Photo Printing in Aff Photo Beta

[mrfearless47]

Has anyone succeeding in getting decent (or any) photo prints from either Epson or Canon printers in Af Photo Beta.  I've tried in each successive beta with little or no luck.  I have an Epson R3000 and a Canon Pro-10 printer and I am unable to get any reasonable prints from either one.  I've loaded ICC profiles for the appropriate paper, but there seems to be no dialog to set up printing other than the standard Mac dialog, which doesn't allow paper size selection.  When I send the photo to the printer, it immediately wants to start screwing around with my various blacks, which typically wastes ink, and isn't necessary in any other program.  I regard this as an epic show stopper if the program is intended to fill the role that PS or LR fills in my work.  Unless I am missing something really obvious, I can't see where all the printer and paper information is supposed to be set, and without it, the program is useless, unless it is intended only to forward photos to another program for printing.

 

mrf

[Paul Bravery]

@mrfearless47, 

 

I use an Intel MacPro at work, running Snow Leopard. As a result of this, I can't use Affinity Photo (quotes are in for new gear running Yosemite). 

 

I have exported to TIFF and printed to our printer from Photoshop at work & the TIFF was successfully exported with the FOGRA 39 CMYK profile, which is the profile used in my environment. 

 

This file printed just as nicely as the original file. 

 

The printer is a PostScript Fuji Xerox 700 DCP laser copier/printer with a bustled Fiery RIP. 

 

As soon as we upgrade our gear, I'll be able to test printing directly from Affinity Photo. 

[billtils]

mr fearless and Paul

 

I have a bottom-end Canon photo printer (the iP7200) and it gives very good** prints as long as you use the Canon driver's software and optimise the output colour profile to the paper and set print quality to the highest available.  At first they were totally unacceptable, but after some interaction with Canon support it turned out I had been using the Mac's generic Canon driver; installing the current printer-specific one from the Canon web site changed that dramatically.

 

AP uses the Mac default print UI and an upgrade is listed for one of the upcoming updates, which will make it easier to use.

 

** The definition of "good" here is that the  family like them, and they have received no adverse comments from members or judges in the camera club competitions  :)   And in case you are wondering why I'd skimp on the printer end of the photo gear, the answer is simple:  I don't have room for the A3 format top-end Canon or Epson models.

[toyotadesigner]

You can print, then Open Print in Preview and continue there with fantastic results. For best quality prints you should consider to invest into a RIP (Raster Image Processor), then profile your monitor and paper.

[Alan9940]

Hello mrf,

 

The AP development team is well aware of the rudimentary print UI in Photo. They have already stated that changes will be forthcoming in some future beta release. You can export a TIFF from AP and print via other software, as others have already suggested, but, personally, I'd wait to see what the final print UI looks like (and performs) before investing in something like a RIP.

 

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

Best regards,

Alan

[billtils]

Agree 100% with what Alan says.

[toyotadesigner]

 I'd wait to see what the final print UI looks like (and performs) before investing in something like a RIP.

 

 

The UI is just an interface, no matter how it 'performs'. It won't do more than the printer driver can do. A RIP is a totally different world - it is a printer driver in its own, comes with settings you'll never get in a standard printer driver, interprets PostScript, takes into account paper profiles, color profiles, resolution, drop size, ink usage of any color cartridge (ink control), color space, color mode, under color removal, it can sort different images to reduce paper waste, etc. In addition it is considerably faster than a standard printer driver.

[Alan9940]

Hello toyotadesigner,

 

I'm fully aware of what a RIP is and what it can do; I owned ImagePrint for many years, for example. However, IMO unless you do a LOT of printing, run a small printing service, need template style printing capability, etc, than a RIP is quite a serious investment in both time and money for a hobbyist photographer. Not saying what category the OP fits into and I agree that a good RIP can provide absolutely beautiful prints pretty much "right out of the box." But, last I knew ImagePrint, for example, would be $850 for my Epson 3880; that's quite a bit of scratch for me (retired) to come up with in addition to the cost of the printer. Just sayin...

 

Best regards,

Alan

[toyotadesigner]

Hi Alan,

 

for small or home printers you don't need a shiny big $$$ RIP. You might check http://www.printfab.net. It comes with all the features the RIP for large format offers, but is limited to A4 or letter size and delivers fantastic prints. Check which printers are supported: http://www.printfab.net/printers.html

[billtils]

Thanks for that info @toyotadesigner.   The manual looks good and there is a 30 day free trial - I'll give it a go over the next few days!

[billtils]

OK, hot off the presses!   This rocks.  Minimum set-up (e.g. have not got tailored profiles from Printfab) but the instal was easy, and the results are markedly better than the default OS X/Canon.  Thanks totyotadesigner!!

[toyotadesigner]

Thanks totyotadesigner!!

 

 

Enjoy your new life in printing!

 

You should listen to 'old fashioned' professional photographers with more than 40 years experience if you strive for perfect results 

[billtils]

No problem - I have a deep and endearing respect for "old fashioned" and "professional" and "experience".  The only one of the 3 that doesn't always work is "professional" for the simple reason that the optimum end product for pros will not always be identical to that for others (in any field, not just photography), but it certainly worked here.

 

But thanks once again for you input!

 

 

Regards

 

 

Bill

[Alan9940]

@toyotadesigner,

 

I took a quick look at the RIP suggested, but, for me, since I routinely print much larger than A4 I'd need the Pro XL level software; about $223 US. But, that's quite a bit cheaper than any RIP I've owned in the past so I may take a close look at PrintFab. Thanks for the link!

 

Best regards,

Alan

[csp]

a rip is a wast of money !   if you don't need special tools which some rips offer like linearization, nesting or automated placement of color bars for proof control . modern printers are very linear so it is rather easy to control them with just custom icc profiles.  in my view ist is far better for most applications to spend the money here,  get a spectrophotometer and build your own custom paper profiles.  

[toyotadesigner]

a rip is a waste of money !  modern printers are very linear so it is rather easy to control them with just custom icc profiles.

 

 

Ah yes. 

 

And how can you explain this experience:

 

This rocks.  Minimum set-up (e.g. have not got tailored profiles from Printfab) but the instal was easy, and the results are markedly better than the default OS X/Canon.

 

 

Besides this, a normal printer driver doesn't offer the option for under color removal, ink flow management for max or optimal inking. A good RIP pays for itself by saving around 25% of ink. A set of cartridges for the HP Z2100 costs around 400 Euro, for the HP Pro B9180 around 280 Euro. After replacing 2 sets of cartridges, the RIP amortized itself, plus it delivers a much higher quality.

 

Not to mention that a good RIP can print Postscript files, which a normal printer driver for standard ink jet printers definitely can't do.

[csp]

@ toyotadesigner

 

you talk about a world where injekt-printers only had 4 inks like a cmyk press but things have changed a lot since this days.  do you really think even a high demanding user is interested to mess with UCR with an 8 ink plus printer , prefers postscript instead of a state of the art pdf workflow and wants to use inferior dithering algorithms with his brand new epson printer ?  

 

most user here are  artists, graphic designer or photographers they have no prepress needs or are geeks who enjoy messing around with a lot of paper and ink to fine tune a complicated rip. but  i'm rather sure they want high quality prints with good screen to print matching and high color accuracy and the best way to accomplish this is to build custom paper profiles.  

[Alan9940]

a rip is a wast of money !   if you don't need special tools which some rips offer like linearization, nesting or automated placement of color bars for proof control . modern printers are very linear so it is rather easy to control them with just custom icc profiles.  in my view ist is far better for most applications to spend the money here,  get a spectrophotometer and build your own custom paper profiles.  

 

Depending on your needs, a RIP might or might not be a waste of money. Regarding modern printers and using custom profiles, I fully agree if one is using, for example, an Epson 3880, 7900, etc, because these printers generally adhere to tighter manufacture tolerances and stricter testing/quality control (vs, say, more consumer level printers like the Epson R2880) and if one uses only a couple of different papers. Add the cost of a high quality spectrophotometer to the equation and you quickly exceed the cost of most any RIP currently available.

 

And, if we start discussing B&W it's a whole new ball game! The need for printing on many different substrates and the fact that Colorbyte Software's paper profiles for ImagePrint are SO GOOD is why I used that software for many years. It's a very good RIP too, but IMO all the available paper profiles coupled with their quality level makes the cost of the RIP worth it for the profiles alone.

 

But, we all chose are tools as we see fit.

 

Happy printing!

 

Best regards,

Alan

[billtils]

@csp

 

I can only repeat what I said above - I installed the 30-day free trial and it gave me noticeably better prints from APB and from pixelmator, used straight out of the box (i.e. I did not tweak the colour profiles).  

 

There may well be a value for money issue with the price points in some combinations of the supplier/version of the RIP driver and the photo editing software's print UI.  For me, the bottom end "home" version from PrintFab was worth every €/£/$ when used with the editors mentioned.

[toyotadesigner]

I know the information I've given is for many members very useful. And no, I did not force you to buy a RIP!

 

Yes, I am talking about 8 c printing.

 

Using a RIP is not a mess, it doesn't mean all the fuzz you mention. Most HP large format printers do feature a built in i1 for profiling and calibration, that means together with a RIP and a monitor calibration you'll be up and running in less than 10 minutes. BTW, I didn't even mention pre press. Just plain vanilla high quality results in photo printing.

[csp]

I know the information I've given is for many members very useful. And no, I did not force you to buy a RIP!

 

Yes, I am talking about 8 c printing.

 

Using a RIP is not a mess, it doesn't mean all the fuzz you mention. Most HP large format printers do feature a built in i1 for profiling and calibration, that means together with a RIP and a monitor calibration you'll be up and running in less than 10 minutes. BTW, I didn't even mention pre press. Just plain vanilla high quality results in photo printing.

 

i still did not read one valid argument why a rip does things better than a custom profiled printer ?  rips can be very helpful in an production environment  without a doubt but this does not make your claim "  For best quality prints... "  more true.   40 years of experience are worthless if you are not open for technical arguments and a changing  reality  and what is maybe true for your hp printer may not be true for the majority of modern epson and canon printers  which are leading the market for good reasons.  epson had made a huge leap in print quality in the last years and printers behave very different than older generations.   in my book your generalized advise is not only technical wrong it is misguiding !  

[toyotadesigner]

Yes Mr. Always-Know-It-Better. And now we wait for your Epson advertising here.

[csp]

well this is really a convincing argument !  i´m done here have a nice weekend

[Alan9940]

@csp

 

A professional level RIP such as ImagePrint, for example, can provide better print quality because the software assumes control of the printer and is not going through the manufacture supplied driver. Custom profiles are tailored to the software. Therefore, we're looking at a closed system whereby the software and paper profiles work in a synergistic relationship to control dithering, ink load, transitions, etc. Also, in the case of ImagePrint you get a series of profiles for any given substrate based on display conditions; specifically the type of light the print will be viewed under.

 

IMO any one-off custom paper profile is only as good as the person making it; and I've seen quite a few bad ones! The patch target can have a tremendous affect on profile quality, depending on how many patches are read. For example, my Xrite ColorMunki builds a fairly decent profile based on a small number of patches, but it certainly doesn't compare to the more refined profile generated off nearly 1K patches.

 

Regardless, if you don't see any difference between a professional level RIP vs the standard printer driver in the prints you typically make, then stick with what you're doing. No harm done. But, don't categorically dismiss those that wish to push the envelope striving to obtain the best prints possible! In the past, I participated in a small group of photographers where we mixed our own B&W inks using all sorts of combinations--dyes, pigments, carbon--trying to get output that sang for us. This was waaaay before the days of ABW in the Epson driver! :) But, we wanted to get the absolute best (and archival) print that we could. It was great fun and I learned a LOT about printing!

 

Best regards,

Alan

[billtils]

Update to my experiences with the PrintFab driver:  

 

The comments posted previously were made on the basis of results using the default Canon paper profiles and drivers.  I have since tried with a custom colour profile from ZEDOnet and if I was happy before, I can only say that I am super ecstatic now!   It's like my baby printer has grown up and joined the big league.