Crisis: Providing prints on location

Crisis Situation

I was asked if I could provide prints onsite for a client. Let me just say I hate making prints with inkjet printers through the years and some of the other solutions were just too expensive to justify.

If you have owned one and done any amount of printing you most likely have had to clean the heads due to getting banding across prints. This just was so time consuming for me.

When I had this request the very first thing was feeling the emotions of stress.

Solution

I first went to my friend for the past 20+ years Pete Casabonne. Pete manages PPRPix. Through the years I have worked with doing all of my printing from when I worked for Georgia Tech as staff photographer and through today with all of my clients.

Talking with Pete and then by doing some research on my own I found the Epson PM225 PictureMate Charm Compact Photo Inkjet Printer for $199.

To set up the Charm the first time, you simply slide the four-color ink cartridge into the slot in the back of the printer. Next, you rotate the handle back and out of the way, open the top cover to turn it into an input tray, and open the front cover to turn it into an output tray. Then load paper in the paper tray, plug in the power cord, and you're ready to print from a memory card, using the control panel and tiltable LCD on the top of the printer, or from a PictBridge camera.

If you want to print from a computer instead (or also), simply run the automated installation from the supplied disc, and plug in a USB cable. From the time you open the box, you should be ready to print your first photo within 10 minutes at most—or far less if you don't need to install the driver on a computer.

For glossy photos, the cost works out to just 25.3 cents each, based on the $37.99 (direct) price for a print pack with enough ink and paper for 150 photos. For matte photos, the cost is 32.3 cents per photo, based on a $32.29 (direct) price for enough ink and paper for 100 photos.

More important, the combination of fast speed, low cost per page, and high-quality prints that are both rugged and long-lived puts the Charm way out in front of its competition, and earns it a spot as PC Magazine Editors' Choice for 4- by 6-inch dedicated photo printers.

I will be writing my review of it's performance after using it in a Photo Booth in a couple weeks.

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHTS

• 5760 x 1440 dpi
• Print 4.0 x 6.0" Photo in 37 Seconds
• Print from Memory Cards
• Borderless Prints
• 2.5" Color LCD Preview Display
• Portable, Weighs only 7.9 lb
• Dry, Scratch, & Water-Resistant Prints
• Grab the handle and take PictureMate Charm to parties, events, the office, even your vacation getaway
• Smudge, water and fade resistant photos
• With on-board photo editing you can crop, enhance, remove red-eye and more
• Choose from various layouts and print in black-and-white, color or sepia
• Print stacks of photos at an everyday, low print price
• Compatible with any digital camera
• The Charm operates for hours on a single battery charge (with optional rechargeable battery)
• Print wirelessly with the optional Bluetooth adapter

This is a screen shot of the Epson Easy Photo Print software that will let you print from your computer.

Once you select your images you can then crop and make small adjustments and choose if you want index print [contact sheet], borderless or bordered prints and more adjustments.

I prefer shooting RAW and editing all my images using Adobe Lightroom. Once you install the printer driver then you are just picking the Epson PictureMate as your printer.

In Adobe Lightroom Print Module go down to the Print Job tab and select Printer.

On the lower left pick the "Print Settings" and then this will pop up where you pick the EPSON PictureMate PM 225.

Tethered Shooting

I will use my Nikon D4 to shoot photos of people at a Photo Booth wireless. I will use my CamRanger to sync to my Macbook Pro. Here is an earlier blog post on how that works.

Here is how you then setup Lightroom to have those images automatically appear so you can immediately edit/print the images.

Simple Photo Frame Effect - Add a Custom Border with Text or Image

Here is a great video to help you create text. To add logos and text I create those in PhotoShop and then select graphic instead of text. Little practice and you will be doing this with ease. Watch this video for a walk through on the steps.