There are so many ways to respond to this...

I better just say "Wow!"

Rick

Well...what is the ppurpose of "Default" if not to be DEFAULT? Ya know?

Is it better or worse? Don't know...but it is different, I agree. And different, it seems isn't always better to everybody.

Jeff,

I'm not beholden to any Corporation so I can call the shots as I see them, and that's what I am doing.

(1) I am familiar with the print centering problem for Epson/Mac. Just because print centering was a MESS between Epson and Apple on the Mac is no reason why it should also be a mess between CS3 and Windows when it works perfectly well with CS2 and Windows, where the margins delivered by the Epson driver are fine. Adobe simply "f.cked-up" on this and they should fix it.

(2) As for the default printer business, CS2 had it right. Once you call up an application and select a printer, the application should retain that printer until you close the application, not only until you finish making one photograph with the application - otherwise it makes nonsense of the program's automation features and the workflow efficiency Adobe has been striving to improve. The application - until this version - was smart enough to know that until you close it, you will use the same printer to make more prints one after another so it retained the correct printer. Of course, once you close the application and re-open it - you must select the non-default printer, but thenceforth in the same session that selection should stick, and until CS3 it did. This is so elementary that it shouldn't bear a moment's worth of argument. Again, Adobe simply "f.cked-up" on this and they should fix it.

Both of your answers are non-answers...

Did you try creating a custom paper size with 4 equal margins?

While you CLAIM that CS2 on Win was "correct" the question is, was it? If the paper reported unequal margins (as it does on Mac) and Photoshop is set to center in the printable area, shouldn't the image be offset by the difference in the printer margin?

And, as to the default issue, again, while that's the way it was...you don't answer the question of isn't that what a default is supposed to do? Be the friggin' default?

"I'm not beholden to any Corporation so I can call the shots as I see them, and that's what I am doing. "

Ah, there it is...disregard any answer from me that you don't like because you presume that I'm beholding? Thought you knew me better than that bud? I guess I know where YOU stand, huh?

So, just to be clear, you claim the default and center issue are bugs, correct? Therefore you think CS3 is unusable for printing?

Well, ok, you got 30 days to get your money back...or, you can try what I suggest and see if it works?

I think what you are seeing is a fundimental change where in CS3, it behaves like a combination of the old "Print" command plus the old "Print with Preview" command...as there is no longer any options, the current Print command (and it's issues) seems to be now blended with application options that you don't seem to like. The question is, can you work around them?

OK. I set my R1800 as the default printer. Here's the behavior:

I set up the printer with my usual settings for a sheet of 13x19 Enhanced Matte, high speed off, icm off, etc. Made the print, which BTW, centered perfectly. I haven't had the centering issues on the R1800, but I haven't fired up the 3800 yet.

After the print was finished, I selected File/Print again (for the same file). Photoshop remembered the printer settings. I closed the file and opened a different one. The printer was remembered (I had set it as default), but none of the printer settings were remembered. Settings reverted to "plain paper", 8.5 x 11, etc.

So, for the default printer, CS3 will remember settings for the current file. After the file is closed, it reverts to default settings for the default printer.

If the printer is NOT the default printer, CS3 will lose all settings and revert to the system default printer after the print is made.

I'll try to test the 3800 soon, and report back about centering, etc.

Rick

Though you're replying to Mark here, I have to ask: How does it behave on the Mac?
A few messages ago, Colorwave (a Mac user) told me that the new version remembers the settings just like CS2. If so, why didn't they fix the "bug" in the Mac version?

Given your response to this issue, and the deafening silence from any Adobe reps on the Photoshop Windows user to user forum (where they have been responding to other issues), I suspect that Adobe has no intention to do anything about this.

I guess I have a couple of weeks to decide if this is a deal breaker for me. I print from Photoshop a lot, and this is VERY disappointing.

Rick

Jeff,

Both of my answers ARE answers - sensible and logical answers based on experience and common sense.

There should be no need for workarounds to something that worked the way it should for at least the past eight years. Yes they changed the interface to centralize Print and Print with Preview functions in one place. On the face it, a sensible idea. But they didn't get it right. Until Adobe fixes it, I'll print from CS2. That's the most efficient work-around there is in this circumstance. No need to futz around with measurements print by print. In CS2 it just works.

Why are you so defensive about my "beholden" opener? Read my words. I didn't say YOU were beholden to anyone. I just said that I'M not, so no-one will mistake any statements I make as "attitude" either positive or negative viz a viz the company. Anyhow, let's just move beyond that and stick with the issues.

And the issues are that these two aspects of CS3 are STEPS BACKWARD, illogical, inefficient performance. You seem to suggest they may have done all that on purpose as part of program redesign; I think that regardless of whether or not they did it on purpose it SUCKS, and if we were to take a poll amongst the victims of this change I'll put money, payable during your next visit to Toronto, on who will win it. :-)

Will I ask for my money back? Of course not. Let's keep a certain reasonable perspective on all this. As I mentioned in this thread, this is a great application. It has a few problems. The problems can be fixed, and they will be fixed.

I'm not saying anything other that 1) the print centering issue is, I believe a function of the standard Epson page size & margins being unequal that perhaps, on Win was a "bug or feature" that fell on the positive side for Win users in the past where it fell against Mac users...

...and 2) that arguably, if a printer is designated as "DEFAULT" that an application should respect the default designation-which on the Mac, it does in Photoshop CS3-whatever printer is set as default shows up by default in the Print command of CS3.

Which-even if _YOU_ don't like it, seems to be "correct behavior".

And to be honest, there _IS_ a bug in Mac OS X 10.4.x and Epson's drivers, that REQUIRES that the printer I want to print to be set as the "default" printer to avoid ColorSync from artificially (and incorrectly) taging an image with a profile. So, since I had already got into the habit of setting whatever printer I was printing to as default, this issue simply doesn't aggravate me the way it seems to piss you guys off. And I might point out that the default printer bug is an OS X/Epson print driver issue, not an Adobe issue.



Yeah, right...your were what, "just saying"?

Sounded like you were saying that _YOU_ didn't have any "beholden" status, unlike other posters in the thread...which means who exactly in this thread DOES have a "beholden" status....Rick? Lust4Life, BlasR, kenscott30, pss, Jae_Moon, Kenneth Sky, Carol, EricM, DarkPenguin, ARD, Colorwave, Kirk Gittings? So who among those who have posted to this thread did you want to separate yourself from? Cause the way you said it sure sounds like you don't want to be confused with somebody else...

I'm just saying...

Seems every time I go into the "Print" dlog in CS3 on 10.4.9 that the printer defaults to the default printer on Mac...if I go into Printer Setup Utility and change the default, that's the printer that comes up by default in Photoshop CS3's "Print" dlog...which, sorry to say (for you guys) seems to be "expected behavior"...ya know, cause I set the printer to DEFAULT!

See post above as to WHY I set printers to default...

Sorry, this simply doesn't seem to be a hill to die on...as far as the print centering issue, I'm STILL waiting for Mark to answer the question regarding margins in Epson print drivers and page setup...will Photoshop CS3 print in the center if your page setup has 4 equal margins? If not, I agree, that's a bug. If is does, it falls under the heading of "changed behavior" between CS2 and CS3.

I had an issue with Photoshop CS (not CS2 or CS3) with my newly acquired Epson 7600 a few years ago. The printer had a tendency to stop printing before it was supposed to, cutting off a few inches of the image but not the paper, on really large prints like 24x36".

Now that was a real problem, causing a lot of wastage of ink and paper and a lot of stuffing around re-installing Photoshop and re-installing the Epson drivers.

The odd thing was, the first print after each re-installation of PS was just fine, but subsequent prints developed the same problem.

Anticipating that Epson would lay the blame for this on Adobe and Adobe would lay the blame on Epson, I decided not to waste any more time on this issue and bought Qimage for $60. I've never looked back.

Qimage must be one of the best value programs around for printing. I could have spent $60 on phone calls, not to mention the value of my time, if I'd insisted on printing from Photoshop CS with my 7600.

Yeah, well that WAS a com problem with the Epson drivers and spool files...and yes, Q Image bypasses the com from app to driver...was this via Ethernet BTW?


And, to further the discussion a bit, I can tell you that both Mac and Win now behave the same in that the OS set default printer by default will always show up in the "Print" dialog as the default printer. Switching the default printer to another printer causes Photoshop CS3 to default to THAT printer...which is, arguably, technically correct behavior-which does have the upside that whatever your printer default is set to, you can be assured that that printer will be the selected printer in the drop down and that printer will also be the default printer set in Page Setup-which on the Mac used to be a real problem.

So, while the drop down menus of printer and page setup are as per defaults, the rest of the "Print" delog DOES save out when you select done...things such as CM settings, position, scaling, etc are saved in the file and these settings can also be recorded in an action.

Different than CS2? Yes...better or worse? I think the argument can be made that the current CS3 behavior os "correct".

Still don't know about the print centering...

Now that you mention it, I might have had an ethernet connection to another computer in place at the time, but the images I printed would have resided on the same computer as Photoshop CS.

The reason I mention this is that Qimage would seem to be an ideal work-around for Mark. He could have his most used, business type printer as the default for use from CS3 and his Epson 4800 as the default within the Qimage program.

This arrangement (I suspect) would not only solve his problem but would provide additional functionality for his fine art printing; a win/win situation at minimal cost.

Seems like if one sets (for the 4800) the Paper config to Maximum and select Centered, then the print will have 4 equal margins in the Win Epson dlog as well as in the Print dlog. I haven't actually PRINTED to the 4800 from the PC yet cause at the moment, the 4800 isn't connected to the network.

If you set the Printable area to Standard without the centered in the print driver, you see the unequal margins with more at the bottom and less on the sides and top...is that what you see Mark?

For some reason I can't see where, in the Win Epson 4800 driver (ver 5.53) to set page margins...it is there in the Mac Page Setup. In the Win Page Setup, the margins are greyed out...hum.

Jeff:

(a) Beholden: I was not speaking in reference to any one in this thread. I was positioning myself period. If you wish to feel targeted be my guest but that was not the intention. As I said before, let us move beyond that and stick with the real issues.

[b] Default printer status: Regardless of the etiology of the problem, it is DUMB programming to require users to reset the printer after each print. I have used two printers - one office, one photographic since I first started using Photoshop in 1999 with PS6 and an Epson 2000P. Since then I graduated up to CS3, through an Epson 4000 and now a 4800. As long as Photoshop was kept open it was NEVER necessary to reset the printer after each print even without selecting the photo printer as the default and shouldn't be required now, period. I don't give a sweet damn whether it's called a bug, correct behaviour or incorrect behaviour, it's just STUPID. OK, I can work around it by setting Epson as the default printer every time I wish to print photographs. Then set the HP back to the default for the rest of time that I'm doing other things. This is a needless nuissance which shouldn't be necessary. It's regress not progress.

[c] Print centering: I already told you in post 43 that it is possible to manually adjust the margins to equality in the Printer dialogue box. It is a chore because you need to know the size of the equal margin for each print (I size to suit the picture - I don't force-fit images into standard sizes), so for each print I need to subtract the image dimensions from the paper dimensions, divide by two and put each of the two dimension's measurements in the two boxes under the unchecked "Centered" section for this to work correctly, because Centered, contrary to what it says isn't Centered. Again, I'm not interested in the semantics of whether this is a bug, or correct, or incorrect. It is more work than it should be. Something that says centered should center the image. In CS2 the image is centered if the Epson driver says "Centered" - in Windows. If Epson and Mac got this wrong for Mac that has nothing to do with Adobe as you say, but the CS3/Windows trouble has everything to do with Adobe because in Windows this only went askew with CS3 - not for the 8 years before CS3 that I have been centering prints with Epson printers, Windows operating systems and Epson drivers through ALL their incarnations. A very high percentage of the paying clientele for Photoshop CS3 would be on Epson printers - many of them Pro model printers, and roughly 40~50% of the imaging community is now on Windows. So it would behove Adobe to make sure when they issue a new software up-grade that what worked properly "forever" in the past continues to work properly for that clientele in the future. If it means preserving this functionality through their own programming fine, if it means collaborating with Epson to make sure it works as it used to work, that is fine too. But it needs to be done. The present situation is completely impractical.

Hi Jeff,

OK I went into it all again. Here is the situation for CS3/Windows XP/Epson 4800 native driver:

Page Set-Up under the File menu in Photoshop: you can't center anything in Page set-up - as you say - the numbers are greyed out. They are determined elsewhere.

The Epson Driver: you have a choice in the Paper tab of using either Centered or not. There is no fine-tuning of margins in the Epson Driver. If you use Centered, up to but not including CS3 it did that. If you didn't use Centered in the Epson driver the positioning of the page was determined in Photoshop in Print with Preview.

In the Epson Driver Paper tab: it doesn't matter whether you select the maximum or the standard printing area, the problem remains the same. I tried that. It does matter whether or not you choose "Centered" in the Epson Driver. If you want centered prints in CS2 you leave it active, and in CS3, as I said in Post 43, you must disable it. Disabling it helps improve the centering in Photoshop "Print" a great deal, but not entirely. The left and right margins are OK, but the top and bottom ones are not - be it portrait or landscape orientation. These need to be tweaked manually in the Photoshop Printer window one image at a time by keeping "Centered" unchecked in both this window and the Epson driver and in Photoshop "Print" manually inserting correct values in the "Top" and "Left" boxes under the Centered option. Now here's the rub: unless you do that, while the print will look quite well-centered in the Photoshop Print Window, it does not print that way.

I hope the foregoing clarifies for you exactly what is happening. I suggest that you will get a better handle on this issue first hand if you fire-up your 4800 on your PC and take it all for a thorough test drive. Then, please let us know your findings. If you find a practical way of automatically centering a print with Windows XP/Epson 4800/CS3 you will be doing many people a substantial favour.

Thanks Ray - I've heard very good things about QImage, as well as its very reasonable price. This may be something to look into if Adobe doesn't implement an efficient solution for all those people concerned with the problems.

Jeff,

It is normal behaviour based on the past eight years' experience, and common sense, that if the non-Epson printer is the default, when you launch your first print in Photoshop, you need to select the Epson printer. Once selected, it should stay selected until you quit Photoshop, not only until you finish the first print. As I said before in regard to this item, I'm not going to prolong a debate about what is correct or not correct; I'm focused on the regression from practical operability in the past to impractical operability in the present.

I followed up by asking whether you had tried setting the 4800 Print Driver settings to Maximum/Centered AND selected Centered in Photoshop's Print dlog? Have you?

I don't have my 4800 up and connected to my network but I do have a 3800 hardwired to the PC...I'll see what happens on the 3800 & CS3.

And my, may I add that your panties sure seem like they're in a bunch?

:~)

Well, I can confirm that with the Epson 3800 on Win, XP SP/2 and Photoshop CS3 that if, in the Photoshop Print dlog, I select "Centered" it prints in the center...at least to an accuracy equal to a ruler...I haven't got a micrometer out yet...

In the 3800 driver Page settings there is no "Centered" radio button nor a Standard or Maximum settings...all there is is a drop down for Paper Source, (with a Borderless check box), Paper Size drop down (with a user defined option but with no paper margins), a Copies settings and and Orientation settings with Landscape, Portrait and 180 setting.

No Centered option in the driver anywhere...

Getting the 4800 up and running ias gonna take a bit...sorry.

P.S. Yes, setting the default printer to the 3800 allows it to show up as the pre-selected printer in the CS3 dlog. And yes, the non-print driver settings (CM, etc) are sticky per image...

Hi Jeff,

We're crossing messages. Yes, my " "panties" are in a bunch" because I dislike all this confusion when all I want to do is get a f..cken print in the middle of a piece of paper like I did for the past eight years until today. Time is too valuable for all this needless confusion. When a $700 program operating with a $2400 printer and a $5000 computer says the print will be centered it damn well better be centered, otherwise it will tend to "put my "panties" in a bunch". [But the pain is cerebral - not where you are alluding to (:-)]

Back to real business:

In messages 43 and 65 I mentioned that I've tried all this every which way, and I indicated the results. To answer again your specific question - my findings today indicate that you should not double-manage centering between the Photoshop Print dialogue and the Epson Driver dialogue. I got the best results today by [a] NOT selecting Centered in the Epson Driver [b] selecting either standard or maximum print area - that makes no difference, and [c] Not selecting Centered in Photoshop because it doesn't do what it says eventhough it looks that way, but rather [d] manually entering the correct margin sizes for top and left. It is after midnight here now, so I'm going to hang-off and re-try all of this again tomorrow morning once I have the printer back-on. I'll let you know whether all this replicates as stated.

Well, that argument cuts both ways...I have 6 printers...there are times (usually) that I will print only to a single printer and I'll be printing a bunch of same sized prints. It could be argued that CS2's behavior was more convenient for this in that Photoshop, as an app, would bypass the "default" printer and continue printing to the alternative printer selected...one could also argue that if you are going to be spending a lot of time printing to only one printer, that it makes sense to set THAT printer as default.


That could go either way...

Now, occasionally, when printing a show I'll be printing to both my 7800 (set up with Matte ink) and my 9800 (set up with Photo K) depending on what paper I'm printing to...in this case, the old sticky by Photoshop CS2 behavior was a pain because I would ALWAY have to re-select, manually each time I printed. In this case, I had to do that by actually manually selecting the printer...in CS3 that hasn't changed but now I can to that from the Photoshop CS3 print dlog, not the OS level-well, ok, with the 10.4.x bug I STILL have to go back and change the default printer on Mac but that's not Photoshop's fault.

So, in the grand scheme of things, the current behavior really doesn't seem to be a major problem.

I have emailed the engineer primarily responsible for the CS3 Print dlog to ask some questions...we'll see what (or if) he says anything regarding behaviors.

Hi Jeff,

This is interesting - seems from your evidence that there is a distinct difference of behaviour between the 3800 and the 4800 and the printer drivers are different. This could perhaps suggest that CS3 for Windows was designed around the 3800 driver but not the 4800 driver, which I believe is also similar to the 7800/9800 driver. As mentioned, I'll do further testing in the morning and report back. I know activating a 4800 can be a drag if you haven't used it for a while - but don't worry about declogging it etc. You don't need to print. All you need to do is turn the machine on and in the Main tab select "Preview". When you click Print, it will spool the file to the printer and pull up the Epson Preview, which shows faithfully where the image sits on the paper.

Well, unless we find some combination of settings that systematically centers the pictures correctly (OK I'm not talking micro-milimeters) it is a big time-waster when one's images don't have uniform dimensions, which for me is normal - unless I revert to CS2 for printing, which "faute de mieux" may be the easiest fix.

I am very pleased - and thank you very much - for contacting the appropriate person in Adobe for discussion of this issue. Let us hope he/she responds and can help.

Well, I have this thing about turning a printer on and then NOT printing...so I had to do a power clean and go through the normal gyrations of trying to get a friggin' printer up on my network-I can print using Epson AppleTalk pretty easy but getting a reserved address working on my DHCP server is a b!tch and using EpsonNet config on Win ain't easy either...

So, you want the good news or the bad news? I'm using Epson Win 5.5.3 driver over my Ethernet network. From the Photoshop CS3 Print dlog, I select the "Default" printer (yeah, ok, the 4800 is now the Default). In the Page Setup I select advanced, save setup under Mode: Custom and I've saved out a setting that is Luster paper, 1440, highspeed, Printer Color Management is off. Under Paper I've selected 8.5 x 11. Portrait under orientation and under Printable area Standard and Maximum are greyed out but I do select "Centered" in the setting.

In the CS3 Print dlog, I see both the top and bottom margins the same...I select Center then select Scale to fit media, then I hit print. A dlog comes up with my installed printers and the 4800 is highlighted. I click on Preferences to make sure the settings are correct...I notice that the Mode is NOT set to my custom settings, so I select from the dropdown...I click on the paper settings and yes, those are all as I set including the Centered button selected...I click ok, then click Print...it prints and then I measure both the top/bottom margins.

Top margin: 17/32nds (.53125)
Bottom margin: 18/32nds (.5625)

But. ..when I measure the entire page, the cut length is just a bit shy of 11" exactly. I don't have an accurate foot ruler (I was using a mic to measure the margins) but it looks to be about 1/32nds shy of 11 inches.

So, is +- 1/32 considered "Centered"?

Just for yucks, I printed the same image from Photoshop CS2....same printer, same settings, ie: Centered in the print driver and centered in the CS2 Print with Preview and also selecting Scale to Fit...results?

Top margin: 17/32nds (.53125)
Bottom margin: 18/32nds (.5625)
(seriously, same margin measurements)

So, the good news is I can print centered (pretty much if +- 1/32nds" counts) from Photoshop CS3 to _MY_ 4800. The bad news is that you don't seem to be able to.

Your milage may vary (apparently is is).

It's now 2:00AM Central and I'm outta here.
(ya see the lengths I'm willin' to go through for you guys....jeeesh and the crap I get)

:~)

P.S. BTW, just to confirm the Firmware on my 4800 is the current A01868 posted on 12/07/06

Hi Jeff,

I see from the time of morning you posted these results you went at it with great gusto and determination, and may have resolved it. Half-past midnight I decided to let it all hang-over till this morning and have another go at it today. In principle I should be able to replicate your results, so I shall follow your recipe and see what happens. I'll let you know. Meanwhile a great many thanks for taking the time and trouble to research it into the wee hours of the morning.

Cheers,

Mark

Anyone having an issue with Bridge failing to load and crashing their system? After a few days of everything working fine bridge began fail to load. After a reinstall, everytime I try to start Bridge it crashes the system. This is on my PC, XP. mac Book Pro works fine.

Yes - partly. I'm using XP Professional SP2 on a Dell Precision 690 Workstation. Yesterday I had two episodes of Brige 3 failing to load. Then when I tried to load Bridge 2 immediately thereafter, it failed to load as well. Neither instances caused my computer to freeze or crash. Bridges simply failed to respond. At first I thought there was an interference with the shortcuts working, so I went straight to the Program File itself, clicked on the "exe", and that didn't help. I solved the problem by restarting the computer in each instance. When I see this happening, it means that something I'm doing with the computer between Bridge sessions is causing Bridge to not respond. Lot's of luck finding out what - it would mean a careful tracking of operations one by one, attempting to restart Bridge after each operation to find the offending operation. Life is too short for that, but it would probably help Adobe fix the issue if someone did it. By the way, this NEVER happened to me before installing CS3.

Me too. Up to this I was impressed with the improvements to Bridge.

Boy, you guys sure have short memories...

When Photoshop CS2 shipped with Bridge 1.0.0 it was unusable, routinely crashed, lack stated functionality and basically sucked. It wasn't until Bridge 1.01 update was released (within the same quarter that CS2 shipped) that Bridge became usable and it wasn't until Bridge 1.0.4 until it was really stable.

I suspect that there will be an update for Bridge CS3 fairly soon...

On my PC with dual Xeon processors and XP Pro, Bridge did work fine, but today I noted it failed to load from Photoshop or by itself. I attempted to repair the installation, and the installer could not continue since it detected Bridge already running. However Bridge was not open, nor did it appear in the tray. Task manager revealed that it was indeed running and I then halted the program. Then a repair was not needed and things are currently working properly.

Bill

PS I spoke too soon the problem just recurred when I attempted to start Bridge from the desktop, but responded to the the same solution.

Hi Jeff,

OK, better later than never. I have now finished testing all this as completely as I can. In setting up a logical experimentation matrix, one tables the possible combinations of events that will trigger a result, try each one of them, and measure the result. That is what I have done. I hasten to add one could argue this is something Adobe should done also and advised their customers accordingly, but let us set the corporate performance issue on the shelf and stay focused on outcomes.

Now, given the variables at play in the exercise, you can have Centering ("C" hereafter) On or Off in Photoshop (PS hereafter), On or Off in the Epson Driver (Epson hereafter) and for either of those in Epson you can select Standard or Maximum coverage. That gives you 2x2x2 = 8 possible combinations. To insure no scew-ups in test implementation I laid them all out in an Excel Spreadsheet, where each combination is separately identified in a matrix and the associated outcome described. I shall try attaching the matrix using this Board's attachment function. I have never done this before, so I don't know whether it will convey. So for insurance and clarity here are the options and results for each option:

(1) PS C on; Epson C on; standard; WAY OFF both dimensions
(2) PS C on; Epson C on; maximum; 1 mm OFF one dimension
(3) PS C on; Epson C off; standard; 10 mm OFF one dimension
(4) PS C on; Epson C off; maximum; 1 mm OFF one dimension
(5) PS C off; Epson C on; standard; WAY OFF both dimensions
(6) PS C off; Epson C on; maximum; 1 mm OFF one dimension
(7) PS C off; Epson C off; standard; 10 mm OFF one dimension
(8) PS C off; Epson C off; Maximum; 1 mm OFF one dimension

These results indicate two useful findings:

[a] results 1, 3, 5 and 7 are not useable.
[b] all results with "maximum" selected are useable.

The one suspicious outcome in this list is (8), where you can have C off in both places and still get a centered result as long as Epson has maximum selected. One wonders whether this happens due to the order in which the test is implemented and what sticks from one test to the next. So I sent the file away, brought it back and immediately implemented Option (8) - same outcome. To triple check this, I called-up a completely fresh, untouched raw image, processed it as I normally would and sent it to print selecting the Option (8) settings. The print still came out with the same good result. So the bottom lines seem to be as suggested in [a] and [b] above. If with further work I see reason to amend these conclusions I shall inform the community accordingly.

I should mention as well that the default printer annoyance remains. One can trade this annoyance for the annoyance of changing the default printer back and forth, but I maintain Adobe should fix this so that the Epson printer remains on tap in Photoshop until Photoshop is closed, like it does with CS2. In CS2, the printer selection sticks for Photoshop, but if I open any other application for which the default printer is the HP, of course the HP comes-up. That is how all this should behave.

I also believe that it behoves Adobe to issue a technical note to their Windows/Epson equipped customers notifying them that are workable and non workable combinations of options between CS3 and the Epson driver. In fact, they should do or commission to be done what I have done with a range of printer drivers and tell people what works with which driver. If this is only a Windows issue they need only do it for Windows, but if Macs are also affected, they should do both. Or, at the very least they should tell their customers of the need for the kind of systematic testing such as I have done in order to succeed with print centering. As of now, none of this is in any of their documentation that I have seen, and I have the fat white program manual. The only material remotely relevant on printing is between pages 532 and 535 where none of this is discussed. By the way, this is the best program manual they have ever produced for Photoshop. Recommended.

With the release such a massive update as CS3, I suspect that the folks at Adobe will have the hands full for a while, but fortunately forum members both here and in the Adobe forums can also help out.

Another problem with CS3 is with Acrobat 8. When printing to a Postscript driver it prints red background. This has been known to Adobe since 2/14/2007 and there are a couple of workarounds suggested (knowledge base). I tried one workaround (using the PCL driver), only to have nonsense characters appear in the output. Back to reader 7.0 for me.

BTW, did a manual come with your copy of CS3?. I have only PDF docs and online help.

Bill

No, my memory isn't short - I know there were all kinds of complaints about Bridge, but I installed it with CS2 as soon as they shipped and the only issue I ever had with it was slow speed; I attributed that to a combination of the application and my previous computer (Dell 8200), which had RDRAM and a narrow pipeline - but it did not freeze or crash either itself or the O/S.

Hi Bill,

Can't help on the Acrobat stuff - I have zero experience combining the two applications. As for the manual yes - the best one Adobe ever produced for Photoshop. An 823 page white brick. It ships separately from the application. When ordering my up-grade if I remember correctly it was an option that one pays extra for - but I'm not certain. Best is to check the Adobe website. Anyhow, it's really a worthwhile manual to have - very results oriented - you want this, do that. Good style.

Uh huh. . .what is your driver version? How is your printer connected? What is the printer firmware #?

Ya see, you STILL have more work to do...

:~)

As I noted in my report, at least via the Ethernet driver I can't alter or change the Standard or Maximum settings in the paper tab. I'm only able to change the Centered check box. The others are greyed out.

As far as your Maximum finding, yes, this is as expected since I told you that by default the 4800 (and 7/9800) drivers have unequal margins. Top, left & right of .13" and the bottom of .56". So, at "Standard" you have the situation where the bottom margin DOES produce an offset. In the past (and on my config) selecting Centered in the driver SHOULD produce a centered image on the paper. On the Mac, we never had a "Centered" option in the driver, hense the requirement for creating custom margins in Page Setup.

BTW, did you measure your overall paper length? Is it undercut? I often find EPson papers to be just a tiny bit short (particularly watercolor papers). 3RD party papers seem to be all over the map.



This is what Dave said...

"On Win CS2, PS saved the current printer "application wide". On Mac, it depended on what your setting was for "Selected Printer in Print Dialog" in the Print & Fax System Preference. If you had a printer selected in there, your "last used" printer in PS would be different from the one you'd end up printing to (or you'd have to change it in the OS print dialog) and things could go wrong.

In CS3, we're transitioning to a "per-document settings" model, rather than "application wide", so on Windows, it picks up the printer from the system default. On Mac, it still picks up the printer from the OS preference."

With regards to printer margins, he said:

"There is a change from CS2 in how the margins were handled. In CS2 we automatically "minimized" the margins (we would basically try and slam the margins to 0). On printers like the Epson 2200, this meant we would get symmetric borders. In CS3 we do not do this margin minimization, but rather use the printer's default margins. In the 2200 this means that the user needs to click the "Centered" and/or "Minimize Margins" check boxes in the printer's "Page Layout" properties panel to get truly centered prints.

(The reason for this is that on Vista, the margins are, from an application's point of view, a read-only field, and simply slamming them to 0 as we did in CS2 causes problems.)"

So, the changes required for Photoshop CS3 were not just designed to piss people off...things change often because the HAVE to.

Jeff,

As far as the tests go, not sure what work I have still to do apart from seeing whether further experience confirms my results and to answer your questions. My driver version is 5.51. My firmware version is the one before last. Epson Pro-Graphics confirmed to me that given my set-up no functionality changes, so it is completely neutral whether I up-grade them or not. My philosophy about up-grading as you may expect from me - is quite simply not to bother unless it is to fix something important or to provide significant additional functionality.

My printer is connected with a USB cable to a USB2 port in the computer. Nothing fancy.

I would like to think that smart software and firmware should know about the unequal printable page dimensions and build-in the compensation accordingly. These dimensions have been standard Epson fare for as long back as I can remember and have almost never caused a problem in the past - at least on the succession of Windows O/S's I've been using. There was one episode when Epson issued a faulty up-grade of a 4000 driver which failed to center with matte paper - strange bug, which they fixed.

I usually print with Epson Enhanced Matte. The latest sheet I used this morning making these tests measures bang-on 8.5 * 11 inches, using a stainless steel ruler called "Bates National Rule" made by the Bates Mfg. Co, in Hackettstown N.J. 07840 U.S.A. Now does it get better than that? (OK, this ruler isn't certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but for my purposes..............)

Thanks for getting the feedback from Dave.

As for their transitioning to "per document settings" from "application wide settings" - this makes it clear that it wasn't an accident, it was by design. I wish it were an accident, because then they would fix it. I retain my opinion that this is regression, but that's just me and who am I.

On the issue of the printer margins, he doesn't mention the X800 series or the O/S's concerned, so I'm not sure how to interpret that material. Anyhow, this may be becoming a moot point insofar as your work and mine have both indicated that there are functionally effective workarounds. Still, I think Adobe should issue a Tech Note as I suggested previously. Their documentation is poor on this, to put it mildly.

As for changing things to piss people off, of course this is a strawman - no-one in their right mind would expect them to want to do that. And of course, one needs to respect the fact they are frying more than one fish at a time when they're designing software hence it must get more complicated as options multiply. But I am confident they have the technical smarts to cater for these things and still preserve the outcome functionality that was good in the immediate previous version, perhaps in a different way, but good functionality nonetheless. I look forward to a a program up-date and material from Adobe that I hope would address some of this stuff. Meanwhile, I'll use CS2 for printing and Lightroom/CS3 for everything else. Keeps life easy.

Well, Dave indicated that they used to "try" slam the printable margins to 0 but that's a complication that an app might not really want to do since an app must be essentially, printer and OS agnoistic.

OS's are constantly evolving as are drinter drivers-hense the 3800 is different than the 4800 regarding Standard and Maximum. Adobe has no direct control over printer manufacturers nor OS developers-they only have influence.

There are 3 main printer players and 2 main OS's. If you look at Mac & Win print driver API's and guidlines, you'll see what is required for one may actually be forbidden by the other (drop down menus required by Mac, tabs required by Win). As an OS transitions-and Vista is a big transition in many respects over XP (in so far are the print pipeline) the print drivers are constantly in a state of flux. So, an application that must remain agnostic really can't get into the trenches and start mucking about. Ya know?



Hey, whatever works, ya know?

But there ARE aspects of printing from CS3 that ARE better than CS2-even if YOU don't like them. I tend to be more willing (and used to) adapting and adopting than trying to fight upstream. I guess I wouldn't make it as a salmon...(I'm more of a big tuna).

:~)

Yeah, well you say that, but you don't know these guys. I would _NOT_ put it past somebody like Mark Hamburg or Chris Cox (less so Thomas) to slip something in knowing full well it would piss of a subset of users and then take a certain perverse pleasure in that knowledge. I have however heard even Thomas giggle about things...

I would say that everything the Photoshop and Lightroom engineers do, they honestly think is for the betterment of the application. They are dedicated that way. But they aren't above changing something "gleefully"...

:~)

The Jeff.

No, actually I usually wait to upgrade until the bugs are fixed. This time though, Beta CS3 already had its hooks in me and I jumped the gun. D___, what's that about learning your lessons?

Jeff, I like to pride myself on being an earlier adapter of all kinds of stuff. I'm not afraid of that - I believe in progress and I don't fight up-stream unless I sense something better got extinguished. What I'm also sensing these days is that hardware and software is being pushed to market perhaps a bit prematurely, and with a slightly gentler pace some of the issues that could have been anticipated would have been anticipated. But that's an opinion. And I wouldn't for a moment vote to roll the clock back. We're on a roll in a great imaging revolution thanks to all the people we know about and others we don't.

Now, you say there are aspects of printing from CS3 that are better than CS2. Are you talking about things that make the technical quality of the print better, or the features of the interface? If the former I'm interested - please amplify. As for the latter, if I can cobble together an Action that does what I can do now on CS2 I'll use it.

I like the fact that I can choose the printer in the CS3 dlog (can't in CS2) and the copies. I like the fact that the dlog displays the image resolution PPI. Those are usability issues. As far as I know, there's no difference in what CS3 is SENDING to the printer so, no, there's no technical advantage (or disadvantage) to CS3 over CS2.

What irks you doesn't bother me a bit...so I have no problems printing from CS3, thus MY life is simpler...although I do tend to print more out of Lightroom (cause I have new toys to play with)

:~)

Thanks Jeff. This has been a very useful dialogue. I think we've cut through the issues as best we can for the time being, as a result of which there is greater clarity about the implications of CS3/Windows/Epson for printing than there was before we started the discussion and the testing. I am going to mess around creating an action to see how much I can achieve the degree of automation printing from CS3 as I have from CS2. Meanwhile I hope Adobe has been "listening" to all this stuff. It may be helpful to them too, and what helps them has the potential of helping us.

Yes there are. I like that the print preview is now color-managed, and I like the new Print interface, which would have made printing a lot simpler for me -- if the other changes hadn't been made.

And thanks, Jeff, for spending so much time on this.

Rick

Way, way back on May 3 I wrote:


... and since then, WOW! I'm sure glad I waited.

Thank you Mark and Jeff for pursuing these issues so persistently. I can wait a while more on CS3, since I don't need ACR4 (I'm happy right now with DXO). I also expect to stay with Win XP a while longer (just because I'm used to most of its quirks). But I'll want to deal with CS3 pretty soon, and Vista eventually (like it or not), so I expect I'll work Qimage into my workflow.

Thanks to Jeff I understand better why Adobe couldn't handle the centering better. But as for "per document settings" versus "application wide settings", I'm with Mark on what I would rather see. I just wish that choice could be built into the preferences somehow so each of us could have it work the way we want.

If you had the beta on your system beforehand, did you just uninstall the beta and then install the shipping version - or did you also run the Clean Script for your OS after uninstalling??

Carol, are you on Windows or Mac? Adobe Tech Support advised me that there have been almost no uninstall issues with Windows, and almost all the problems have been on Mac OSX. They also told me NOT to run the CleanScript unless it becomes necessary. Just do a normal removal of the program and then Install CS3 commercial version. They told me most of the time this is all that is needed. Now, you can no longer access the de-activate function for the Beta because access to the program has expired. This is not a problem either. When you reach the point of activating the new install, make sure to insert the license key for the new install - i.e. if the serial number for the Beta pops-up in the activation screen, over-write it with the new serial number. CleanScript is reserved for problems and not the first thing you would do.

Eric, you are welcome.

Thanks to Jeff's enquiry with Adobe, I understand better why Adobe did what they did about the centering. Whether or not they could do more about it I think remains to be seen. I agree with Jeff's view that the application must be agnostic in the sense of handling the variety of drivers and O/S configurations that now exist. I would like to believe, however, with more time and effort, Adobe could produce refinements to the interface that can cope with this variety in a user-friendly way, or publish advisories on the combinations of settings between Photoshop and the various drivers which "center as advertised".

The question not being addressed here is: Why does print centering work as expected in CS2 but not CS3?

In CS2, click center image in printable area, and click center printable area in Epson driver. This works.

Doode. . .didn't you bother to read the back and forth between Mark & I?

Bottom line, select Maximum in the page setup and Centered in CS3 Print dlog.

Actually, that question was addressed by Jeff's source from Adobe in message #85:

"There is a change from CS2 in how the margins were handled. In CS2 we automatically "minimized" the margins (we would basically try and slam the margins to 0). On printers like the Epson 2200, this meant we would get symmetric borders. In CS3 we do not do this margin minimization, but rather use the printer's default margins. In the 2200 this means that the user needs to click the "Centered" and/or "Minimize Margins" check boxes in the printer's "Page Layout" properties panel to get truly centered prints.

(The reason for this is that on Vista, the margins are, from an application's point of view, a read-only field, and simply slamming them to 0 as we did in CS2 causes problems.)"

Rick