Correct way to do test print of the part of large scaled photo on small piece paper?

Question

I want to see how my photo would look like on A2 paper. I do not want to spoil large sheet, so I would like to use A4 or even smaller to print part of my image with the same scale/resolution as it would be printed on A2. How to achieve this? Lightroom solution is preferable, but Photoshop would work as well.

What I did is I set A2 paper size in Page Setup in LR, inserted A4 sheet and started printing. What I see that indeed image was printed in A2 scale, but what confused me is that printing head was moving all the way from the left side of the printer to the right - as it would printed A2. I can't check whether it actually printed outside of the A4 paper (I don't want inks to be spoiled that way and printer corrupted). I use Epson SC-P800 printer.

What is the correct way to achieve this?

Answer 1

If you print specifying A2, the printer will print the full dimension, not just where you happen to have loaded your A4 paper. Surprised the printer doesn't detect that A2 paper isn't loaded, but it sure sounds like it was printing all the way across

Since A4 is 1/4 the size of A2, what you need to do is crop 1/4 of your image and print that at the same resolution, specifying A4 size and no scaling.

Answer 2

To do this properly requires that both the large and small types of paper are the same, so that theirs profile and ink taking characteristics are the same. You'd ideally need to be using the same printer and software as well.

Otherwise the comparisons would be meaningless, as the paper and ink profiles are major factors.

I mention this because you don't say anything about the paper.