Printing Photo Booth Strips

[jemtan990]

I am building a Photo Booth for my wedding and I have everything finished except the printing part. I want to be able to print out strips, preferably 2.5" x 7" (a 5x7 cut in half), but I can't seem to find any resources on how to do this. In fact, anything I've been able to find on the subject has insisted that it is impossible.

I refuse to accept that. I have an HP Photosmart 7760 that appears to have all of the necessary hardware to get the job done, but if I try to use 2.5x7 as a custom size, it complains that the tray can't accommodate that size.

Please tell me there is something I can do to make this work.

 

[l_d_allan]

I'm fuzzy on what you are trying to accomplish ...

I'm not familiar with HP, but with the Canon inkjet printers, there is definitely a minimum size for width the printer will allow. I think this is for the rollers that accomplish paper handling through the printer.

What software are you using to make prints? Photoshop? LightRoom?

I've got LightRoom 4.4, and found its printing capabilities much better than PS.

Can you use 8.5" x 11" letter size paper, and work with it cut into strips of 3.67" x 8.5" (cur into thirds) or 2.75" x 11" (fourths)?

In the USA, I've found letter size paper to be the most economical "commodity" paper, and typically not that much more than 5x7" or even 4x6" paper. I often make 5.5" x 8.5" prints, which is a half sheet of letter size prints.

LightRoom works well for this, and I have a paper cutter to separate the pairs. You could set up a LR template to have 4 rows for a letter size sheet in portrait mode.

Something I've done is take boxes of paper to OfficeMax or Staples and have them use a commercial quality "guillotine" paper cutter to resize letter size to what I want. IIRC, it was about 75¢ per cut.

You could perhaps do this with your 5x7" with a pair of pictures on them, and cut to separate into strips.

Or not?

 

[jemtan990]

I've made a Photo Booth application in Flash that automatically sends a strip to the printer. What I want to happen is for the strip to print out right away so that the people in the booth can have it immediately. My plan was to precut the 5x7s in half, and load those in the printer. I checked the rollers on the HP and it appears that they are capable of catching the size of paper, but in the documentation it does say that the minimum size is like 2.8" or something like that.

I was hoping there was someway I could bypass the error and force the printer to take it anyway. I'm willing to do pretty much anything to this printer to make it work - Software or Hardware.

 

[l_d_allan]

I'm still fuzzy on what you are trying to do. Does it involve taking a portrait of one or more people, and making a print ASAP? If so, why not use 4"x6" paper? That is a standard size.

 

[jemtan990]

There will be a small booth that a couple of people will walk into. The booth has a computer screen and one big button. When they press the button, the computer takes 4 photos of the people, then puts them onto a strip image. I want the strip to print out right away. I could do a 4x6, but then it wouldn't be a "photo strip," it would just be a regular photo.

Sorry I'm not being very clear, I'm not an articulate person apparently orally or in written form. I really appreciate your patience and your trying to help me.

 

[l_d_allan]

Oh, I suppose that would be like something at the carnival back in "the old days" where you'd take a series of photos. I think it involved a Polaroid camera and film, with results in a minute or so.

Do you enough flexibility to control the print output so it results in 4 images on a 5x7" sheet (each 2.5x3.5")? Or 4 images on an 8.5x11" letter size print (each 4.25 x 5.5")?

 

[jemtan990]

I could do a 4x6 or a 5x7, but I'm hoping to find a way to do something more like a "strip" than just a collage of photos.

 

[jonjack56]

When you press the button, the computer takes 4 photos of the people, then puts them into a strip image. I could do a 4x6, but then it wouldn't be a "photo strip," it would just be a regular photo.