We all love taking digital photos and sharing them with family and friends. With more and more of us printing our pictures at home, how do we successfully achieve that ‘photo lab quality look?
Follow these 5 simple tips and you re on your way to creating crisp, vibrant, long lasting digital prints every time with your home photo printer.
1. Choosing the right photo paper
True of false? Digital prints don t last as long as traditional prints. False! Using the right paper is key to your success. Printing onto plain copier paper will just make your prints look dull and faded.
By using a good quality photo paper specifically designed to produce high quality, true to life colour images you ll get equally good or better results than traditional lab developed photographs.
2. So which type of photo paper should I use?
There is a wide variety available for every type of print or project, ranging in thickness and finish. Choose from your ink jet printer s own brand of photo paper or a good quality, alternative brand at competitive prices. It s good to shop around.
The type and texture of the paper used has direct relation to how well prints look. If you treasure photos, use photo paper and ink that help ensure prints last long, are light and water resistant. Some premium papers resist fading for 25, 50 or more years and have the look and feel of traditional photographs.
Ink jet paper characteristics:
Paper weight
This refers to the thickness of paper. Generally bond or office copier paper is the most common weight used by consumers, averaging around 80gsm, whilst paper used to print photos is usually thicker, ranging between 150gsm and 215gsm.
Paper brightness
All ink jet papers come in a range of levels of brightness, known as whiteness. Brightness is rated on a scale of 1 to over 100, with the higher the number, the whiter the paper. For example: Brighter and whiter means better, more vivid colour prints.
Check the brightness rating of paper
Many manufacturers may claim their paper is bright or use a similar term on the packaging. So before buying your photo paper, check its number rating. For top quality printing, get paper with a brightness rating of 95 and above.
3. What inkjet photo finish should I use?
There s a variety of photo paper finishes available, ranging from extremely glossy to matte. Glossy produces deep, vibrant colours while matte offers rich textures and resists fingerprints. High quality inkjet paper is coated and results in sharper images, displaying brighter colour and more detail. Gradients are smoother and are very important for printing quality photos and other half tone images.
Inkjet photo paper comes in three finishes with variations on each. The basics are:
Glossy high shine with the look and feel of traditional glossy photo lab paper.
Semi gloss satin lustre and a slight bumpy surface. Less shine than glossy.
Matte dull surface with no glare or sheen. Often used when prints are displayed under glass.
4. Choose the right paper size
Photo papers come in a variety of sizes. The most popular size used to achieve photo lab quality, is 4 x 6 paper. A perfect fit for most photo albums.
Print spectacular panoramic photos, such as a tropical sunset, using 4 x 12 paper. When you re making studio quality enlargements of family or pets, 13 x 19 is ideal. And try 11 x 17 paper for calendars and posters.
Some printer models have software, which helps you quickly and easily print common sizes or even select a custom size.
Photo paper comes packaged and pre cut in the most popular sizes, and can be purchased online and in office supply stores
5. Choosing your ink
Ink jet printers offer the most cost effective colour photo printing solution. Most printer manufacturers will recommend their own branded ink cartridges. Significant investment in developing and testing their inks and papers will have taken place to ensure they produce finer colour gradations, richer colour saturation and better colour solids. However, with the soaring costs of branded cartridges, more and more people are turning to quality alternative compatibles. There are many alternatives on the market, making your budget stretch that bit longer, without compromising the quality and reliability of consumers requirements.
Author Resource:
Printer Wizard is one of the fastest growing online suppliers of inkjet cartridges and toner cartridges to both home users and businesses in the UK. Printer Wizard also supplies a range of printers, faxes and copiers.
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