Please help - new to printing - pulling my hair out!

[jschmidt]

So happy I found this forum - hoping someone can help! I have an HP C4240 and I am trying to print some home made trading cards that are 2.5" wide by 3.5" tall. A few issues that I am hoping for help here. I am using photoshop for the graphics and am printing from there:

- Whenever I print, it seems slightly off-center, making cutting them out a little difficult.
- I'd love to print in the upper left corner so all I have to do is cut 2 sides of the card inside of 4. Whenever I try it though, it doesn't seem to recognize the white border around the trading card, and gets too close the edge ... and even then, it is still slightly crooked
- Whenever I'm printing, the graphic gets slightly enlarged that I'm printing. I would like for my printing to be exactly 2.5x3.5.

Any help GREATLY appreciated, thank you in advanced! Heck, if anyone knows of a 2.5x3.5 printer, that would be awesome too!

 

[turbguy]

Start by printing on plain paper rather than expensive stock. Once you have the size and position you desire (by tweaking parameters in photoshop), THEN switch stock. If the stock comes out differently, then you are challenging the media handling capability of the printer.

 

[jschmidt]

I really appreciate your response. I found out doing borderless was causing the image to be oversized. It is good now. As for the paperstock, it is merely a 5x7 thin photopaper. It is barely thicker than regular paper. It is still going a tad cockeyed for some reason.

 

[fotofreek]

So happy I found this forum - hoping someone can help! I have an HP C4240 and I am trying to print some home made trading cards that are 2.5" wide by 3.5" tall. A few issues that I am hoping for help here. I am using photoshop for the graphics and am printing from there:

- Whenever I print, it seems slightly off-center, making cutting them out a little difficult.
- I'd love to print in the upper left corner so all I have to do is cut 2 sides of the card inside of 4. Whenever I try it though, it doesn't seem to recognize the white border around the trading card, and gets too close the edge ... and even then, it is still slightly crooked
- Whenever I'm printing, the graphic gets slightly enlarged that I'm printing. I would like for my printing to be exactly 2.5x3.5.

Any help GREATLY appreciated, thank you in advanced! Heck, if anyone knows of a 2.5x3.5 printer, that would be awesome too!

Several issues here: If your prints are crooked the paper is "skewing" during the feed and printing process. It depends on where the feed wheels are - you may have the feed wheel(s) off the center of the paper when printing a 5x7 and that can cause skewing. The paper guide may not be accurate enough to prevent it from going crooked. I've usually printed multiple copies on 8.5x11 paper as my printers seem to feed more accurately on that size. It is a bit more complex to set you print job up and it would involve more cutting, but I would check it out.

Unless you need to print all the way to the edge (image bleed off the edge), you've already found that printing borderless changes the size - it expands the image to be certain that there is no border showing. I use Canon printers, and I can adjust the amount of expansion. There is also a setting that does no expansion. That way I can set up my images the same size as the paper stock, use borderless printing mode, and be pretty accurate in centering the printed image.

If your finished card is going to have white borders that are no smaller than the limitation of your printer when not printing borderless you need to create a smaller image than the paper stock. For instance, set photoshop to a page size of 4.75x6.75 to print on 5x7 paper and not use borderless mode.

The other thing I do is set the print preview on. I can then do some test prints (as Turbguy suggested) and adjust all margins before doing the final prints.

Lots of tricks to play to overcome the limitations or idiocyncracies of our printers and software!