Photography Blog-Note

A planned and color calibrated workflow is a must for anyone trying who wants consistent, reproduceable inkjet printing. I strongly encourage you to read my post Printing with ICC profiles.

The Epson R1800 photo printers have the ability to print with no margins on some paper sizes. Here are some guidelines for getting consistent borderless prints. First, what sizes can be borderless is set by software and cannot be modified (In other words, you cannot set up a custom border free print).

When you press the Print button the “System” Print dialog as shown below should appear:

Now press the “Properties” button:

• Select the correct paper size.
• Select “Best Photo” mode
• Check the Borderless box (At left, you can see the available borderless sizes with the Epson 1800).

Now press the “More options” button:

• Choose the type of Media (for example Premium Luster Photo Paper)
• High Speed should be disabled.
• For Color Management choose “ICM” and set the “No Color Adjustment” mode. (ICM mode automatically makes use of the Epson media profiles but does so in a way that means their selection in Photoshop should be avoided. To obtain the best results from this particular mode of operation you should configure the Photoshop Print dialog as explained in my article Printing with ICC profiles).

Driver Quality Settings

The newer Epson drivers have dropped the easy to understand 720, 1440, and 2880 dpi quality setting choices. Instead, we now have Photo, Best Photo, and Photo RPM. Here’s a translation of those choices:

• Photo - 720dpi
• Best Photo - 1440dpi
• Photo RPM - 2880dpi