Our HP supplier provided Photoprint as their workflow solution when I bought an FB500 and L26500 to complement my Roland XC540s (actually they installed SAI Pixelblaster first but that was abysmal). When I had problems with Pixelblaster I was about to pull the trigger on Caldera but our supplier wanted me to try Photoprint because: 1. They supply it, and 2. They've got an extensive range of custom Flexi/Photoprint profiles to suit their media. I'm having more problems than I can keep track of, surely not everyone has it this bad?
Generally: The nesting algorithm is just horendous. I've attached a few pics of irrational nesting: leaving gaps where a page should be fitted, randomly jumbling even sized pages. And don't get me started on manual nesting, no multiple select, no automatic spacing, no group rotate. This costs me hours a week.
XC540: Besides the standard profiles being woeful, I've got an issue with printing and cutting. I can print-cut without crops, but with crops it will find the two front marks, but will search about 20mm short of the third crop and not find it. It'll work most of the time if I print on the L26500 with crops and then cut with the XC540. SAI has unsuccessfully worked on patches for us.
FB500: Spooling takes an eternity (literally slower than it takes to actually print the job in indoor signage mode). I can't send multiple pages/sheets, it either crashes or gets a callback error. If I centre the file to the middle of a sheet it spools but doesn't appear on the FB job queue. If I send large prints (over say 4x8') the result is fairly evenly split between: spooling then disappearing, crashing Photoprint, or actually working. Again SAI is working to patch these issues but I'm not sure how long I can wait.
L26500: It seems to ignore what's been set in PhotoPrint. If I set a 20mm side margin it still just defaults to printing 5mm from the side. I've also had issues where it changes the positioning of pages, two of the photos show where it's moved a page over another vs what is shown on the screen.
Is anyone using this program successfully? It's getting to the point where I just forgo the cost, ditch it for Caldera (approx $7000) and get new custom profiles made ($500 each).
Generally: The nesting algorithm is just horendous. I've attached a few pics of irrational nesting: leaving gaps where a page should be fitted, randomly jumbling even sized pages. And don't get me started on manual nesting, no multiple select, no automatic spacing, no group rotate. This costs me hours a week.
XC540: Besides the standard profiles being woeful, I've got an issue with printing and cutting. I can print-cut without crops, but with crops it will find the two front marks, but will search about 20mm short of the third crop and not find it. It'll work most of the time if I print on the L26500 with crops and then cut with the XC540. SAI has unsuccessfully worked on patches for us.
FB500: Spooling takes an eternity (literally slower than it takes to actually print the job in indoor signage mode). I can't send multiple pages/sheets, it either crashes or gets a callback error. If I centre the file to the middle of a sheet it spools but doesn't appear on the FB job queue. If I send large prints (over say 4x8') the result is fairly evenly split between: spooling then disappearing, crashing Photoprint, or actually working. Again SAI is working to patch these issues but I'm not sure how long I can wait.
L26500: It seems to ignore what's been set in PhotoPrint. If I set a 20mm side margin it still just defaults to printing 5mm from the side. I've also had issues where it changes the positioning of pages, two of the photos show where it's moved a page over another vs what is shown on the screen.
Is anyone using this program successfully? It's getting to the point where I just forgo the cost, ditch it for Caldera (approx $7000) and get new custom profiles made ($500 each).
