Setting margins in the Print Module of Lightroom

[Michael Seltzer]

Hello LR Users,

I'm having a problem getting consistent margins when printing in LR. Clearly there 's something I don't understand about how LR works, and am hoping someone can enlighten me (or enlightroom me).

What I am trying to do is print greeting cards, 2-up on 8.5x11" paper. I want the margins to be balanced after the cards are cut and folded--that is equal top/bottom, and equal left/right. I am using Mac OS X Tiger (10.4.11), LR 1.3 and an Epson R2400.

In Page Setup, I choose US Letter Borderless, because there seem to be minimum (and often unequal) margins if I don't choose Borderless. Then I set the Left margin at 4.5" and the other margins at 0.25", and set the page to have 2 Rows and 1 Column with a Vertical Cell Spacing of 0.5". I checked Auto-Rotate to Fit, but am not zooming to fill the frame, and am hoping the each image will maximize in its cell, centered in the dimension that doesn't fill the cell.

When I print, the margins are not equal--even when I am printing an image that fills the frame (I created one to test the layout). I've had to fiddle with the margins, coming up with odd numbers, to get the print-out to look correct. Even so, it doesn't always work, and some images come out with unbalanced margins. Any idea what I'm missing?

Thanks,
Michael

 

[John_Nevill]

Mike,

I've had similar issues with LR using borderless printing on a HPB9180. For some reason LR works out the print dimensions and then the printer seems to override them. I was printing A4 & A3 borderless and was getting overcropped images. I decided to switch off borderless in the printer.

I had quick play in LR trying to do what you want and settled on adjusting top, right and botom margins (6mm) evenly using the 2-up template as starting point. I also made sure the actual image ratio reflected the print area and checked zoom to fill frame (this helped with consistent margins) and auto-rotate to fit. I also set the vertical cell spacing to 2x the margin width (12mm).

What I ended up with was a consistent 6mm margin all round including foldline and one cut between the two images. This seemed to be repeatable across all pages.

 

[Michael Seltzer]

John,

Thank you for your help. Not using borderless seems to have cleared up most of the problem.

I have another question. I want to print a copyright, and maybe some image-specific information, on the back of the card (which is just the other side of the 8.5x11 sheet). Do you know of a way to do this in LR at the same time I print the card? Right now, I print with two passes: one printing a tiff file with my copyright info I made in PS (probably could be jpeg), and a second, spinning the sheet 180 degrees, to print the images. I do not currently print out any image information, such as what this is a picture of or where it was taken. I know some people like to have that info, but making individual tiff files with such info and a copyright for each image is a bit much, it seems to me. That info could be stored in the Caption field in the metadata for the print, but I don't know how to get LR to print that info (and a copyright) in the right place on the card.

Anyway, I was just wondering what you do.

Thanks again,
Michael