PRINTING AND PRINTERS

There are now many places online to have your photos printed, such as Shutterfly.com, mpix.com, EZ Print, Printroom etc. WalMart, KMart and Walgreens also print photos from digital images. These reprints may actually be cheaper than printing them yourself when you consider photo paper and ink costs, and they don’t smear when wet. But it is rewarding to print your own photos when you need them and whatever size you want even if cropped to an odd size to enhance the compositon.

The printers available on the market today produce beautiful digital camera prints that closely resemble lab photographs. Although printing at home can be time-consuming, especially if you’re printing a lot of photos, there are many instances when you will want to make your own prints. It’s important to evaluate the cost of the different brands of ink and paper when deciding which printer to buy and how often to use it. Sometimes it pays in the long run to get a more expensive printer if the ink is cheaper. See link below for atlex.com. Amazon.com, Sam's Club online also sells ink as well at their stores.

There are generally 2 types of photo printers:

Inkjet printers – By far the most popular way to print photos from your home PC is the inkjet printer. High-quality inkjet printers, in combination with the right photo paper and inks, can give you beautiful prints. There is also a wide variety of specialty inks and papers available that will allow the creative digital photographer to create everything from custom greeting cards to works of art. Some of these printers can now accept memory cards, allowing you to make prints without a computer.

Inkjet photo printers:

Dye sublimation printers – Special “dye-sub” printers are specifically designed for printing your digital photos at home. These printers use special ribbons and heat-sensitive paper to produce photo-like prints. These usually print on paper that comes in standard photo sizes (4-by-6 inches, 5-by-7 inches, etc.). These printers can be very small, are fast and are quiet.

Dye-sub Photo Printers:

Tips for making great prints

1. Keep your camera set at the highest possible resolution and lowest compression settings.

2. Avoid using Digital Zoom – while digital zoom may get you closer to your subject, it often produces an image that is distorted and fuzzy.

3. Edit your images with a photo editor as to tone (lightness/darkness), color saturation, cropping, and sharpening. Then size the picture and print from the editing software or special printing software such as Qimage Pro or other program.

4. Be sure the dpi (resolution) of your image file is correct. All inkjet printers today are optimized for an image at 180-300 dpi at the printed size. The printer resolution is how the dots of ink are laid down on the paper by the printer and has nothing to do with the dpi of the actual image file. Image dpi higher or lower than 180-300 dpi will produce worse images from the printer. A high dpi for printer resolution can help make the image more photo-realistic to a degree, but this also depends on the pattern of how the inkjet puts the ink down.

5. You must use photo paper. There are many choices available now, from glossy to matte to watercolor and canvas surfaces, but the paper must be white enough and coated properly for inkjet inks. Use the same brand as your printer or order specialty papers from online suppliers. inkjetgoodies.com and itsupplies.com sell paper.

6. Set the driver carefully. When you go to print, check on the printer’s properties. You must choose the proper image quality (usually “Best” or "Photo") and the right paper. You may have to experiment with a couple of sheets of paper to get the right setting if your particular paper isn’t listed.

7. Practice. You get better as you make a print, evaluate it, make adjustments and try again.

8. Don't use cheap inks! Use the same brand ink and paper as your printer or buy a good aftermarket ink online such as Media Street or other good quality ink from inkjetgoodies.com.

Printing Direct

Many of today’s home printers let you print directly from your camera or your camera’s media card but that takes most of the fun out of digital photography and gives you little or no control over how the picture looks, if it needs cropping or lightening or darkening, etc. This is a feature I would only recommend if you don’t have a computer, or if your computer is busy or if you don’t have time to transfer pictures to your computer. Some cameras will let you select how many prints to make. Some printers have an LCD screen on them, so you can choose which pictures to print, and add borders, text and more. These printers come in two varieties:

Direct slot printers – These printers have slots for inserting your digital media cards, then choosing which prints you want to have made.

Direct camera printers – These printers connect to cameras either through a cable or by placing the camera directly on the printer. Some of them will charge your camera’s battery at the same time.

Recommended Photo Printers:

You might ask what are the differences between all-purpose and photo printers. Here are some quick answers. Photo printers generally have more ink colors (6 - 8) for truer color reproduction. They have very small droplets of ink for smoother prints. The latest and more expensive models are pretty fast at printing photos and moderately fast on text but cheaper models are slower. If you have a business and need fast text printing, then you might do better with an all-purpose printer, which normally have only 4 colors, black, cyan, magenta and yellow or the Canon iP5200. Another feature that many new photo printers have is separate ink tanks for each color. Thus you buy only the one you need at the moment, instead of replacing the color cartridge if only one runs out.

Epson and Canon generally make the best inkjet photo printers. Epson's latest models have a different print engine and different ink type than our old 1270, and the ink is more durable. I think the lastest models compare favorably to Canon. Read printer reviews at Steve's Digicams and other places and decide for yourself which model is best for you. Both companies also make wide carriage models that take up to 13 x 19 photo paper. Long-life ink is good to have if you plan to sell photos or give them as gifts.

My Advice: you can pay extra to get a printer that you can insert your memory card into and do direct printing without a computer, but I recommend you use that $$ toward a good photo editor and edit your photos first as they will look much better after a little tweaking than printed straight from the camera! You can edit your photos and print them directly from the editing program. Elements offers a picture package whereby you can print several of the same picture on one page.

Buy genuine brands of manufacturer's ink and paper

Find your ink and paper here:

Buy greeting card stock (and envelopes) Red River Paper

IT Supplies and atlex.com sell PremierArt Print Shield spray to spray inkjet prints to make them last longer.

You can often get better prices for photo printers online than at local stores, and no sales tax. Do a search at dealtime.com, pricegrabber.com, and check buy.com and amazon.com. Check for rebates on various models. Amazon and buy.com usually offer free shipping.