Digital photography has replaced traditional film for all non-professional photographers; all the photos we take with the digital camera, smartphone and tablet can be viewed and transferred directly to the PC, without having to take them to the photographer. One of the most common problems with digital photography concerns the creation of hard copies of photos : if before it was enough to bring the roll to be developed by the photographer, now we tend to keep them on the computer, without making the traditional copy on paper.
The attempt to print a digital photo usually results in grainy images on ink-soaked paper (with relative waste).
To get a good result and print photos worthy of the name, in this guide we will show you what to do to print digital photos at home, using a normal printer .
How to print digital photos on photo paper
The printing process for photographs is slightly different from the process with which we print paper documents or Excel or PowerPoint graphics: a much higher quantity of ink is required and, to avoid wasting it, we advise you to carefully follow the suggested suggestions below, so as to obtain paper photos of a quality comparable to that of a professional photographic studio.Resolution of the starting photos
One of the most important things is the resolution of the starting digital photos, which must be as large as possible.
The higher the number of pixels per centimeter of image, the sharper it will appear. Unfortunately, computer monitors don't provide a good preview of what the printed photo will look like. The resolution a monitor can display is actually quite small compared to the resolution that a printer can handle. Most of the photographs downloaded from the internet are low resolution, with 100 pixels per inch (PPI).
You can increase the resolution up to about 300 PPI on the photo you want to print with programs like GIMP even if you reduce the physical size of the image. For example, a 640 × 480 photo at 72 PPI will be 23 cm (8.9 ") wide and 17 cm (6.7") high; the same photo at 300 PPI will be 2.1 "inches wide (5.33 cm) and 1.6" tall (4cm) small.
From this discussion it is clear that it is better to print only high resolution images, as long as you want a decent result. To get a good result with any type of shot, make sure to print only the photos taken with 8 MegaPixel sensors or higher, so that they can be displayed on standard paper photographs without too many artifacts or defects.
To print a photo as big as a picture, we obviously have to increase the resolution a lot: usually it is better to print in these large formats only the photos of 10 MegaPixel or later, since the artifacts will be inevitable.
Most of the digital cameras on the market, even those integrated in mobile phones, are able to photograph at 10 Megapixels and beyond, so we don't have to worry too much about the quality (even if from sensor to sensor it changes a lot in terms of color rendering and artifacts).
In these cases it is always advisable to focus on a microSD with plenty of space to use for photos; one of the models that we would recommend for any modern smartphone is Samsung EVO Plus 64 GB microSDXC card, UHS-I U3 100MB / s (15 €).
Choice of paper to print on
Obviously we do not have to print a photo on plain A4 paper from documents or office, since we will only throw ink and the final result will be unprofessional; for best results we must use photographic paper, such as the one visible here -> Epson Glossy Photographic Paper, 127 x178 mm, 50 Sheets (8 €).
This type of paper is completely similar to that provided by photographers: the paper is glossy, so as to ensure brilliance to the image, and does not appear porous, therefore it does not absorb ink deforming like normal paper. Each type of photo paper is fine, the only thing to check is the maximum thickness of the paper that the printer is able to manage.
Update the printer drivers
Adjusting the printer settings is a fundamental step. First of all you have to go on the internet and look for the updated driver for your printer, by going to the manufacturer's website (Epson, Canon, HP etc.) and typing the name of the printer or its serial number.The model number of the printer can also be obtained from Windows 10, by pressing the right mouse button at the bottom left of the Start menu, pressing on Device Manager and expanding the Printers section.
If we want to quickly retrieve the drivers for your printer, we recommend you use the sites listed below:
- EPSON
- Canon
- HP
- Brother
- Xerox
- Samsung
Cleaning and aligning cartridges
Before proceeding with the printing of photos and, in general, also of documents, the alignment operations and cleaning of the cartridges must be carried out . They are both wizards and you just need to follow the instructions on the printer screen or from the management tool installed on your computer to perform these activities.
It is not convenient to clean the cartridges too often because a lot of ink is wasted with these operations. If we print very often we advise you to focus on XL cartridges for black and colors, so that you can print more photos; in this regard, we can continue reading our guide Buy compatible printer cartridges online .
Adjust print settings
The default settings of a printer are oriented to print speed and ink saving; however, these settings are often not good for printing photos. To prepare the printer for high-quality photos, press the Start menu at the bottom left, open the Settings app, go to the Devices menu and, in the Printers and scanners section, click on the name of the printer and then on Manage -> Printing preferences .
Among the various preset profiles we will find the one dedicated to printing photos, to be chosen in order to significantly improve the print quality at the expense of speed (do not expect photos to print quickly, given the great job the device has to do).
Obviously, if an additional program has been provided with the printer to be installed on the computer, you can use that to find an optimal configuration.
Conclusions
These simple tips will allow you to print photos at home with a really high quality: we do not reach the levels of a professional studio, but for everyday photos or to fill squares or frames, our faithful printer can behave very well if placed in the ideal conditions for printing paper photographs.We don't know which color printer to buy for photos "> Photo printer to print color photos: which one to buy.
If instead we are looking for extremely fast printers, we can continue reading in our article What are the Fastest Printers .
In another article, smartphone printers to print instant photos (like Polarioid)
