Hi All,
I want to use my Epson 2100 to print huge panoramic photos with roll paper, but there is a limit with the driver that prevents prints longer than 44". I'm looking for a workaround.
A bit of history: I am a photographer who wants to diversify into the fine art market (I usually do corporate work). It just so happens that I've been producing QTVR panoramas since the beta testing days (for CD and online multimedia), and now with a large enough sensor, I can produce stitched panos that will print to over 5' long (fyi: I have contacts who are willing to sell in their galleries, if I can get the prints to them). I bought the Epson 2100 (2200 to those in North America) back when it first came out to use roll paper to print these panos. I specifically asked if I could print panos of the size I was envisioning (the answer was "yes", but it was a sales drone I was speaking to. Seemed reasonable at the time, though).
When I put a huge file through the printer, I never got it to properly print (e.g. it would start printing the bottom edge of the file right in the middle of the paper). Shorter prints (say, A3) were no problems and even printing the exact same panoramic image resized to fit an A3 sheet worked fine, so it wasn't a problem with the file itself.
Note: I should point out that I established that this is not a custom paper size issue.
After finding no mention of problems with the 2100 online, I spent over a week using different settings in the original file and the print driver to see if I could solve my problem. No joy. I then went to Epson, and it took me three days of them duplicating all the problem-solving steps I'd already done to get a tech to admit that there was a problem with the driver and extra long prints. At this point, I gave up and stopped using my 2100 for more than the occasional business document. Bitterly disappointed.
Recently, I went to a large photo show here in the UK where an Epson tech told me he'd never heard of the problem, and that if it ever existed, it would've been fixed in the latest driver. I got to thinking that perhaps in the year or so since I'd tried to get this to work, that maybe they really had upgraded the driver (and it didn't hurt that the MacOS had been upgraded too). I was all set to try it out again when I got a call from a friend who asked me why his second hand Epson 4000 using the latest driver wouldn't print long images...arrrgh! (fyi: the 4000 is an A2-width professional-level printer, I had been hoping that it would avoid any problems with long images, but this eliminates the hardware as part of the problem and puts the blame square back on software).
So, after that long bit of history, I come back to my problem: I want to print long panoramic photos with my Epson 2100 via my Mac 2GHz G5. I know that the ImagePrint RIP will do what I want, but it costs far more than the printer, and I don't know how many months (or years!) it would take me to sell enough prints to pay for the software (economy of scale definitely don't work for me here).
Can anybody offer a solution? Perhaps another RIP that will do the job but at a more reasonable price? Heck, I've even considered buying a super-cheap PC just to use the tiling feature in Qimage to get the job done <sigh>
Help?
Chas
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