The Secrets of Professional Photo Printing_12

Today’s house photo printers can yield equally as good results as retail photo labs, and with far more control. Want to print matte or rag paper? Use greeting card paper stock? Insert text or captions for scrapbooking? All are simple when you do it all yourself. But getting the highest quality from your printer demands some understanding of resolution and dpi, paper and ink types, and colour correction. Here is what you want to learn to create pro-quality photo prints. 1. Use the finest quality camera settings in your camera Great prints begin with amazing images. Always place your camera to the maximum resolution (number of pixels) and quality (compression level) it could capture. Typically this will be set at a menu on the LCD screen, like that of the Canon camera under. High-resolution images take more room, also will reduce the number that can fit on a memory card, but the memory cards are so large and inexpensive that if you hope to run out of space before you get into a computer, it is ideal to just get another card. Resolution and quality settings to get a Canon camera (click to enlarge). Also get acquainted with the other picture settings on your camera, for example picture modes and white balance. To get more information, check out The Secrets of Professional Photo Printing CNET’s excellent manual to scene modes, and Darren Rowse’s white balance tutorial. With the right exposure, your pictures will glow off and from print. 2. Scan at the ideal resolution For printing pictures from old prints or negatives, it’s vital to use the right scanning configurations. Most scanners have an automatic mode, where you simply select”document” or”photo” as well as the scanner software figures out the rest. For more control, change to your scan program’s specialist or professional manner, so you can set the parameters directly. For example, when scanning a print which is going to be enlarged, scan at a higher resolution than normal to give enough detail. Ideally, you want to wind up (after editing and cropping) having a picture that matches the native resolution of your printer (usually 240 or 300 dpi). Adjust the scan resolution so. Scantips. Com includes a thorough tutorial. “Professional” scan configurations to get an Epson scanner (click to expand ). 3. Correct exposure and colour problems Now that you’ve got high quality source pictures, it is time to improve them. Mature scanned photos will typically have fading and colour balance issues which can often be adjusted with automatic instruments in your favorite photo editor, like the Tint tool in Roxio PhotoSuite (part of Creator 2010), or the Enhance tool in iPhoto