Conserving Sticker / Decal Paper

[cylonchaney]

A while back I was talking with @elhonez and maybe some others about the dilemma of really wanting to test / finish that custom when you don't have a lot of other stickers to print. I think as far as we got was managing a balance of not being wasteful and remembering that it doesn't cost all that much even if you waste a some.

Something occurred to me yesterday and I'm wondering if anyone has tried this. I use Inkscape for a lot of my sticker work. I'm going to setup a custom page size of 8.5" X 5.5" in Inkscape and my printer driver. Then I can take a standard sticker page and cut it in half. My software and printer should be prepared to print a half page and I will be able to print twice as often without being wasteful. Maybe even quarters would work.

Has anyone tried something like this?  Any other conservation ideas?

PS Now I wish I had access to one of those paper guillotines I remember from elementary school.

Edited October 27, 2023 by cylonchaney

[Padrino]

I actually purchased one of these a while back:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C72V1LB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

The torso template that Luke created (thanks, Luke!) can be set to print almost to scale on this little machine through the app. 

The prints can be a bit shiny but they are a lot easier to trim with much less waste than a full page of photo paper, especially if you're making one at a time. 

And, the paper it does use is adhesive. 

[elhonez]

That looks like a good solution, thanks for sharing this Padrino!

[cylonchaney]

This is just a test with plain paper. But it worked great. I setup a custom page size in Inkscape and a custom page size in my printer and I can now print a half sheet of stickers at a time. Awesome!

I always do a test run on plain paper and cut out a couple to test the fit.

The printer actually asked me to replace the tray with STMT sized paper. I think that's exactly half of an 8.5 X 11.

A5 is very close as well.

Some quick back of napkin math says consumables for Padrino's printer are 4 to 8 X what mine cost. Being a photo printer, I bet the prints are sharper though.

 

Edited October 28, 2023 by cylonchaney

[Padrino]

8 hours ago, elhonez said:

That looks like a good solution, thanks for sharing this Padrino!

You’re welcome!

[Padrino]

11 hours ago, cylonchaney said:

This is just a test with plain paper. But it worked great. I setup a custom page size in Inkscape and a custom page size in my printer and I can now print a half sheet of stickers at a time. Awesome!

I always do a test run on plain paper and cut out a couple to test the fit.

The printer actually asked me to replace the tray with STMT sized paper. I think that's exactly half of an 8.5 X 11.

A5 is very close as well.

Some quick back of napkin math says consumables for Padrino's printer are 4 to 8 X what mine cost. Being a photo printer, I bet the prints are sharper though.

 

the cost is definitely an issue but the prints are pretty sharp. I haven't found a consumer printer that prints quality photos in a while, at least not one that can also handle other jobs. most are office-based and the quality is iffy. I used to have a great printer that was also a great photo printer years ago but they stopped making ink for it. i guess the shift to social media has made at-home photo printing less of a priority. 

[hellpop]

On 10/27/2023 at 2:29 PM, Padrino said:

I actually purchased one of these a while back:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C72V1LB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

The torso template that Luke created (thanks, Luke!) can be set to print almost to scale on this little machine through the app. 

The prints can be a bit shiny but they are a lot easier to trim with much less waste than a full page of photo paper, especially if you're making one at a time. 

And, the paper it does use is adhesive. 

Oh that's a great idea. I'd love to hear more about it.

[Padrino]

3 hours ago, hellpop said:

Oh that's a great idea. I'd love to hear more about it.

It’s pretty straightforward. I use the torso template with the side “wings,” paste a torso tampo into that space and the color the wings to match, I upload it into the app. It’s already close or at scale. Then I print it, cut it out, and peel off the back. There is no ink and the photos are pretty sharp. If the tampo is muddled, then so is the photo. I use photoshop or one of the equivalent to make the torso pic. It’s usually resized Lego art, making them less trapezoid and more square. 

[cylonchaney]

34 minutes ago, Padrino said:

It’s pretty straightforward. I use the torso template with the side “wings,” paste a torso tampo into that space and the color the wings to match, I upload it into the app. It’s already close or at scale. Then I print it, cut it out, and peel off the back. There is no ink and the photos are pretty sharp. If the tampo is muddled, then so is the photo. I use photoshop or one of the equivalent to make the torso pic. It’s usually resized Lego art, making them less trapezoid and more square. 

Are you able to test run for sizing somehow, like on plain paper for example? 

Does the colour stick well? The vinyl sticker paper I'm using now seems somewhat easy to scrape the printed colour off. Not too bad. But I'm expecting another win for your printer on this one.

What's the best price you can find for the sticker paper? I only took a quick look when I compared.

When my laser printer dies, it would be nice to replace with something smaller.

[Padrino]

I did some trial and error but basically cut the torso section from the template and pasted it using MS paint (yes, that MS paint).

I haven’t had a real issue with scraping and the pics have folded pretty will without obvious pealing, creasing or breaking. 

I bought a bundle with 2 extra paper packs during the holidays. So I have a few extra packs and haven’t had to buy a new pack yet. 

[Padrino]

So i just checked a few of my older customs.  After a while, there was some creasing.  If you just print the front of the torso and no wrap around, there shoul be no issue 

[cylonchaney]

Nothing's perfect. LOL

It might be that my latest pack of vinyl sticker paper is not holding toner very well. My printer is complaining that it's out of toner so maybe it's just that. I'm still on the one that came with the printer years ago so it's had a good run. I bet a new toner cartridge is going to be close to the cost of your whole setup.

Hmm.

On the other hand, I'm still on the factory toner and have had the printer for years. I really got good mileage out of it.

[elhonez]

I ran into an unexpected printing question/issue, but I am hoping I don't need to do a lot of work to fix it.

• I'm using Gimp. In the image file I just test-printed (on normal paper), everything seemed to be a small % smaller than "actual" size. 
• The image file includes Luke's parts template. Which is equally downsized, even though it was imported at full res.
• The image file also includes some old decals I made, which I know at one time were the right size
• The file/canvas are all set to 8.5 x 11" paper, so it should be working

Anyone know what might be causing the inadvertent downsizing? Is there a setting I should check? 

[cylonchaney]

My printer dialog has an option I can drill down to somewhere that says ignore page margins.

I'd also look in Gimp under Image/Print size.

I'm no expert though. Good luck.

[elhonez]

Thanks! I tried "ignore page margins" but I'm still getting the same final size. I may need to resort to math to scale up the layers by a fixed%. 

Anyone else using Gimp who's run into this issue?

[elhonez]

I'm thinking there's something wrong with the image resolution, but not the image size. 

Does anyone know at which default resolution Luke's template should be set? If I knew that, I could probably reverse-engineer the change I need to make to get my decals back to the right size.

[cylonchaney]

It took some more fiddling around but I got my workflow setup for quarter page decal printing.  I can cut my pages down the middle both ways and make four. This means I can print more often and waste less sticker paper. I don't really want to show the project I'm working on yet so the pic below was almost pointless.  Nevertheless ...

What ended up happening  before is that I would want to finish a custom but only need a couple of stickers. I would fill the sheet with something, but it was never filled with unique stuff. This will effectively quadruple the value I get from a package of sticker paper.

It really just came down to setting up a custom paper size in my software and in my printer and messing around a bit.

PS I think I might invest in a paper cutter. Does anyone have any general advice about these products? I would probably just grab something cheap from a craft store. I'm referring to a simple physical device that will allow measuring and cutting straight lines. Not like those vinyl cutting machines or whatever.

 

Edited November 12, 2023 by cylonchaney

[thereasonsy]

I have always wanted to get into the decal game and maybe is is the kick in the butt I needed. Thanks team.

[luke314pi]

On 11/7/2023 at 2:55 PM, elhonez said:

I'm thinking there's something wrong with the image resolution, but not the image size. 

Does anyone know at which default resolution Luke's template should be set? If I knew that, I could probably reverse-engineer the change I need to make to get my decals back to the right size.

It is set at 300dpi. I wish I could help with the Gimp, but I don't use it. 

[elhonez]

Thanks Luke, that helps! I'm going to give it another shot tonight. 

[cylonchaney]

Regarding my back of napkin look at consumable cost, I realized today that Padrino's printer appears to not require any toner or ink. The coloring agents are in the paper/film/sticker if I understand correctly.

This probably means a good shelf life for consumables and less cost difference per page than I thought.

[Padrino]

19 hours ago, cylonchaney said:

Regarding my back of napkin look at consumable cost, I realized today that Padrino's printer appears to not require any toner or ink. The coloring agents are in the paper/film/sticker if I understand correctly.

This probably means a good shelf life for consumables and less cost difference per page than I thought.

that is correct. there is no ink.

[elhonez]

On 11/14/2023 at 7:50 AM, luke314pi said:

It is set at 300dpi. I wish I could help with the Gimp, but I don't use it. 

I got it sorted out -- thanks to everyone who chimed in on this one. It takes a village.

Turns out it was extreme user error -- I had pushed the margins of 8.5 x 11 so much that even disregarding the borders during printing wasn't enough, so I ended up reshuffling the layout of the decals on the page.

[cylonchaney]

I'm using a low end office grade colour laser printer for my sticker work that I picked up for fairly cheap.

I just discovered the other day while googling about a different problem, that my printer has a web interface for some of the settings and that one of those settings is the default dpi which is 600 out of the box but can be set to 1200. So I logged in and made the change.

But once again, I have no stickers that I need to print. I'm just dying to see if it makes any difference. I don't know much about graphics and printers. I'm hoping to see some improvement next time though.

Anyway, just thought I'd share this idea. If you're trying to output the best stickers possible, it might be an idea to research your hardware and see if there are any performance settings you can tweak. I'll update when I finally have something to print again. Fingers crossed. The anticipation is killing me.