General Tips & Tricks

Topic:

Save printing costs by doing proof prints first!

Tip:

Before printing out your layouts on expensive card stock, scrapbooking paper, or t-shirt transfers, you may want to consider doing a proof print. The first kind of proof print to use is a simple black & white print on plain, inexpensive paper. This is less expensive that printing in color and gives something you can check to make sure everything is positioned properly and prints on the page where you want it to. If you're doing cards, it also lets you check to make sure everything comes up right when the paper is folded!

Many printers will also let you change their settings between high quality, normal, and economy (or draft) modes. An "economy" mode is great for doing quick proof prints. The printer will typically use less ink and print much faster.

If you're printing color on expensive stock, you might actually want to consider doing 2 stages of proof prints. The first stage is an economy mode black & white print. When everything looks good, you then do a color print either in normal or high quality mode. Then, once you're sure everything is perfect, roll out the expensive stock and do your final print!Save printing costs by doing proof prints first!

Scrapbookers!

Proofs are also a great help when you are going to be cutting out images to use on scrapbook pages. You can print out a proof sheet and do a rough trim of the images. Position them on your layout and make sure everything is the right size before doing your final print!