Print server for Selphy?

[littlemike]

I used a little Selphy 720 dye-sublimation printer at an event last night. Cute

little printer, very nice color quality. I had it hardwired to my 20D. It's a

little slow - takes a minute or two to print a 4 x 6 inch print. That wouldn't

be a problem except that the camera couldn't be used until the printer spit out

the print. Folks were asking, "What's the holdup?" and I had to shuck and jive

while the printer finished.

 

So, is there some print server that can be used with this PictBridge printer so

the camera can be used sooner?

[Ed_Ingold]

Download the images to a computer or laptop and print them from there. It may not be much faster, but you can use the camera (obviously) and/or computer for other things while you're waiting.

 

I've never heard of anyone printing directly from their camera. You learn something new every day.

[studor13]

I have this printer and it has built-in card readers. Was there a reason you didn't try this option? Perhaps you only have one card for your camera.

[john_wilson10]

Have at least two cards. Take some pictures. Use DPOF on your 20D (look it up in your manual) to select the images for printing, take the card out of the 20D and throw it in the Selphy, put the Selphy in DPOF mode (again, check manual, I have a slightly different Selphy so I don't know if my instructions would work for you), and the printer will be printing away happily, while you slam your other card in your camera and start snapping away. Wash, rinse, repeat. If you have your 20D set so it does continuous numbering, at the end of the night copy both cards to the same location and all your shots will be in one place in the right order.

 

An advantage to this method, since your photos are "zippered" as they are spread over two cards (a few early shots, then a few later shots, then a few even later shots, etc, on both cards) is if a card malfunctions, you still have at least some photos from all parts of the evening.

 

The only downside to this method is you need an assistant to monitor the printer to make sure that someone removes the pics off of the output tray every 9 prints or so. Also, you lose the benefits of shooting raw, unless you're doing raw+JPEG. Once I discovered how great shooting raw is I started leaving my selphy home when I went to parties.

[littlemike]

Hey John -- thank you very much for the detailed step-by-step! It sounds like a very workable plan.