Canon Pixma Pro-100 printer ejects 3.8 in of a 4X6 paper and prints only 2.2 in of the image printing from Photoshop CS6, I'm sure I set everything correctly - what could I be missing?

Question

Using Mac Pro running Snow Leopard (10.6.8) & editing & printing from Photoshop CS 6.
Have new Canon Pixma Pro-100 printer and set it up yesterday.  First thing printed was a
document from MS Word (a letter) 8.5 X 11 plain paper - this came out OK.  Next I fire up
Photoshop and open a 4 X 6 inch image to do a test print.  I set it up in the print dialog as
4X6 paper, Canon's Pro Glossy paper profile, rear tray, standard print quality, Photoshop
manages the color.  I load the paper in the rear tray close the covers and hit print.  Now, when
it starts to print the printer moves about 3.8 inches of paper out of the printer and starts printing
on the remaining 2.2 inches then spits the paper out.  It does this in Photoshop (any image it doesn't
matter), and it does it printing from Capture NX.  I have been able to get it to print on the paper
correctly using Apple's Preview program but that that's not going to do me any good.  I was on
the phone with Canon tech support for about 2 hours and they were completely puzzled suggesting
I would have to use Canon's printing apps instead to print - that doesn't do me any good either.
I want to be able to print from Photoshop.  Any one every heard of this or experienced the same
problem? Thanks JamesD!

Answer 1

Hello again. I recognize that a print is good if you like it and bad if you don't, despite what others might say, but I will at least share my experiences. They might help you or others who are following this thread.
My monitor is calibrated with Spyder 3. Gamma 2.2, 6500K, 83 cd/m^2. Contrast at 50%; brightness about 52%. My monitor lets me choose blackness level - it defaults to 50%.
When I print the test image I linked to above, using Lightroom, with no adjustments, my technical output is as follows:
Middle step wedge shows twelve disticnt steps. Whitest step is color of unprinted paper.
It varies from paper to paper, but I can discerne at least the 252 step and on some papers 253 - telling me I have good highlight detail.
On the black side I discerne 8 or 10, nothing lower. (That sounds like what you are reporting).
Artistically I am very happy how my print looks - nice red strawberries, good flesh tones, etc.
One my monitor, the on-screen image is almost identical to the print. I am surprised that you can see the 2 wedge step on screen at a very similar brightness.
I also checked out this B&W test image:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/bw_printing/bw-test-image-2.html
You are probably aware of this since you are printing with Print Studio Pro, but others may not be.
You can print a series of test images:
find the one that best suits your taste, enter the calibration values in PSP, and save them as a custom setting. Then, each time you want to print recall the setting.
You can do a similar thing in Lightroom using the printer driver and User Templates.
There would be some one-time trial and error to that approach.
John Hoffman
Conway, NH
1D Mark IV, Rebel T5i, Pixma PRO-100, MX472