Business Printing Blog

By: Kelly Liyakasa

Everyone knows how inconvenient it can be to develop your digital photographs at your corner drugstore. Although photo processing has come a long way in terms of speed and convenient, hour-long wait times, there is nothing like popular digital photo printing services.

Online photo printing is a new wave of digital photo sharing, in which images can be digitally transferred to your PC, edited, and then printed at affordable prices. Ever spend $10 on a roll of film that you ended up hating and wondering why you ever took the pictures in the first place? Photo printing online allows consumers to pick and choose which images they truly want and even have them customized in items like frames or t-shirts.

6StarReviews.com notes Snapfish as a great choice in their digital photo printing reviews , as this site offers customers photo printing options like magnets, personalized stationery, gift mugs and coasters. The Internet took the ordinary photograph and re-vamped it into an interactive, customizable entity that can be swapped, emailed or printed and sent straight to your doorstep.

Another noteworthy option in photo printing services is Shutterfly, a popular site that allows customers to order by the print or in bulk, saving money in the long run. Whether you’re the casual photographer who snaps digital photos every once in awhile at family functions or a die-hard photojournalist who makes photography your career, photo printing services give you the flexibility and fun features you need.

By: Matt Smolsky

If you’re like a lot of people, you have older relatives who aren’t connected to the Internet. And if you’re like a lot of people, you email pictures back and forth, which means a lot of older adults will be left out of the photos sharing fun. Well, thank goodness for easy photo printing sites.

With easy photo printing you can keep older relatives in the loop of all the fun things happening in the family. In fact, nowadays it’s oftentimes a lot easier than before.

Think about what it was like in the past for a moment. What qualified as easy photo printing them was to buy film, load the camera, take the picture, have it developed, get the prints back from the developer, and then share them – and usually, you only had one or two copies of the prints. You see, with film, you had to get the whole role developed and pay for prints you didn’t even want. That’s not exactly easy photo printing.

But now, you take pictures with a digital camera. Even if you use film, man developers let you have your photos loaded to a CD, which means they’re automatically made digital. This makes easy photo printing a lot better for sharing. You can send specific photos to family and friends, and they can use their favorite easy photo printing site to order prints.

But what about grandma and grandpa? Well, here’s the answer – simply make sure to include in your email a reminder to print off a few extra copies for the older relatives. That way, cousin Sue will be sure to think of her mom and dad when you send her pictures of your kids at their violin recital. All she has to do is order a couple extra prints at an easy photo sharing site.

Or, if you have an aunt or uncle, or even a parent, who lives in a far off city, you can go to your favorite easy photo printing site and have prints sent directly to your older relatives. It’s that simple! They’ll be so surprised and glad to get prints of family and friends they haven’t seen in a while, or who they don’t see very frequently.

This type of thoughtfulness is especially important if you know of older adults who are living in nursing homes or assisted care facilities. Just thing, with easy photo printing, all you need to do is upload your pictures, pick out the ones you think they will like, and have them delivered directly to their room at the nursing home – with a personal note from you included.

Easy photo printing truly is a great way to stay in touch with the people who might otherwise get left out of the loop. And remember, you can even have prints delivered by next day air, so if you want and older friend or relative to share the moment right away, you can! And once you use easy photo printing to share the moment, be sure to give them a quick call – they’ll love to hear from you!

Photos are a great way to share your travel experiences with family and friends. Here are a few suggestions to help you capture vacation memories you will treasure for years to come.

PLAN AHEAD

Make sure your digital camera is in good working order before you go, and keep it in a water- and shock-resistant case. Bring two sets of rechargeable batteries and don’t forget the charger and relevant cords. Make sure your camera has enough memory. Packing an extra memory card is wise, as there is nothing worse than running out of room for pictures halfway down the Grand Canyon. It may be tempting to lower the resolution so you can store more pictures, but you will regret this later as it may result in poorer quality prints, or you will be limited to smaller size prints. Set your camera at its highest quality JPEG setting and get more memory if you have to. You will appreciate this when you’re viewing and printing your photos after your trip.

TAKE LOTS AND LOTS OF PICTURES

With a digital camera you can always erase the photos you don’t want. Take pictures of anything you find interesting and try to focus on some of the details such as an attractive doorway or a colorful market, not just panoramic scenes or major landmarks. Let your pictures tell a story by creating a visual diary of your trip. Include street scenes, interesting signs, people you see along the way. For variety take both vertical and horizontal pictures.

READY FOR YOUR CLOSE-UP?

When taking people shots, don’t make the mistake of standing too far away. You want to be able to recognize the people in your photos. Get close enough so you can see the expressions on your subjects faces. Zoom in on individuals or capture them from the waist up. Pictures are often more interesting when you can catch people at candid, un-posed moments. In posed photos, try to incorporate some of the background into your shot. Try snapping from interesting angles rather than simply head-on.

USE YOUR FLASH

When photographing in bright sunlight, setting your camera’s “fill” or “forced” flash is very helpful, particularly when photographing people. Brilliant sunlight often makes people’s faces look harsh, casting dark shadows under the eyes and accentuating wrinkles. The daytime fill-in flash will soften the lighting and make the images more flattering. Your family and friends in the photos will thank you!

EDIT AND ENHANCE YOUR FAVORITE SHOTS

When you get home you can edit, crop and enhance your favorites using photo editing software such as Foto Finish, Ulead or Photoshop Elements. Consider adding drama to your images by turning some of your color photos into black and white or sepia tones and then upload all your images to an online photo printing service like Ofoto or Shutterfly for fast and convenient prints. You can take your best snaps and use your photo editing software to create a photo calendar or make photo cards for personal notes, or to email your favorites to family and friends.

Most of all have fun with your camera!

Valerie Goettsch publishes the digital photography website http://www.digitalphotos101.com featuring reviews of photo editing and album software and digital photo printing services.

The Epson PictureMate PM250 when closed looks for all the world like a woman’s vanity case, complete with handle.

Luckily the colour scheme is not in some shade of pink or I’d have serious misgivings about carrying the printer around with me.

In fact, the plain white casing with the brown-coloured lid (which also acts as a paper feed tray) is a pretty nice design, and the advantage is that the entire machine closes up tight when not in use.

This means the printer’s internals are protected from dust and creepy-crawlies wanting to make a home in it.

Up and running

The PictureMate is very easy to use overall, and controls are large and very easy to figure out – I got started printing within minutes of opening the package.

The PM250 comes with a multi-card reader, a USB PictBridge port and a 2.5in LCD screen for completely PC-less printing.

Add the optional battery pack and the optional Bluetooth adaptor, and the PM250 becomes portable AND wireless! The PictBridge port, although meant to connect PictBridge-compliant cameras, also reads and prints from a USB thumbdrive if you connect one to it.

This printer has a very high resolution of 5,760 x 1,440dpi – that may sound like a much higher resolution than the 300 x 600dpi of the Canon ES1, but remember that an inkjet has to have a higher resolution because it lays down ink droplets next to one another to form gradations and different colours.

A dye-sublimation printer achieves this by overlaying colours ON TOP of one another.

This difference means that although a dye-sub printer might sound like it has less resolution, in actual fact, both the inkjet and a dye-sub printer like the Canon ES1 can reproduce similar levels of detail.

Performance

The Epson Claria inks that come with the PM250 are said to last for 200 years but the documentation says that this will only be achieved if you store your prints inside a photo album away from light, air and humidity.

If you leave them out in the open without any protection whatsoever, you’re going to quickly find that your prints will start to fade within a matter of months.

First off, we found that just like the Canon ES1, the Epson PM250 is a little choosy when it comes to the the SD cards that it accepts.

Again, the 1GB SanDisk card we had worked with no problems when we inserted it while the 1GB Transcend just refused to work in the PM250.

In case you think the Transcend is faulty, it most certainly is not – it works fine in all the cameras I’ve tried it in and even on my Pocket PC.

With the SanDisk, however, the Epson worked with no problems at all – by default when you insert the card, the PM250 displays a series of small thumbnails.

The controls are very easy to figure out. I worked out all the features without having to read the manual and I’m sure even non-techies will be able to.

Just like most ultra-portable printers, the PM250 also has other “fun” effects like adding different types of borders to your photos.

Print quality

Our first prints straight out of the device with the default settings selected turned out really well, with really neutral results and very, very good sharpness, although there was very slight vertical banding visible in plain areas of the photo; visible only when you look very closely at the print.

Straight out of the printer without any enhancements, photos were pretty true-to-life, which might look a little dull when compared to the bright and sometimes overly-saturated results of some of the other printers in our test.

However, this is easily remedied as the printer’s good manual controls allow you to adjust photos to your liking. We found that we could make a print that looked similar to one by the Sony DPP-FP90 – just by pushing up colour saturation to “+2″ and brightness to “+1″ in the “Edit” menu.

There is also a PhotoEnhance option where the printer will automatically adjust brightness and contrast to fix underexposed shots.

PhotoEnhance worked well in practice, and corrected some underexposed shots, although as far as we could tell, it doesn’t mess with the saturation controls.

The PM250 has a black-ink cartridge in addition to the cyan, magenta and yellow so it produces very solid blacks compared with the HP Photosmart A516, which produces black by mixing all three colours.

Print speed on the PM250 is excellent and the printer consistently spat out prints in about 48 seconds from the moment you pressed the “print” button.

The Epson 4 x 6in paper that came with the printer has a special water-resistant coating – once the ink is properly dry on the print, it’ll actually withstand quite a bit of water thrown at it.

Our first test was to put a few water droplets and leave it to sit for a while before wiping off with a tissue – the print survived with not a trace of ink on the tissue, so we put it under a running tap and the print survived again.

While the print did go a little opaque when wet, once it was dry it looked as good as new, without a trace of damage at all.

Unlike a dye-sub printer where the colour ribbon lasts for exactly the stated number of prints, how long a single cartridge of an inkjet like the Epson will last depends on what you print.

If you print lots of photos of predominantly one colour, that colour will run out first and thus the cartridge will get exhausted faster.

However, based on the fact that the cartridge of the PM250 is supplied with 150 pieces of 4R paper, we estimate each print to be about 63sen if it manages to print on all 150 pieces – that’s comparable with the price of a photolab print.

Assuming the worst case scenario, even if it prints about half that, the price per print is about RM1.24 which is higher than a photolab print but still cheaper than the cost-per-print of the HP Photosmart ES1.

Overall, the Epson PhotoMate PM250 performed very well indeed.

It is fast and produces very good quality prints and if you follow the storage guidelines, the prints should last you a long time.

Pros: Fast; good quality prints; easy to use; reasonably good manual-editing options; water-resistant prints.

By Matthew Henry

SYDNEY: Kodak today unveiled its strategy to enter the consumer inkjet printer category through JB Hi-Fi with a new business model designed to slash the cost of printing by up to 50 per cent.

Kodak has launched its first consumer inkjet printer, the EasyShare 5300 all-in-one (RRP $299), which the brand claims represents a strategic move to gain a foothold in the local printer market by offering consumers significant savings for home printing.

“This is an extremely exciting time for Kodak as it marks our entry into a new market category,” said Kodak product manager – inkjet systems, David Santer.

“We have been in the printing business for more than 100 years. We have combined our consumer electronics expertise with our commercial inkjet printing legacy to design products for the home printing market.”

According to Kodak, the EasyShare 5300 has been under development for over two years offers a number of innovative features that will allow consumers to save up to 50 per cent on the cost of printing documents and Kodak lab-quality photos using premium, pigment-based inks.

Kodak has developed a new inkjet system which it claims will deliver superior efficiency for photo and document printing, allowing consumers to feel more comfortable printing at home.

Kodak claims research conducted by Galaxy in May 2007 shows that although 81 per cent of Australian families have a printer in their home, 77 per cent of them find the cost of ink to be expensive and therefore limit themselves and their children’s printing.

“For far too long Australian consumers have felt restrained from printing due to the high cost of ink,” said Santer.

“Our new inkjet system gives consumers the freedom to print documents and photos frequently, easily and affordably with exceptional quality that lasts a lifetime under typical home display conditions,” he said.

Kodak today released figures which it claims prove the printer will save consumers money.

“Independent testing conducted by Quality Logic reveals that consumers who spend A$5 on ink can on average, print 52 4×6-inch photos with the Kodak System, compared to only 18 4×6-inch photos for the leading consumer desktop all-in-one printers,” said Kodak in a statement.

“Consumers who spend A$5 on ink can produce 221 black text documents on the Kodak System, compared to 77 pages for leading competitors. This equates to under 10 cents of ink per 4×6-inch colour photo and 2.26 cents of ink per black-and-white page.”

The EasyShare 5300 printer features printing, scanning and copying capabilities and includes a high-resolution colour LCD display for easy viewing and editing that works with most memory cards.

The printer will be distributed through JB Hi-Fi’s 73 stores nationally from mid-September.

By James Ortolani

Many years ago, one of my industry mentors told me that screen printing was an easy business to get into, but then I’d spend the next 15 years trying to figure out how to do it better. At the time I thought he was exaggerating, but more than 20 years later, I am still learning new tricks to the trade. Below is a list of a dozen problem areas you might have in your shop along with some solutions to these daily dilemmas.

1. KNOW YOUR WHITE INKS
Most ink companies offer a standard, multipurpose white plastisol that can be used as a mixing white (to lighten other colors) and to print as a standard white with decent opacity on dark shirts. In fact, many designs even call for white ink on white T-shirts as a spot color or as a highlight to the design. The reason for printing white ink on white garments becomes apparent after the garment is washed several times and begins to lose its bright, white look. The shirt will fade in brightness, but the white ink in the design will remain crisp and bright.

Athletic white is a high-gloss white ink with good elasticity and opacity, designed for printing on athletic wear and team jerseys. Some printers use athletic white as their primary white to print on everything, but there are drawbacks to this practice. For instance, athletic inks are thicker and more difficult to print through finer mesh, and the ink has a gloss finish that is not suitable for some designs.

It’s also not ideal when you want the whitest white print on dark garments. For this, use a fast-flashing white ink to print an underbase, then flash and overprint more white ink. These fast-flashing whites use a resin that gels at a lower temperature than conventional plastisol, cutting flash times by half.

Another specialty ink — low-bleed (LB) white — is ideal for bright, white prints on fabrics prone to bleeding — a problem referred to as dye migration. LB inks contain dye blockers that attack dyes from the garment as they bleed through the white ink deposit. Dye blockers are usually in the peroxide family, so use caution when stacking garments after they exit the dryer. Dye blockers work by bleaching the dyes in the garment and this bleaching action continues for a short time after the garment exits the dryer.

Thus, if you stack hot LB prints right out of the dryer, you will get “ghosting” on the backs of the garments as they stack up. Avoid this by allowing the T-shirts to cool completely before stacking.

2. FLASH CURE PROBLEMS
Occasionally a printer will call me explaining that he has a washout problem with screen printed designs on dark garments. In some cases, the underbase color doesn’t wash out, but the colors printed on top of the underbase do. Here’s why: The key to successful flashing is to simply gel the fast-flashing underbase ink at 190°F for three to six seconds. After other colors are printed on top, the finished print should reach 320°F in the dryer, at which point all the inks, including the gelled underbase, melt and bond together and to the garment.

The delamination problem starts when the underbase is flashed at too high a temperature. If you exceed 190°F and get to the 320°F range, you risk totally curing the underbase. When that happens, it becomes a solid sheet of vinyl (or plastic), and plastisol ink will not stick to vinyl. That’s why, after a few washes, the top printed colors will delaminate from the underbase and wash off.

Another solution to speed up flash times is to cover the shirt boards on your press with a thin sheet of 70-durometer, heat-resistant neoprene. The neoprene cover insulates the shirt board, directing infrared (IR) energy into the ink film instead of absorbing into the mass of the shirt board. Aluminum shirt boards are the worst for absorbing IR energy and slowing down flash times, so covering aluminum shirt boards with neoprene can cut flash times in half.

Over flashing also can cause the dye migration and bleeding problems mentioned above. Dye migration is a hot topic in most shops today because plastisol inks can appear to give good opacity as the printed garment exits the dryer, but hours (or even days) later the dye from the garment can bleed through the cured ink film. Dyes in the garment will bleed through the ink for several reasons — excessive flash temperatures, excessive dryer temperature or improper garment storage. Garment dyes heated up in the dryer will begin a “gassing” process that penetrates the ink film, tinting the ink to the color of the garment. Garments kept in hot, humid storage also can fall subject to dye migration.

You can fight dye migration by using an ink system that is opaque and contains dye blockers. Also, print 100% cotton T-shirts when you can. Natural fiber is more absorbent than blends and less likely to release dyes that bleed through plastisol.

3. SCREEN PREPARATION
New screen printers commonly ask about screen tension (measured in Newtons/centimeter). The key here is to be consistent. Whatever tension level you get your screens up to, it is important that all screens on press for a job are stretched as closely as possible to the same N/cm reading. If tension readings vary, screens will shift or slip differently under the pressure of the squeegee, causing registration problems. Most experts in our industry agree that 25 to 30 N/cm is a good place to be with your screen tension for standard, everyday printing.

The benefits of printing with high-tension screens are well-documented, so investing in retensionable aluminum frames should be high on the list of improvements needed in most shops. High-tensioned screens provide better opacity, lower ink consumption and lay down a thinner ink deposit that is easier to cure and produces a print with a softer, more desirable hand.

4. CHECKING THE CURE
The best way to check for a full cure on your prints is to conduct random wash tests in a standard washing machine. But in a high-paced production setting, you cannot wash every garment, nor would you want to. Instead, closely monitor all the variables that may affect ink curing.

Some companies use temperature strips to check the accuracy of their dryer temperature. I prefer using the pistol-type surface thermometer, or ray gun. Simply point the temperature gun at a plastisol print as soon as the garment begins to exit the oven. The digital readout should show at least 320°F to ensure a full cure. If the reading is less than 320°F, make the necessary adjustments to the dryer. Either slow down the dryer’s belt or turn up the temperature.

5. COLOR MATCHING
Printing for today’s corporate customers often involves matching plastisol colors with Pantone PMS colors. You will not match those colors by mixing standard, off-the-shelf plastisols, so purchase a PMS color matching system.

Also buy a digital scale and a “recipe” book showing all PMS color formulations. Since plastisol inks have a matte finish (low gloss), compare the plastisol color with both the Pantone “U” (uncoated) and “C” (coated) color chips to see which best matches the color your customer desires. Usually, you will find plastisol more closely matches the U color chip. By the way, always do color matching in natural light; artificial lighting reduces the brightness of a color.

6. PRINT COLOR ORDER
The common rule of thumb in setting up the screen/color order for printing on white T-shirts is to print light to dark — yellow, orange, red, blue, green and then black, for example, would be typical. However, use the exact opposite color order when printing on dark garments to reduce the amount of ink pickup on the backs of screens. This technique makes the last colors printed appear brighter and more opaque.

The exception to this rule is if you are printing a large block area of color. In this instance, move this screen to the end of the color order to avoid ink pickup on the backs of other screens. Conversely, a screen with a small design element should be moved to the front of the order.

Finally, make sure your color separations (artwork) are butt to butt (a.k.a., butt registration). This allows you to print colors in any order since the inks don’t overlap, though it’s still a good idea to follow the general rules above.

7. USING DIRECT EMULSION
There are many techniques for coating screens with direct emulsion — some screen printers prefer a one-on-one coating technique (one coat on each side), and some prefer two coats on each side. I find that the more passes I make with the scoop coater, the more emulsion I end up scraping off from prior coats. A good technique is to start by coating the contact side of the screen with one coat, flip the screen over, and coat one time on the squeegee side of the screen.

Be sure to use the correct emulsion for the mesh count you are coating. There are some direct emulsions that work on a wide range of screen meshes, but it is important to read the technical data sheet for recommendations. Screen emulsions are manufactured with different solids contents to allow for better “bridging” (coverage) on various mesh counts. For example, you will need an emulsion with a higher solids content to fill the holes in coarser meshes such as 60 and 86. Fewer solids are necessary in emulsions designed to coat 230 and 305 mesh.

Learn to properly expose screens by determining optimum exposure time for your shop’s conditions. Your combination of exposure unit, emulsion, mesh selection and screen coating techniques are unique. An exposure calculator can help you determine the ideal exposure time for the emulsion and screen mesh you use for each job.

8. SQUEEGEE SELECTION
The standard squeegee used by many manual textile printers is a straight edge, 70-durometer model. I prefer to print with a dual- or triple-durometer squeegee. A multi-durometer squeegee gives you the advantage of a soft edge blade combined with the support of a more rigid inner core or backing.

A simple rule to remember is that if you want to print a surface deposit of ink without driving the ink into the garment, choose a soft squeegee in the 55- to 60-durometer range.

Whatever squeegee hardness you choose, be sure the edge of the squeegee blade is sharp. And have your squeegees sharpened on a regular basis. A dull edge squeegee does not shear ink through a stencil properly.

9. MESH SELECTION
Approximately 40 mesh counts are commercially available to screen printers, yet most shops stock just three or four mesh counts. To be at the top of your game, have eight to 10 mesh counts on hand at all times.

“Mesh count” refers to how many threads per inch are woven in the screen fabric. A lower mesh count allows more open area in the mesh so more ink can flow through these openings. A higher mesh count has less open area and reduces the flow of ink onto the substrate.

The diameter of the individual strands of thread also affects the open area of the screen. A finer thread allows more open area than a thicker thread. Ask your mesh supplier for a mesh chart showing all the available meshes and thread diameters in microns.

Here’s a breakdown of common mesh counts used in a typical garment screen print shop:

• 30 to 40 mesh is used for printing glitter inks
• 60 to 86 mesh is common for printing flock transfers, metallic and puff inks
• 110 to 156 mesh is an all-purpose mesh for printing basic spot color jobs
• 195 to 230 mesh is used for jacket printing and fine detail work
• 255 to 305 is great for four-color process and simulated process printing

10. PRINTING TRANSFERS
Transfers are a great inventory control option, especially when you don’t know if a particular design will be a good seller. Why direct screen print hundreds of garments in advance and hope they will sell? Plus, you never know what sizes and garment styles will be popular for a given design. Transfers can take the guess work out of the equation.

All textile screen printers already have 90% of the equipment needed to print plastisol transfers — a one-color one-station press, vacuum platen, conveyor dryer and a heat press. Now you just have to decide which type of plastisol transfer you want to produce — hot split or cold peel. To make a cold-peel plastisol transfer, you can use the same plastisol that you currently use to direct print T-shirts, 110 to 156 mesh and a coated transfer paper stock.

To produce hot-split transfers, purchase hot-split ink, uncoated transfer paper and 156 to 195 mesh. Be sure to reverse the image when you make your screens, set the dryer at 190ºF, and set the dryer belt speed to retain the transfer in the oven for 30 to 45 seconds.

11. YOUTH-SIZED GARMENTS
When printing a job that calls for both adult and youth sizes, you must create a separate set of smaller positives to print the art on the youth-sized garments. Adult-sized artwork looks out of proportion on children’s apparel. You also will need to purchase a set of youth-sized shirt boards — 8″ x 10″ or 10″ x 10″ boards are ideal. If you contract print childrenswear and youth garments for large department stores or a major brand, the buyer may request flame-retardant inks.

12. FIGHTING FIBRILLATION
Fibrillation is a technical term used to describe the little hairs (or fibers) in the makeup of garment yarn. These fiber tips can protrude through plastisol, making a print appear washed out. Thicker plastisols are tacky and will stick to the back of the next screen that it comes in contact with. The result is an audible snap when the screen is lifted from the ink deposit. This is the sound of the ink ripping away from the screen and at the same time pulling the micro yarn fibers up through the wet ink deposit.

Plastisol that is thick and tacky will have a high sheer quality that greatly contributes to fibrillation problems. Plastisol manufacturers have perfected ink systems with very good mat down qualities that fight fibrillation. These inks possess a low shear quality and are very easy to print with.

Control these screen printing variables and you will be in better control of your shop’s destiny. It is impossible to make all of these changes overnight, but it is possible to gradually integrate these and other ideas into your daily production until you have a smooth running production operation.