the custom settings.... never sure when to trust them --- I use them to get into the correct zone, but scan my key settings every time, especially image size on the printed page and colour profile settings.