02/19/04 - Many instructors have started asking students to print on the wide format color printer lately, but with little info about optimizing the files to speed up the process and reduce errors. I have a list of hints that will help your job get to the printer faster, and help speed up the actual printing process.

1. Flatten your image. If your image has layers in Photoshop, flatten them. This is particularly true of text layers in Photoshop for Windows (you can end up with no text in your printed image). This reduces the file size, and nearly eliminates the possibility of a postscript error.

2. In Photoshop, in the Print with Preview dialog, in the "Show More Options" area, set the pull down menu to "Output", and change the encoding to "JPEG".

This will drastically speed up your print, as it sends compressed data to the printer, without actually compressing the image, keeping the same level of quality.

3. If sending from Illustrator, make sure that the fonts used in your file are actually installed on the computer. On the Macs, check the /Library/Fonts folder. If it is not in there, but you still see the correct font on the screen, select your text and convert it to Outlines (TEXT> Create Outlines). This changes the text object to a vector shape (warning, you will be unable to edit the text once it is changed to outlines, so you will need to save right before making this change, and revert to the saved document if you need to edit the text).

Hopefully, these tips will help you setup your file to print as efficiently as possible to the Epson ColorWide. Once your job is released from the print server, it will be sent to the printer to process. After it finishes the processing stage, it will begin to print the image. This could take a little over a minute an inch, so please plan accordingly.

I hope this has helped!

J-

Jennifer Nieland is the lab coordinator for the College of the Design student computer labs.