...if you’ve been trying to print multiple images on a single page - this handy little tool will be right up your alley.About a year ago, Epson introduced a neat little plugin called Epson Print Layout. If you’ve been slogging through Lightroom or Photoshop to print your images – especially if you’ve been trying to print multiple images on a single page - this handy little tool will be right up your alley. Print Layout is not meant to replace the functionality of a full-blown RIP, but it’s a start towards being able to drag and drop tile, and set multiple images on a page before sending it to the printer. It also provides easy templates for panoramic, gallery-wrapped, and portrait images. I played around with it a little (on my shiny new Epson SCP6000SE) over the weekend, and it does have some limitations. Full disclaimer: for many years I printed exclusively through Imageprint RIP, so I am used to the intuitive drag and drop functionality. As far as I could tell: Epson Print Layout offers no ruler guides, so you can scale your images and adjust the spacing, but you can’t measure the scale. There also doesn’t seem to be an option to add crop marks, which would- again- have been helpful especially when scaling on the fly. The “scale to fit” box is NOT automatically checked, yet the software seems to default to a “margin” setting instead of an “image” size setting, which resulted in a few wasted prints due to the final print being the incorrect size. It looks like I am not the only one to run into this problem, and it’s the only serious drawback I see to what otherwise is a neat little program. What it does have is the ability to set your own templates, super-simplified color management with pre-loaded Epson ICC profiles, drag and drop layout functionality (no crop marks, really?!) and an easier and more intuitive ICC profile system than Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Epson Print layout is available as an Adobe Photoshop plug-in option or standalone application for both Mac and Windows OS. Download the Epson Print Layout tool here.
Here are a few videos that explain the Epson Print Layout feature in real-time use.
Note: this video does show ruler guides, but the version I downloaded this past weekend did not have this feature. If you have any questions or want to learn more about Inkjet printers and supplies, call an inkjet specialist at 214-342-9290 or email inkjet@imagingspectrum.com
