Digital Camera Photo Printing - Photo Printing Digital Prints

Most people who own a computer possess a printer that goes along with it, and this printer is most likely capable of Digital Camera Photo Printing.

Each major printer manufacturer also makes their own paper and ink cartridges. For the majority of printing jobs you can normally use any variety of paper and ink. However, when it comes to Photo Printing Digital Prints and getting the most accurate colour reproduction, it is best to use the same brand name of paper and ink as your printer. Each brand of paper is formulated to give optimal results for a specific type of ink and printer. Using equivalent or recycled ink cartridges and incorrect type of paper may not give you the best results in respect of colours and quality.

When choosing paper for Digital Photo Printing, you may be tempted to select special archival paper which is purported to prevent photographs from fading for 20 years or longer. This paper is quite costly and at the end of the day, why would you want to print out a photograph to last for that length of time. You still have the original on your computer which you can print out however many times you want to and digital files certainly do not fade with age!

Having said that, your choice of printer paper is still an important consideration when printing photographs. If you are using an ink-jet printer, then you need to use specialised photographic paper that is designed for that printer. Photographic printer paper is available in a variety of finishes from glossy to matt . This type of paper is substantially more costly than regular printing paper, so it is advisable to minimise any waste. Things like storing the paper as per the manufacturers instructions and using your editing software to lay the photos out on one sheet prior to printing will save you paper and money.

The ink cartridges used in printers are also quite expensive so to avoid wasting the ink, ensure that your printer is setup correctly for the type of image you are printing. For instance, if you are printing a picture which has a resolution of 300 dpi (dots per inch), it would be a waste of ink to use the high or best quality settings as there would not be any noticeable difference in the quality of the prints as long as you are printing at or above 300 dpi

How can you tell if your picture is 300 dpi? This can be calculated by dividing the dimensions of your image (in pixels) by 300 . For example, if your image is 3000 pixels wide by 2100 pixels high, the maximum size the printout can be (at 300 dpi) is 10" x 7". You can print pictures larger than this (down to about 200 dpi), but in this case you want to select the 'best' printer setting to achieve a good printout.

Digital Photo Printers

Rather than using your regular ink-jet printer to print photographs there are a number of dedicated photo printers available which utilise a different printing technology to produce high quality prints. A slight drawback to using a dedicated photo printer is that they are normally limited to a maximum print size of 4" x 6" but to their advantage, they are small, portable and do not require a computer to work..

Dedicated photo printers use a technology called thermal dye printing. Dye is transferred from a ribbon to the plastic coating of the paper in a layering fashion where each individual colour is printed as a separate layer. There is also a finishing surface coating which protects the photograph from deteriorating with age.

These printers very are easy to operate with some models having basic picture editing facilities. They can also print direct from the digital camera or from it's memory card.