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So You Want to Make a Print For many people, printing at home with an inkjet printer is a quick way to make nice looking prints. To get the best results, you should follow some rules: Rule 1 - DON'T DOWNSIZE YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS FOR PRINTING (actually, this is the only rule). Unfortunately, some photo programs (i.e. Adobe Photoshop) actually encourage people to do just this. Here is the scenario:
Well, if you've read the other pages on this site you'll know that the photo program just resampled their image based on the DPI/PPI setting. The original camera photo had a DPI/PPI setting of 72. The program divided 2048 pixels by 72 pixels per inch and got 28 inches. This is a holdover from many years ago when these programs would set the DPI (printer dots per inch) of the output - this is no longer the case but these programs still hang onto this arcane methodology. So, Rule 1 (the only rule) - DON'T DOWNSIZE YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS FOR PRINTING. What to Do? The first thing I would recommend is to see if your printer came with photo printing software. If it did, then this is probably the best software to use for everyday printing. My current printer (3 years old) came with wonderful software that makes printing a breeze.Printing becomes a simple 3 step process, 1) choose the photo, 2) choose the output size and paper type and 3) decide if you want to crop (trim) the photo. The image on the right shows the cropping (trimming) screen (with the rule of thirds invoked). Note that this cropping doesn't affect the original photo - it just sets it up for printing. The cropping outline will always match the aspect ratio of your desired paper size (i.e. 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8.5 x 11). If you don't have this type of software you can buy software specifically designed for home printing. Examples of this would be Digital Domain's "Qimage" or Arcsoft's "PhotoPrint", both specifically designed to make photographic prints on a home inkjet printer. You can also use your existing photo software to make prints (with a bit of manual effort). I'll provide a couple of examples: Adobe Photoshop (Elements or CS)
A caveat here is that Irfanview is not the ideal program for printing. Use it as a last resort.
A general rule with current ink jet photo printers (i.e. HP, Epson, Canon) is that these printers work best (colour matching and photo longevity) by using the manufacturer's own inks on their own paper. So, when setting up your in-home print shop, first try your system using the manufacturer's inks (not cheaper 3rd party inks) on the manufacturer's best quality paper (i.e. a glossy or matte high quality photo paper). Use this to benchmark your system. After it has been set up you can fool around with 3rd party inks and paper if you wish. Don't test using plain paper since the colours on top quality photo paper will look dramatically different (much better). Colour (color) Management If you do a search on the Internet for Digital Photo Color Management you will find thousands of pages on the topic. I'm not going to get into it here other than a very brief synopsis of the topic. The issue is matching the colour of the photo on the screen to the colour you get on a paper print. Ideally, the colours you see on the screen are what you will see in the print. This will generally be the case if you are using a post-2001 or so computer and printer and you are shooting and maintaining your photos in sRBG colorspace. Most digital cameras by default shoot in sRGB. Your printer will recognize this and match its output to your sRGB display. Most consumer commercial systems (regular photo stores) also match their printed output to sRGB colorspace digital photos. If you're having a problem with colour, then do the Internet search described above and be prepared for a long and often confusing explanation of how to match screen colour to printed colour. The Quick Fix For many, the problem is not color but brightness, known in computer terms as Gamma. If your monitor is set too bright or too dark then your printer output will not match what you see on screen. This problem has been exacerbated in recent years with the advent of LCD monitors, where the viewing angle can affect the apparent brightness of the screen. The fix is to adjust the brightness of your monitor to match the brightness of your printer's output. A quick test to see if your monitor is in the ballpark is to see if you can see the message in filmstrip image below: ![]() Is this filmstrip black or can you see a message? If you see a message, your monitor is too bright. Turn down the brightness level until the filmstrip appears black. For more information follow the copyright link: Filmstrip image copyright: Timo Autiokari Accurate Image Manipulation for Desktop Publishing If you want a free program to quickly calibrate the gamma for your computer, have a look at QuickGamma. |
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