Cheryl,
A quick thought….are you printing to actual 8×10 inch media or are you printing on 8.5×11 inch media? That could well explain the margins you are seeing.
Dick
There are also some printers that don’t center properly. A lot of HP users have to make manual adjustments, and there are some models of Epsons that require that, too. I don’t remember offhand about Canons. If you have one that’s "off", like me, it’ll require running through some sample pages with the margins set manually before you find out what changes need to be made.
Cheryl,
You just have to fake-out your printer, I do this often.
Your printer’s margins may be different from mine, but here is the drift…
Open your 8×10, go to Image>Resize>Canvas Size and add more blank white canvas to the left side of a landscape (like around .3"). In the dialog box, make sure to check the orientation box in right column, middle postition. This will make your printer think the image is larger and move the actual image data to be centered on the paper.
Nancy
Cheryl,
Are you also adding a dose of "Unsharp Mask" to your image before printing? It makes a huge difference in perceived sharpness of an image.
Cheryl,
Oh, and to get the exact amount you need to add of blank white canvas, without wasting expensive photo paper…
create a new doc of 8×10 at 300ppi. Fill it with white. Control/click the layer in the Layers Palette so the selection line surrounds it. Create a new blank layer on top in Palette. Go to Edit>Stroke, have your foreground color be black. Enter 1 or 2 pixels choosing "Inside" for placement. Delete the lower layer containing the white so you have only the layer with a thin black outline left. Now add the extra blank canvas. Put some regular, cheap paper in your printer and check out the placement of the black on the paper. Adjust the amount of extra canvas added to center if needed.
Nancy
Nancy,
What a great idea. Thanks for posting it.
Dick
Nancy,
I have an HP 990 deskjet and it always printed okay with Adobe PhotoShop Deluxe 4.0. I have never tried Unsharp Mask before, is it difficult to use?
I created a new file as an 8×10 at 300ppi filled with white per your instructions. Then I pulled up the layers palette. When I try to do Control/click on the layer shown in the Layers Palette, it brings up a circle with a line through it. I clicked on create a new layer and then went to edit, stroke. A message comes up that says could not stroke the layer because there is nothing to stroke. Also, when you say delete the lower layer, are you talking about the one that says background? Sorry I am asking so many questions. All this is new to me. It’s different than what I was used to in the deluxe 4.0.
Thanks for any advise,
Cheryl
Cheryl,
Yes, PSE is very different than Photodeluxe. PSE is deluxe on steriods! This program is 10 times that of deluxe. It has a learning curve for sure, but there is always help on this forum when you run into a question or snag.
Try this then:
* Always have your Layers Palette permanently visible on the right hand side of your screen. You will need to have access to it. Grab the tab for Layers Palette (near the top of screen) and pull it down so that it remains visible.
* Open a new doc, select the option to have it filled with white (choices are transparent, white or foreground color) The foreground/background colors are respresented in the two little boxes at the bottom of the Tool Box. They are completely selectable for colors. Can choose a color from the Swatches palette or use the eyedropper to sample a color. Default colors; black fore/white background
* Most images enter program with image showing as "Background" in the Layers Palette. It is just a name, but restricts some editing functions, so…just double click that layer in palette and accept the offer to rename it Layer 0.
* go to Select>All
* white box now selected with "marching ants" representing selection * with black as foreground color, go to Edit>Stroke and select for it to be placed on the "Inside" and choose about 4 pixels for size. (You can only add a stroke (an outline) if you have a selection active. You must tell the program what to outline.
NOTE: Now I am having you use only one layer. Only one layer will be showing in the Layers Palette. I have simplified the earlier directions. Understanding layers is a vital aspect of the program. Here is a link for gaining some understanding…
<
http://tinyurl.com/2z4qu>
Let us know if this worked out for you now.
Nancy
Cheryl,
I didn’t mention you are to create the same 8×10" at 300ppi. In the File>New box, choose the white fill.
Nancy,
I am slowly getting somewhere. I now can print the black square by going through those last steps you gave me. I am still having trouble getting that black square to be centered. When I go to Image>Resize>Canvas Size, the options to change are width, height, and relative. I tried changing width to .3 but that didn’t really do anything. I didn’t see a dialog box to check in right column middle position.
It’s probably something simple, at least I hope. Still don’t understand why 8×10’s printed easier than this Elements package. Thanks for any assistance you can give.
Thanks,
Cehryl
Cheryl,
Have white showing as the foreground color in the Toolbox. Just hit "D" on your keyboard and then (in the Toolbox) click on the double headed archy arrow, along side of the two color boxes showing at the bottom, now white will be the foreground color.
In Resize>Canvas Size…whatever the figure is (should be 10 in your case for landscape) change that figure to 10.3, but you need to experiment with exactly how much to add, try 10.3, print it out, you may need 10.4. The critical thing is, in that same little resize dialog box, where it says Anchor, the middle square is shown lighter. You need to add canvas to the left side of image so click the box just to the right of the middle whiter one.
See if this works now.
Nancy,
So far, this is what I have done. I opened a new file with width=8, height=10 at 300ppi and filled with white. I double clicked on the background layer and let it rename to layer 0. I selected all. Then I went to Edit, stroke and showed as 4 pixels inside. Next I went to Image, Resize,Canvas Size. The width and height were both shown as 0. I tried changing the width to 10.3 but it was way off. Then I changed it to .3 but it still didn’t help. So I changed the height to .3 but it didn’t work either. I clicked on the box to the middle of the white square and also tried clicking below the white square. Nothing seems to be working. When I print the 8×10 black square as portrait option and look at it the landscape way, the box is too far over to the left side. The right hand side has a bigger white space than the left.
Did I miss something in the above steps? Is there any other way to center the square?
Thanks,
Cheryl
I didn’t actually read Nancy’s suggestion for doing this, but I think it was a little different from the way I do mine. I do the "sample" 8 X 10 like Nancy suggested), but I make my adjustments on the Print Preview window. I deselect the centering option and manipulate the top and right? left? (I don’t remember which!) margin until I get the number that works. I usually start with a print that’s off center and measure how much adjustment has to be made and subtract that from whatever the default is when Elements does the centering. I’ve made samples of various sizes that I want to center and just keep the notes by my computer. I’m on my laptop now and can’t review, but I seem to think I have to make one margin a minus number in order to get it to center correctly from side to side.
Beth,
I went to print preview and deselected center image and changed the top measurement. The sqaure looked different on the preview screen than it did when printed. I finally got it pretty well centered by changing the top to show 0.44 and leaving the side as 0 for my 8×10.
Thanks for your help!
Cheryl
Nancy,
Thanks for your help also. I just never could get the image, resize, canvas to work.
I’m glad you got something close, Cheryl. It is frustrating having to do all of the fiddling around, but that seems to be a way of life for some of us. I think HPs are about the worst of the brands in terms of centering. Some people report problems with some Epson models, too, but that’s much less common. I don’t remember about Canons offhand. You’ll probably want to resort to doing what I did and make a few samples so you can get a list of adjustments that have to be made for various size canvases. There aren’t a lot of times when a big one has to be centered, but it happens just often enough to make it worthwhile in the long run.
Thanks, I will do that!
Cheryl
Cheryl,
The important thing is you accomplished your goal. There are always many ways to do things in this program. Interesting to me that my guess of you’re needing to add between .3 and .4 inches of canvas was very close to your .44 discovery. The two different methods would have produced the same results, because I was having you pretend to your printer that your image was larger than it was. Your printer began at the same point on the paper, but the "beginning" was just white, so it wouldn’t print anything there and when it got to the true image data it would start laying down ink further down the page than before the extra canvas was added. Therefore, it was as if the whole image was moved on the page when printed.
I can’t understand why your canvas resize dialog box read zeros for present dimensions, it should have read 8 and 10. Something very fishy there. But, you accomplished your goal with Beth’s method.
You are a great sport to keep plugging away until you got the result you sought, way ta go girl!!! Expressing your appreciation and thanks to those trying to help you is nice to hear, good manners!
Nancy
