Printing Your Photos and Images at Home
Printing your photos on your home inkjet printer is not as difficult as you might think. Try printing them on glossy 8.5 x 11 inkjet photo paper (from Staples, Office Depot, Walmart…) and see for yourself. You will likely be pleasantly surprised and will open up a slew of new ways to design with and display your photos. The two photos shown above are 8.5×11 and displayed in a Backlit Photo Print Display Lamp sold in the DoDesignDIY.com Store.
—Try it with whatever inkjet printer you now have. I have obtained consistently good results printing photos using Epson inkjet printers costing less than $100. The main secrets are to use the slowest and highest quality setting on your printer, good quality inkjet photo paper (I recommend Glossy), and high-resolution photos. More on this below.
—For home use, the new Canon Pixma series of inkjets have gained an excellent reputation. Laser printers can also be used as long as the image quality is acceptable to you. You need LASER printer photo paper for this.
—Obtain images from your digital camera. High-resolution (Superfine, Highest Quality) images provide clearer 8×10 or 8.5×11 prints. The chart at our website from Flickr.com indicates the minimum dimensions of the photo in pixels; the more pixels, the better. Your photo editing software (see below) can show you the image size, in pixels. You can also download many stunning high-resolution photos from photo sharing sites such as Flickr.com.
—Other prints can be obtained by scanning hardcopy materials at a resolution of 150-300 pixels per inch (300 if the original image is under 8×10 and you will be printing 8.5×11 inches). See the following points.
—Open and resize the image using your photo software: Corel, Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Image, etc. Remember that your digital camera, scanner, and MS Office probably included image-editing software. Photoshop Elements is one of the best for general use. Google (verb) ‘Free Image Editing (Mac/PC) Software’ to find and download some surprisingly good ones.
—In the resizing window, set the resolution pixels per inch (ppi) at 150 or 300ppi (300 is best). Then set the actual picture size (in inches) to 8×10.5 inches (or less).
—Before you start printing the first time, check your printer utility to make sure you have at least a quarter cartridge each of the inks, and do a printer utility test print to ensure that the print heads are well aligned and the ink nozzles are not clogged.
—For best results with inkjet prints, use standard glossy inkjet photo paper available at many retailers. Staples’ house brand works well. Be sure not to accidentally purchase laser printer photo paper.
—Before printing, be sure to click Center on Page in File/Page Setup and/or on your print menu.
—Consider first printing a lower resolution (100 ppi) Grayscale image on plain paper to make sure the orientation and size is correct. You can set this on your printer menu.
—Then print on gloss photo paper in your printers finest photo mode. Insert paper only one sheet at a time— they tend to stick together. Printing may be slow, but the results are well worth it. Let each print dry unstacked for a few minutes.
I will be happy to expand this article and answer your more specific questions on the subject. Email your questions to me at mh@DoDesignDIY.com
Tags: design, photos, printing