Extra long print using Epson Stylus Pro 7880

[robwignell]

I have an Epson Stylus Pro 7880. I usually use sheet paper of A4, A3 or A2 to print images. I have been asked to print an image that is 18079 x 2095 pixels as big as possible.

The purpose of the image is as a background to a model railway setup in a man cave. The image itself was taken using Microsoft Flight Simulator to "fly" to the location of an abandoned railway station and then, using technology that I am not familiar with, capturing a panoramic image of the countryside behind and to each side of the railway. Apparently, the background is supplied by Google Maps and Microsoft Flight Simulator has a "park" feature that enables a virtual plane to stop without falling to the ground. While stopped a panorama has been taken and when stitched together it is 2095 pixels high by 18095 pixels long. The printed image does not need to be fine art quality and a small amount of pixellation is not a problem (which is just as well because it is highly likely).

I have done a test print of a strip of one end of the image at A3 size and it turned out OK. I have yet to do a test strip at the full width of the 7880 roll paper.

If this image is printed at 23 inches high (slightly less than the width of the roll paper) it will be 198.5 inches long (16.5 feet).

I have some unused 100 foot rolls of suitable paper, but I have no idea if an image that is 16.5 feet long can be printed by the Epson 7880 printer driver or how I might achieve this with roll paper.

Grateful for advice.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

What is the software you typically print your images with ?
One problem could be - memory and software related that you cannot open such an image file of this size or you get an error msg related to this problem. And you may run into another problem that the spool file created by your software may exceed a size of 4GB which tpyically happens if you choose a resolution too high. But I don't really see issues beyond that. I'm printing posters/banners somewhat regularly - the last one was a panoramic city view with a length of 7 meters on an old Pro 7600. I'm using Qimage for printing which easily allows the control of various parameters.

 

[robwignell]

Thanks Ink stained for comments. I used to use LightRoom for printing but that option has been cut off since I upgraded my MacBook Pro to MacOS Big Sur. This version of operating system does not support a driver for my Epson 7880. The Epson print drivers that I have tracked down on the US Epson and EU Epson sites either don't install or don't send an image to the printer.

My workaround is to use a spare 2009 MacBook Pro that doesn't use more recent operating systems but does have the relevant printer driver. I am about to load Qimage One on this as my printing software so it is reassuring that your are printing 7 metre images with Qimage (I presume you use Ultimate).

From reading the manual it seems that I need to create a custom page size in Qimage One for my large print. I was planning to use 180 dpi because the image is already quite low resolution. This shouldn't cause problems with the 4GB print spool size.

Grateful for comments on any other tricks or traps.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not familiar with the settings, driver limitations etc in a Mac system environment, I was just referring to my current Windows 10 environment. But yes, you need to create somewhere a custom size layout for your print. 180dpi is pretty good for a print of that size. Epson let you go up to 15m custom size with the Windows driver.

 

[robwignell]

Thanks Ink Stained. I will try a smaller custom size as a test print. It looks like time to bite the bullet and see what happens.