[Jeremy Roussak Gold Member Posts: 1047]

Adobe Lightroom & Adobe Camera Raw

on: February 13, 2022 at 8:31 am

I have a roll paper printer (Epson SC-P7500). In QImage One (Mac), I can say “print the image at 23″ width and as high as you need” (the ‘auto roll length’ option). In LR, I have to set up a host of different “page heights” (all artificial, since I’m using a roll) and select the best one for each image.

Am I missing a feature of LR which will allow it to work as easily as QImage One? Or is there any likelihood that a future (near future, ideally) version of LR will have this feature? It’s not much of a hassle, but LR’s printing is generally so good that it seems an avoidable deficiency.

Jeremy

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #1 on: February 13, 2022 at 10:32 am

Hi Jeremy, much of the paper and print size control actually happens in the Epson driver, which you access through the Page Set-Up command in the left panel of LR’s Print module. When you click on Page Setup it is opening into the Epson driver’s paper settings. It is there where, through Lightroom but not in Lightroom, you are making the page sizes that you want for the print whether using roll or sheet. I find that when printing with roll paper, to minimize waste and make sure that the full photo will print with the margins (or borderless) that I want, unless there is a canned sizing (both print and borders) available, it is best to specify a custom page size in this dialog and of course save it with a recognizable name for all future use of the same or approximately the same photo size. Once that is done, it is also necessary to tell Lightroom what photo size you re printing, which happens on the right side of the Print module in the Layout section of the interface, where you select the margins, the page grid and the cell size. You cohere these settings with the settings you made in Page Set-Up. This way, Lightroom re-sizes the photo to cohere with the paper settings made in the driver.  So the whole printing task is making two sets of settings, one for the Epson driver and one for Lightroom such that both are cohered. And you will normally get a correct result. As far as I know, ever since Print was introduced to Lightroom it has not been possible to manage both the printer driver and Lightroom page set-ups with just one set of controls.

[Jeremy Roussak Gold Member Posts: 1047]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #2 on: February 13, 2022 at 11:30 am

Mark, I’m sure you’re right to draw the distinction between controls in LR (or which appear to be in LR) and those which are in the Epson driver. I now have numerous defined page sizes, all “full width” (610mm), and so each time I print I can select the “best fit” size. It works; it’s just a bit tedious, even though LR’s guides make it fairly straightforward.

The point I was trying to make is that QImage, which also prints through the Epson driver, does it so much better. All I have to bother about is the width; I tell QImage to use “auto roll length” and off it goes. I needn’t worry about how tall the image is going to be (how much paper it needs): QImage just does it for me. That, to me, is what good software is for – to take over the drudgery. LR obviously “knows” how much paper my image is going to use; why can’t it just tell the driver, as (I assume) QImage does?

If LR’s print module wasn’t so good in every other way, I would just print everything with QImage. It just seems a shame that LR lacks that feature.

Jeremy

(Kevin, I know ImagePrint would make my life better!)

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #3 on: February 13, 2022 at 11:32 am

One would have to ask the LR engineers that! 🙂

[Jeremy Roussak Gold Member Posts: 1047]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #4 on: February 13, 2022 at 11:33 am

Yes. I was vaguely hoping someone here might know one or two of them (some bearded chap with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts sprang to mind).

Jeremy

[Jeff Schewe Gold Member Posts: 136]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #5 on: February 15, 2022 at 7:26 pm

Jeremy Roussak wrote:

Yes. I was vaguely hoping someone here might know one or two of them (some bearded chap with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts sprang to mind).

Jeremy

Hum, I seem to resemble that remark…

While I’ve used QImage it’s not something I use regularly so I would need to drill down to know exactly what it’s doing with regards to paper length but I’m pretty sure it’s simply feeding the paper length dynamically to the printer and I suppose it wouldn’t be a major task to to in Lightroom…but it would require more than just one person asking for it 😎

It’s not a hill worth dying on for me since I use almost exclusively sheet paper not rolls. But if you can get traction with others you might get something in…try posting it here: FEATURE REQUEST/BUG REPORT FORM select Lightroom Classic in the product dropdown.

Note, if enough people chime it with comments it will get looked at…the team really does try to mine for feature requests-which is tougher these days since there aren’t really any big trade shows anymore.

[Jeremy Roussak Gold Member Posts: 1047]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #6 on: February 17, 2022 at 8:52 am

You do? Oh, yes. You do.

Thanks for the pointer, Jeff. I’ve posted a suggestion. The couple of answers so far are unpromising, so I shan’t hold my breath.

Jeremy

[Andrew Rodney Participant Posts: 416]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #7 on: February 17, 2022 at 1:32 pm

It’s not about the answers, it’s about getting as many upvotes as possible, so the team sees and pays attention to this request. BTW, the one Upvote there** is mine, good luck.

I don’t print roll, the math isn’t difficult but yes, LR should do this for you.

**https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-printing-to-roll-paper-quot-auto-roll-length-quot/idi-p/12756637

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)”

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #8 on: February 17, 2022 at 3:58 pm

I do print roll because I produce panoramic photos of varying lengths for my street art photography. I print them from Lr and have no trouble managing the print length in the Epson Driver through Lr. Yes, it’s an extra step one may prefer to have done seamlessly once one selects the print length in the Lr Print interface, but to my mind not a hill to die on – i.e. I would not waste my time interfacing with that whole Adobe consumer participation architecture for feature requests, and I don’t buy into the idea that new features should necessarily be determined by how many votes they get. Some ideas are good ideas that deserve to be implemented for their own sake, and then once done, more and more people get to appreciate their merits. Ever since Adobe introduced the Print Module in Lr and equipped it with soft-proofing is when I converted most of my printing from Photoshop to Lr. Way back then I recommended to Adobe through a contact whose name will go unmentioned to protect the innocent, two changes to the Interface in order to make it easier to implement more accurate compositing: make the lines in the grid more visible, and allow for the use of the keyboard arrow keys for precise positioning of photos on the grid, rather than being confined to click and drag. I don’t know what happened to those suggestions, but they were never implemented. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t part of the “system” for generating feature requests. I have no time for that. As far as I’m concerned, the appropriate people in the company think either an idea is worthwhile or not worthwhile regardless of where it came from, and once it’s suggested, it’s in their camp to deal with as they see fit. Again, nothing I lose sleep over. I understand from a corporate perspective they may feel the need to have a very formal and systematic approach for considering user-generated ideas, fearing otherwise the risk of chaos – that’s fine for them, but once it becomes a voting game, that’s where I take issue; some ideas are just worth doing and eventually people appreciate them; that’s an important part of the supply-driven dynamic of innovation.

[Jeremy Roussak Gold Member Posts: 1047]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #9 on: February 18, 2022 at 5:38 am

Thanks for the vote, Andrew.

Mark, as I have commented in a reply on the Adobe thread, I agree the arithmetic is simple. But it’s a chance for an error, and since whenever I print I’m sitting in front of a machine which can perform the necessary calculation in a tiny fraction of a second and guaranteed free of error, why should I have to get out a calculator? One of the benefits of computerisation (of anything) is that it frees us from drudgery.

Anyway, we’ll see. Maybe it’ll appear in version 17. Meanwhile, it provides me with an incentive to use QImage.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Roussak Gold Member Posts: 1047]

Re: LR auto print length

Reply #10 on: March 14, 2022 at 3:18 pm

Thanks to all those here who’ve “upvoted” my suggestion.

Jeremy

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