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Manual/Quick Start Guide (7.00)
The EasyShare All-in-One printer quick setup guide is made of tougher paper stock than most printer quick start guides, but the design and function is the same—simple, easy to follow instructions and graphics.
No printed manual comes with the 5300 printer, earning Kodak points for saving trees but not for easy use. The Kodak AIO Home Center is designed to guide you through all the tasks, and the adjoining Help menu serves as the main user guide/manual, with choices for Getting Started (simple beginning tasks) and more advanced printing topics.
Out of the box (8.00)
The Kodak EasyShare 5300 comes with a power supply, adapter cord, black and color ink cartridges, setup guide, installation CD with drivers and EasyShare software, and two packs of sample paper—10 sheets of 4x6-inch Kodak Ultra Premium Photo Paper and 10 sheets of Premium Bright White document paper.
Setup (5.00)
Preparing the EasyShare 5300 for printing was an easy, if not quick process. The task of unpacking, removing tape, and installing ink cartridges and paper was a no-brainer. The printer had to do some work on its own with calibration, which took 3 to 4 minutes. This involved printing out a calibration page on 4 x 6-inch photo paper, which the printer does automatically when the paper is loaded. The page then needs to be placed on the scanner glass for the printer to scan and calibrate itself.
Software installation, for either Macintosh or Windows computers from a single CD, can be performed as an easy or custom option. The easy option installs all the programs onto the user’s hard drive. (See the Software section below for a full list.) Users can select the custom option to select which programs to include. Total time for setup was approximately twenty minutes.
Drivers and Administration(6.00)
The Kodak AIO Home Center is the main interface for the Kodak EasyShare all-in-one photo printer series. From here, users can choose to print using the EasyShare software, scan and copy pictures or documents, make changes to the print and scan settings, access a Resource page that gives tips on printing and project ideas, and follow a link to the online store to purchase supplies such as ink, paper, and memory cards.
The AIO Home Center is not the most intuitive of programs. Many settings are automatic so it’s really a program for the general consumer unconcerned with too much control over their imaging.
The Print Configure option brings up a three-tabbed window. The first tab, General, provides a few basic settings such as standby time, language, and duplexer ink drying time, which adjusts the paper feeding to slow or quicken drying time so two-sided prints don’t get smudged.
The Print tab allows users to set the print quality for documents (Draft, Normal, and Best), but not for photos. Photo quality is automatically set as "Kodak Picture Quality." When using Kodak paper, the printer automatically senses the type of paper and adjusts the print settings automatically. It would be nice to have the option to adjust settings yourself, even if the Kodak Picture Quality was the default.
Other settings include layout and print quantity. This is also where users can select or deselect the scene balance control to prints. Scene balance is, in Kodak’s words, "the ability to adjust the color and density of digital images for brighter color and truer flesh tones." The difference between prints with this setting on and off showed negligible difference.
Copy and scan settings are accessed through the driver as well as the on-unit menu. Detailed information about settings can be found in the Copy and Scan sections.
Within Easy Share and other programs, the Document Properties can be accessed to change many of the same print options as in the configure window. A notable addition is the Advanced tab, which allows users to set the color space to either sRGB or Adobe RGB.
Software (6.00)
Kodak bundles a lot of extras in with its software and drivers. The Kodak AIO Home Center serves as the main portal to all the drivers and software, including scan, copy, easy print, and help utilities. Also included are utilities for creating greeting cards (baby, holiday, Halloween, Invitations, kids, moving, and Valentine’s Day).
Kodak Easy Share software is the main image organization program. Users can organize, print, and e-mail their images from here; they can also order prints online. The My Collection tab brings images into the software-created My Albums folder or others of their own selection. Dragging an image from here into the print tray on the right side of the window sets that image aside for printing.
The Print window provides basic print options. Users can also link to the driver via the printer setup button for more setting options. Unlike the scene balance setting, Kodak’s Perfect Touch Technology—enabled via a checkbox in the Print at Home tab—did produce noticeable results. Shadow areas were lightened while leaving skin tones and highlights mostly untouched. This resulted in a print with few blacks to speak of, making for an overall washed out look. Color seemed unaltered. This setting is probably best utilized on high-contrast images or prints with heavy shadows.
The E-mail prints button brings up a window giving the user options to either continue to open their e-mail program to send an image or to set up an account on kodakgallery.com where they can upload images to share.
Creative Projects brings users to kodakgallery.com once again to create cards and special occasion projects. The EasyShare Center opens an in-program browser to get product support, downloads, and connect to the kodakgallery.com.
The Scan program within the AIO Home Center provides both basic and advanced modes. The only selections allowable in the Basic mode are the type of image being scanned. Resolution is set at 300 for all image types. The advanced mode provides settings for image type, resolution, sharpening, and checkboxes for color restoration, red eye reduction, and Kodak Perfect Touch Technology. Users can select to preview their image or scan it directly. The Copy function is nearly identical to the Scan program, with additional options for paper and print size.
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