Epson picturemate margin problems

I just got an Epson picturemate printer. The photos are great, but
with one small problem. The device is cropping off part of the image
on both sides of the long edge. I'm able to print the same picture on
another printer to exact 4x6 specs, so image size isn't the problem. I
tried photos from different sources and also tried printing from the
computer directly rather than just using the device with the memory
card plugged into it -- same results.

It's not just a little bit of the image either. For example, one
picture has flower petals touch both long edges. When it prints, the
petals are cut in half after the cropping.

Espson doesn't seem to have an answer. Has anyone else had this
problem with the PictureMate?

Todd Shryock wrote:
I just got an Epson picturemate printer. The photos are great, but
with one small problem. The device is cropping off part of the image
on both sides of the long edge. I'm able to print the same picture on
another printer to exact 4x6 specs, so image size isn't the problem. I
tried photos from different sources and also tried printing from the
computer directly rather than just using the device with the memory
card plugged into it -- same results.

It's not just a little bit of the image either. For example, one
picture has flower petals touch both long edges. When it prints, the
petals are cut in half after the cropping.

Espson doesn't seem to have an answer. Has anyone else had this
problem with the PictureMate?

I've been resizing mine (I print from laptop) to 5.85" long or so before
printing on the Picturemate, to minimize the cropping it does. Kind of a
pain when you buy a 'convenience' product of this sort.

Have you noticed any banding? I returned my first PM because of it, and
am grudgingly living with it on my second as it seems to be unavoidable.
I have to use 'enhanced detail' mode to get it down to an acceptable
level, which of course is much slower.

I have a clean nozzle check, and have aligned heads (though I can never
quite get the top group to be banding-free), to no avail.

If it didn't make the most cost-effective 4x6 prints, I'd have returned
the second one as well...

B.A.S.

P.S. I called Epson support, and they were no help at all (clueless,
actually).

I've been resizing mine (I print from laptop) to 5.85" long or so before
printing on the Picturemate, to minimize the cropping it does. Kind of a
pain when you buy a 'convenience' product of this sort.

A solution I hadn't thought of! I'll have to try it. We just use it
for our "casual" prints we take of family and around the house, so I
don't think it will be too much hassle to try to do this on a the few
shots that go to the edge of the frame. But it's something I shouldn't
have to do at all if the product was done right.

Have you noticed any banding? I returned my first PM because of it, and
am grudgingly living with it on my second as it seems to be unavoidable.
I have to use 'enhanced detail' mode to get it down to an acceptable
level, which of course is much slower.

No, I haven't had any problems with banding. The sample print looks
incredible. Even the prints from our older low-res digital camera look
pretty good.


P.S. I called Epson support, and they were no help at all (clueless,
actually).

I've been dealing with them via e-mail with the same result. It's you.
It's the image. It's your camera. It's the computer. I asked them if
the cropping were just a limitation of the device, since the first
question on the faq is "why are the margins wrong?" -- giving the
impression I'm not the only one that noticed this -- but they said my
problem was unusual.
When I finally said I think my product is defective then, and asked
what they could do for me, they stopped responding.

All these tech companies should just get rid of tech support. All they
do is make you angry. They should just put a note in the box that says
if it doesn't work to your expectations return it and don't even try
to fix it. All the money they save on tech support salaries could go
towards better R&D and we'd all save time on the run around.

From: (Todd Shryock)
Date: Tue, Jun 29, 2004 11:13 AM
Message-id:

I've been resizing mine (I print from laptop) to 5.85" long or so before
printing on the Picturemate, to minimize the cropping it does. Kind of a
pain when you buy a 'convenience' product of this sort.

A solution I hadn't thought of! I'll have to try it. We just use it
for our "casual" prints we take of family and around the house, so I
don't think it will be too much hassle to try to do this on a the few
shots that go to the edge of the frame. But it's something I shouldn't
have to do at all if the product was done right.

Have you noticed any banding? I returned my first PM because of it, and
am grudgingly living with it on my second as it seems to be unavoidable.
I have to use 'enhanced detail' mode to get it down to an acceptable
level, which of course is much slower.
BRBR
What good is reducing the length to 5.85"? That gets you a vertical size of
4.3875 (instead of 4.5") and you still have .3875 to be cropped off the
vertical side arbitrarily. That leaves a portion blank on the horizontal side
of the print of .15 and doesn't seem to accomplish much. I go into my Graphic
Converter program and it allows me to adjust to vertical bars set at 4" so that
I have the PM crop what I want off. It rarely happens IMHO that both the top
AND bottom of the picture are so close to the edge that you would have to
resort to your solution and in that case would a mere saving of .15" save the
picture in the vertical side? So, it would appear that even then you risk
losing an important part if it is too close to the edge.

What am I missing in the solution to your problem?