The PrinterMy wife acquired a color laser printer for her home office, but I have laid claim to it for printing signs and decals for my track. Hopefully she will not lay claim to the track. This marriage thing is bizarre, but I am glad she keeps me.
The Test
In this test eight pages of signs for the new tracks at Fastlane Hobbies were printed off. The signs were logos of companies that have supported racing in the past or of places I like to visit for lunch (Skyline and Goldstar). They were downloaded from a place called the Best Brands of the World. Best Brands has a massive array of logos in EPS (encapsulated postscript) format, which is is a infinitely scalable graphic format. If you blow them up they look better and better as you make them larger. They also give excellent result when scaled down which is what I did.
The only problem with this format is that not all software supports it. I have copies of both Microsoft Word XP and Word Perfect 12. Both programs imported and printed these files beautifully. Not everyone has these programs and there is a paucity of PD programs that will read or convert EPS files to other formats. A second problem is that Best Brands does not supply a high resolution bitmap file for download. If you see a file you want then email me the name and I will make you a JPG and email it back. I went surfing and found that Word Perfect 12 sells for as little as $12.95.
The signs were printed on the full sheet label paper for lasers which means that after they are attached to a wall or a sign, they have to be covered with clear tape or film to survive the ravages of cars hitting them.
Print Quality
The printer does not have as high of DPI as some inkjets, but I think that the print quality is fabulous.
Logo Sources
Do you have to use EPS files? No, but they are my file format of choice and Best Brands of the World is the only place you will want to go.
If you use bit map files then get the highest resolution file you can find and load it into your word processor, scale them down in the word processor and print them. The best place for a logo is to go to a companies site and wander through it.
Printing
Why use a Word processor and not a graphics program. I am not sure of the technical reasons for my answer, but I know that better results are achieved when I use Microsoft Word and so I use Word. Word has a built in ruler that allows you to get an idea of the size of the graphic when printed. Don't scale them down before importing them into word, but afterwards.
Ink & Paper Costs
It appears as though a page packed with logos costs about $4 a page to print.
Conclusion
Here is what I am going to do in the future, print a master copy and take it to Kinkos as they charge less than a $1 a page for a color copy. Sorry, but I am a tightwad. I will do a report later on this as well. My last experience with Kinkos was bad as they refused to do a composite picture I did on the computer because they wanted a release from the copyright holder. I told them I made the picture and they basically called me a liar.