Nowadays many companies that produce photo printers supplement these devices with a very useful feature such as direct CD printing. Thus a great number of models of ink-jet printers come with the ability to print images on a CD surface that has a special covering. Such CDs or DVDs are called the printable ones.

It should be noted that the method of CD/DVD printing gives them an inimitable individuality. Such discs with a printed image on them look very presentable and informative. It is one of he best ways personalize the user’s photos, video or music.

Epson being one of such companies offers its customers direct CD/DVD printing. The EPSON Print CD software that comes with EPSON photo printers allows printing your favorite images on CD/DVD. After the creation of your image for a CD, you can print it out on the CD with 12 or 8 cm diameter.

CD Printing Guide

· Use only such CD/DVDs that are specially designed for printing. Usually they have the following indications: “Printable on the label surface” or “Printable with ink jet printers”.

· As opposed to printing on a special Epson paper, images on CD/DVD are printed with less saturated colors.

· Print out images on CD/DVD only after data record. In other case fingerprints, scratches or dust on a disc surface may cause write error.

· If you are going to print out a great number of compact discs, first you should print images on several unnecessary discs and then check the result of the printed surface the next day.

· Do not use CDs and do not touch the printed surface, till it dries out completely. Do not dry the printed CD/DVD by the bright sunlight.

· If the printed surface remains sticky after drying, it may be that the colors are excessively saturated. In this case you should lower the color saturation in EPSON Print CD.

· Ingress of moisture on the printed surface may cause the color smearing.

· The repeated printing on a compact-disc will not necessarily improve the quality of printing.

· Depending on the type of compact-disc and color saturation the image may become smudged.

· With the help of EPSON Print CD you may adjust the printing area on a compact-disc. Adjust the area of printing in such a way, so it coincides with the print area of a compact-disc that you are going to use. Wrong adjustments may stain the disc tray or a compact-disc.

At the present moment one can find a variety of photo paper for printing at home. There are also a great number of amateur and professional digital cameras which give photos of exceptional quality due to the huge resolution power of their matrix. Therefore an amateur photographer sets the problem to find not only a good photo printer but photo paper of the best quality for day-to-day printing and art photo exhibitions as well.

Photo paper represents paper specially designed for photo printing, graphic presentations and illustrations. It is a dense paper with multilayer surface meant for the improvement of mixing of inks to impenetrate the paper. Photo paper also has a special superficial layer that protects the image from external actions. Thanks to a special structure, the photo paper provides a high resolution of image. Photo paper is also distinguished by high density, to prevent the printing of an image on the other side of paper. You can purchase photo paper in various formats. Depending on the character of special covering, photo paper can be Semi-gloss, Glossy, High-gloss and Matte. You can find double-sided paper such as Glossy/Matter and some other variations.

The glossy photo paper is characterized by high density and the presence of glossy layer on its surface. This layer prevents washing-off and discoloration of inks from the paper surface. It is usually used for printing of photos with soft halftones and bright sceneries. The glossy photo paper is also good for portrait photos and some other types of printing that requires rich color rendition and high reflectivity. The disadvantage of this type of photo paper is the following: you can not use pigment inks for printing as they are easily obliterated. If you want to print photos on paper with glossy effect by using pigment inks, in this case you should apply super glossy paper that has a special layer that prevents the physical tear and wear of a photo.

The matte photo paper can be of various densities. The matte paper with less density is mainly used for the production of the printing produce such as booklets, leaflets, presentations, etc. The matte paper with higher density is used for the printing of high quality photographs for exhibitions and photo albums. As distinct from glossy and High-gloss paper, the matter one goes very well with all types of inks such as water, sublimation and pigment ink. The matte paper is ideal for images with many details, for such photos where it is more important to render small parts rather than halftones. The advantages of the matte paper are characterized by its low cost and its steadiness to mechanical failures such as scratches and fingerprints.

There are also a variety of specialized photo paper such as self-adhesive and textured (canvas) paper, heat transfer paper and many others. You can use both water and pigment ink for these types of photo paper as it is mainly used for the needs of printing industry.

As regards the durability of photos printed at the inkjet printers, the type of paper covering plays a very important role. The photo paper covering meant for inject printers can be swelling or porous. The swelling covering consists of synthetic and natural polymers that swell when getting into contact with water or ink. Once the printing dries up, the dye stuff is airtightly fixed in the paper covering, and this prevents the contact with the air and its admixtures. The photo paper with porous covering dries faster than that with the swelling covering. However the photos printed on the paper with porous surface fade under the influence of the air, therefore such photos should be kept under the protective glass.

Photo paper is produced for inkjet, laser and sublimation photo printers. It is produced in various formats from A3+ (Super A3) to wallet cards for printing of photos. The characteristics of up-to-date high quality photo paper for inkjet printers are characterized by lightfastness and steadiness to discoloration. A photo can preserve its initial state in the course of approximately 20 years if you will keep it under glass and in the course of 15 years without keeping it under the glass. It is recommended to keep printed photos in a cool and dry place with relative humidity no more than 80 %.

Not the least of the factors is of course the price of photo paper. The most expensive photo paper is the original one such as Epson, Canon, HP, etc.

Combination printers and photo frames seem to be in this year: Epson has just announced the PictureMate Show, a new device that combines a 4 by 6 photo printer with a 7-inch photo frame.

Epson claim that the new $300 PictureMate Show can produce a 4 by 6 print in around 37 seconds, with a print resolution of 5760 by 1400 dots per inch (dpi). The printer uses special packs of combination paper and ink that come in capacities (more…)

The latest addition to Epson’s PictureMate range is the Charm, a new compact photo printer. The charm is a comapct printer that measures just 9.1 by 6.7 by 5.9 inches when folded up. A 2.5-inch LCD screen is built into the top panel for image previews and menus. The lid of the printer also doubles as the paper input tray. Epson did not outline the printing system it usee, but they did claim that it can produce a 4 by 6 print in around 37 seconds, (more…)

Although photo print quality from four-colour inkjet printers continues to improve, photo enthusiasts demand the higher quality light shades which only light cyan and light magenta inks can furnish. Epson’s latest take on an A4, six-colour printer is the Stylus Photo P50, and it has added CD/DVD print to the mix.

Blending in with the rest of Epson’s new inkjet range, the top of the Stylus Photo P50 is gloss black with (more…)

Just £100 will buy you a home or small-business, inkjet all-in-one from any of the main manufacturers, so a machine is going to need something extra in its feature-set to gain supporters. This is all the more true of the Epson Stylus SX415 given its similarities with the [linkout:www.trustedreviews.com/printers/review/2008/02/08/Epson-Stylus-DX8400/p1 Stylus DX8400], which is still on sale for around £75 online. What can the SX415 possibly (more…)

One of the advantages of an A3 printer is that it often prints A4 pages faster than equivalent A4 printers. This is because they’re printed sideways and the machine can get through more pages in equivalent time, by having a wider carriage. Epson’s M8000N mono laser uses this trick, as well as being able to print full A3 pages. It’s intended for
busy offices, as the company claims it can print up to 44ppm.
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) suggests that such claims might just be justified.
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In the same way Lexmark has a range of Pro business, inkjet all-in-ones, which have high capacity cartridges, Epson has its Stylus Office machines, which have room in their cartridge carriers for two black cartridges, sitting side-by-side. Today we’re looking at the Stylus Office BX310FN, which is capable of printing over 2,000 pages between cartridge changes.
This is a good-looking and quite sleek machine, with a flip-open Automatic Document Feeder (more…)