Re: Printers

Microsoft Works then!
I've been through an Epsom,Kodak and now a Canon.
all depends what you want them to do.
for my craftwork I found the Epsom/Kodak rubbish, but the Canon, which the majority of crafters have on my other forum, wouldn't have anything else.

and just a word of advice I wouldn't recommend compatible inks, not in the guarantee year, if anything goes wrong and it has to go back the guarantee will be void.
I buy the recommended inks from EBAY they come from Jersey! postage free and are half the price.

Re: Printers

True - best to wait until the warranty has expired .....

Re: Printers

Just don't get this whole thread at all.

It's nuts !

No printer forces your images to come out to a specific size. A printer will print the image the computer has sent it. If it sends a large image, it prints that large image, if it sends a small image, it prints that small image.

If you have a picture you want to use for a passport/bus pass photo and it is printing out too big, then the photo is too big. It has nothing to do with the printer.

Scaling a photo down is NOT in any sense difficult.

Open MS Paint which is already part of Windows and found in Accessories.

Open your photo in MS Paint

In the top menu there is a dotted square box with the word select beneath it and a drop down arrow.

Click that arrow and choose the "select all" option

Then just next to the right of the dotted square you will see the "Resize" option. Select this and change the horizontal and vertical dimensions (they are %). i.e. if you put 50 and 50 in there you make the image 50% of its original size.

Just make it as small as you want it. Then save and print.

Easy

Takes literally seconds to do. No new printer needed.

Re: Printers

Had a chat with it guy at work he recommends canon selphy as a really easy to use dock at a cheaper price.

Re: Printers

The Canon Selphy is a 'dye-sublimation' printer that can scale (resize), crop and print photos straight from the camera. Prints done with a dye-sub printer are very good quality and they don't fade. It uses a different printing process to an inkjet or laser printer.

Cartridges of paper are inserted into the Selphy and these also contain the ink. The price per print needs to be considered. The Canon Selphy is what Mrs mart uses for printing photos and she says that postcard-sized prints work out at around 30 Pence each. See the various paper packs at the bottom of the page linked to below (need to shop around for best prices):

http://www.canon.co.uk/for_home/prod.../direct_photo/

I believe that printing photo files stored on the computer can be done with the Selphy but this isn't something we have used it for. Best to look further into that aspect of it (an inkjet printer is used for the rare occasions that we need to print a photo from the computer).

There might be some inkjet printers that allow image resizing but as said, the size of the photo is easily set within an image editing program before sending it to the printer. This might be the best course to take. Many image editing programs can resize photos using inches or centimetres as the printing units.

I don't think the file formats of today will become unreadable for future generations. Even if photo files were to become stored in a format as yet unheard of, future generations are sure to be able to up-convert them as one format loses popularity in favour of a newer one. Just be sure to store photo files in several different places (disks - USB drives) so that if one storage device gets lost, damaged or fails to work there are always other copies available.

Re: Printers

I use this program and have done for many years.

http://www.irfanview.com/

Not only is it an excellent picture viewer, it has image editing functions such as crop, re-size, colour and gamma correction and red-eye removal. Best of all is it's free.

If you install it, you can view on your image from Windows Explorer by double clicking on it. Use Edit tab, resample/resize from the pull-down menu, resize your photo to passport size (keep aspect ratio ticked) and save it with a different name.

Next, double-click on the saved image and then choose Print from the file menu. Job done.

Re: Printers

I think her problem is when she clicks 'Print' the printer takes over and offers her choices, none of which she wants nor needs.

Re: Printers

Tessa, this is a link to the one I've used to renew my bus pass. It is not a council run website, it is run by the travel company who operate the buses, trams and the railways in South Yorkshire which will probably be similar to your local public transport company. Just send your photo in and they will do the rest. Just google 'Travel' in your area.

http://www.travelsouthyorkshire.com/

Re: Printers

I think that is the case Malcolm. Referring to the screenshot (post 7), I notice that below those preset sizes there is a link called 'Options'. Maybe custom sizes can be set there. I'm not familiar with the software shown in the screenshot but I assume it is HP's own?

Good quality photos straight from the camera would print huge and not fit on the paper unless some sort of processing is done to reduce the size. It looks to me as if that software tries to avoid the user needing edit the size of a photo in an editing program by letting them choose a few different preset sizes. Once one is chosen, the software does the rest.

I'm sure there must be a way to set a custom size but it's hard to say without having the software that is being used. Maybe there's an option somewhere that says 'actual size' (or something), so that if the photo has had its size reduced in an editing program, that's the size it would print.

If an editing program (Paint, Irfanview or other) is used to set the photo's size, the sizing dialogue shown in the screenshot might get bypassed. The photo should then end up on an A4 bit of paper at the size set by the user.

When I do such things on my HP printer, I can usually position a small sized photo/image on an A4 piece of paper so it is up the top and so avoid using a whole piece of glossy or semi-gloss paper. Printing is always done from within the program I'm doing the editing in.

Re: Printers

I've had two Lexmark printers Tessa, in fact they are the only printers I have ever used. The first Lexmark gave me quite a few years of reliable and good quality results. When my previous computer finally packed up my new computer came with an Epson printer. It wasn't a patch on the Lexmark. It contained five ink cartridges and when one ran out it prevented the printer from working. If the colour cartridge ran out on the Lexmark it would continue to print using just the black. So I dumped the Epson and purchased a new Lexmark. Although there was nothing wrong with the new Lexmark, some problems came to light, one being, because I bought the printer from PC World that was the only place I could buy replacement cartridges. I even tried to buy them direct from Lexmark online, but they didn't appear on the list of UK replacements. Turned out the printers had been produced for the American market only. Second problem was:- The coloured cartridge would run out before the black one. At first I could just replace the coloured one, and then they stopped doing single packs and I had to buy the twin pack containing one of each and at £50 a time it got quite expensive, because colour ran out first I ended up with about three new black cartridges and no coloured one. So after three years I decided to get a new printer.
Problem number three came when I tried to buy just a printer. Apparently they do multiple jobs these days and after searching round for a decent stand alone printer I had to concede and buy an all singing all dancing model. It's a Cannon and it's still in the box so I don't know if it's any good or not, the bloke in the shop recommended it so we'll see just as soon as I get it working. I don't seem to need one as much as I did when I was a self employed courier. I save all my photos digitally and don't print them off much. When I eventually shuffle off this mortal coil my daughter will probably bin them anyway.....