Epson Printers

Fotocare is becoming one of my favorite destinations these days, not only am I surrounded by photography equipment and know how but they continue to offer great free seminars. Today, Todd Schneider held two sessions of "Seeing the Fine Print", all about printing technique. The seminar focused on printing with an Epson printer, which I sadly don't own but learned more about both printing specifically with Epson and information on workflow from file to print.

Some of the information surprised me and will definitely be useful in the future. The resolution a file is when it is sent to print can be a factor in the print speed and quality, which I'm sure everyone realizes, but the resolution being a larger number, like 300, might not lead to as nice of a print as a lesser resolution, like 240. The reason for this involves the mathematics in the conversion of pixels to dots, numbers divisible by 1440 that result in a hole number are better for printing, like 240, 360 and 480.

Another interesting piece of information involves the length of time to let a print dry before framing it. If you are framing a print behind glass, and you do so too soon after it has been printed, the gas emitted by the inks will obstruct the view of the image by effecting the glass, so time is needed for the print to dry before framing. Leaving the print out with a piece of paper on it, like brown craft paper, will shorten the time needed for it to dry. He said that an image left out 24hrs with the paper on it will be more set then one left our 6 days without the paper on it.

There are a couple tips for you! Todd did a great job explaining a lot of the information, from LAB and color profiles to print settings and printer maintenance. After the seminar, my friend Corey and I spoke with him a bit. Turns out he's a RIT Alum as well! We chatted about the differences on the campus and the facilities they have now versus when he attended. It's always fun to realize you have some kind of connection with someone you just met.