The Secrets of Professional Photo Printing_8

Today’s home photo printers may yield just as great results as retail photo labs, and with much more control. Wish to print on matte or rag paper? Use greeting card paper stock? Insert text or captions such as scrapbooking? All are easy once you do it all yourself. But getting the highest quality out of your printer requires some understanding of resolution and dpi, ink and paper forms, and colour correction. Here is what you will need to know to create pro-quality picture prints. 1. Use the finest quality camera settings on your camera Good prints start with wonderful images. Always place your camera to the maximum resolution (number of pixels) and quality (compression level) it can capture. Typically this will be put at a menu on the LCD screen, such as that of the Canon camera under. High-resolution pictures take more distance, also will decrease the number that could fit on a memory cardbut today’s memory cards are so big and inexpensive that in the event that you hope to run out of space before you access into a computer, it is best to simply buy an additional card. Resolution and quality configurations for a Canon camera (click to expand ). Also get acquainted with the other picture settings in your camera, such as scene modes and white balance. To learn more, The Secrets of Professional Photo Printing check out CNET’s excellent guide to scene modes, and Darren Rowse’s white balance tutorial. With the ideal exposure, your pictures will glow on-screen and in print. 2. Scan at the perfect resolution For printing images from old negatives or prints, it’s critical to use the appropriate scan settings. Most scanners have a automatic mode, in which you simply select”record” or”photograph” as well as the scanner program figures out the rest. For more control, change to your scan program’s specialist or skilled mode, which means you can set the parameters directly. For example, when scanning a print which is going to be enlarged, scan at a higher resolution than ordinary to provide enough detail. Ideally, you want to end up (after editing and editing ) having an image which matches the native resolution of the printer (usually 240 or 300 dpi). Adjust the scan resolution accordingly. Scantips. Com has a detailed tutorial. “Professional” scan configurations for an Epson scanner (click to enlarge). 3. Correct exposure and color problems Now that you’ve got high quality source graphics, it is time to improve them. Mature scanned photographs will generally have fading and colour balance issues which can often be corrected with automatic applications on your preferred photo editor, like the Tint instrument in Roxio PhotoSuite (a part of Creator 2010), or the Enhance tool in iPhoto