Epson 3800 and borderless 8x10

[jjlphoto]

Hi-

Is borderless 8x10 printing pretty much the best way to go if I need 8x10 borderless prints, , or should I use letter size paper and trim? IOW, is it as easy as it sounds, or are there any pitfalls?

[Ken Bennett]

Hi-

Is borderless 8x10 printing pretty much the best way to go if I need 8x10 borderless prints, , or should I use letter size paper and trim? IOW, is it as easy as it sounds, or are there any pitfalls?

Borderless printing works well on my 3800. The manual warns that some of the edges of the print may have problems, but I haven't seen any. In some cases making larger prints (11x17), they are not quite exactly straight in the feeder, and I'll get a diagonal white edge on two sides.

[madmanchan]

Should work fine.

Mainly it's the expansion that you may want to play around with. The driver expands the image slightly to minimize chances of misalignment so you don't get little white borders, though as noted above this can still happen occasionally on larger prints.

[jjlphoto]

Thanks!

[Ken Bennett]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about expansion. Definitely play with that -- there is a tab in the printer driver that lets you choose Min - Med - Max expansion. Max expansion can trim some of your photo (it disappears off the edge). I find Medium expansion to work well, and Minimum has been fine for many prints.

In my case the white edges problem is a feed issue, the paper is feeding very slightly crooked. Only happens once in a while.

[chilehead]

Borderless on 8x10 would certainly be easier than trimming, but I don't like the ink spraying off of the paper, as this can sometimes cause black streaks on the back side of future prints.  (A problem if you ever use double-sided paper and print on both sides.)   For that reason, I always trim.  

You could also try setting your print size for something like 8.2x10.2 and see how that works.

Mark