Article:		Tired of Inkjet Snapshots? The Canon CP-220 to the Rescue
Subject:		Epson PictureMate
Date:		2004-12-13 19:18:34
From:		barr
Derrik (or anyone), have you had a chance to work with the epson picturemate? It gets great reviews and costs only .29/pict. Print quality and durability seem great. Of course it's a bit more pricey (around $200), but seems like a good deal.

Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

• Epson PictureMate
  2004-12-21 13:08:24  pvonk [View]
  
  
  Isn't the picturemate an ink jet printer? If so, the issue is how long a printed picture lasts. Ink jet pics don't have a long shelf life as I understand it. The Canon CP220 is a dye sub printer, which creates long-lasting pics. Dye sub pics cost more to produce, though, but a photo zealot like my wife demands something more than ink jet output.
• Epson PictureMate
  2004-12-26 23:07:24  jonblock [View]
  
  
  I just finished running a few hundred holiday cards on a PictureMate, and I'm quite pleased with the quality, as well as the graceful handling of the inevitable low-ink situation: The machine detects an impending ink shortage and simply stops printing until you replace the cartridge. No wasted media. And since they warranty 100 prints per package (100 sheets plus an ink cartridge), they don't have an incentive to cut you off too soon just to increase ink sales.
  
  As for the question of archival quality, Epson has been touting their long-lasting (100 years?) ink+paper combination for a few years now. I doubt I'll remember this discussion in 100 years, so I can't confirm it based on personal experience, but I assume someone would have cried foul if their claims were far off base. I doubt they'd stand up well to the pour-water-on-them test Derrick mentioned, though.
  
  Getting the prints to fit properly was not a particular problem, once I figured out the separate steps of informing iPhoto (and later Photoshop) of the paper size I wanted (4x6 borderless, in page setup) as well as informing the printer of the paper size I wanted (full page, in the print dialog box). I do think the whole Print system in OS X has room for improvement, though.
  
  One warning: At least in my experience so far, printing immediately to this printer tended to result in failures (printer unavailable/jobs on hold/whatever). I think the system starts spooling to the machine before the entire print job has been received from the application, then runs out of data and something chokes. I worked around this easily enough by printing on Hold and then releasing the job when it was fully spooled. Scheduled printing (i.e. print this 5 minutes from now) also works.
• Epson PictureMate
  2005-12-30 16:22:15  Bruce Stewart | [View]
  
  
  Thanks for the PictureMate OS X details you provided here. I've been pounding my head against the wall trying to get mine to work correctly with my OS X machine the past few days, and I had missed the crucial Page Setup option which you detailed above.
  
  Thanks!
• Epson PictureMate
  2006-02-12 21:03:58  pesco [View]
  
  
  Thanks for the info! Unfortunately, we're still having problems. We followed your directions in iPhoto (borderless, full page) but still have 1/4" borders on the short sides of the photo prints. It's almost like the aspect ratio of the photos that come out of my Casio Exilim is different than that of a 4x6 piece of paper. Very strange. Any thoughts? Thanks!