Does this sound familiar? You’ve taken a lot of beautiful digital photos, but you don’t know how to make quality printouts? If you’re sending the photos to a printing kiosk to be printed, then that’s well and good. But if you’re printing them yourself using a photo printer, it helps to know some tips and tricks. This article will show you some of the best practices in printing digital photos.

Tip 1: Good Pictures Give Good Prints

This tip is pretty obvious. If you’ve taken photo at a measly 1 megapixel resolution, you can’t expect to have a huge A4 quality printout. If you’ve taken the same photo at a 5 megapixel resolution, then yes, you can have that A4 print. As a rule, remember that you need at least a 2 megapixel resolution photo to have a decent 4x6 printout.
 

Tip 2: Remove Defects from the Image First

I always apply this tip before printing any image. Check the photo itself to ensure there are no specks or noise. If there are, use your favorite photo editor to remove them if possible. Of course, remember to save a backup copy of the image first. You can read up this guide on touching up photos if you need help.
 

Tip 3: Crop if Necessary

Another image editing tip – crop the picture you’re going to print if it makes sense to do so. Sometimes, I find that my subject is located in the middle of the photo and I don’t really want to print the surrounding environmental detail. That’s where you should crop away the area around the subject first, then proceed to print. This saves you a lot of ink too.
 

Tip 4: Select a Good Printer

This is very important. Only use a quality printer to do the job. At home, I use a nice little Canon Pixma iP4000 printer to print my pictures. You don’t need a super high-end machine to print, just go for a mid-range inkjet printer that’s suitable for home use.
 

The Canon Pixma iP4000 photo printer

Always try to find a printer with excellent print quality (Canon and HP models come to mind) and an intelligent ink system. In the Canon Pixma iP4000 printer, for example, there is a 5 color ink system with individually replacable ink tanks. If one color runs out, I just need to replace that one color, instead of throwing away the whole cartridge.
 

Tip 5: Select Good Photo Paper

Many people tend to forget that good photo prints also depend on the paper you use. As a rule, you should go for paper that is of the correct thickness, produces good color and has good resistance to fading.

If you will be handling your photos a lot, try to choose thicker paper. If you intend to place your photos in an album, then paper thickness isn’t too important – you can choose thinner photo paper.

Color brilliance is important too. Try buying some sheaves of photo paper and print out some colorful images on them to test them out. Buy them in bulk only if the color tests turn out good.

I also like to check resistance to fading. Again, buy some sheaves of photo paper for testing. Print out some pictures, then expose them to sunlight for a couple of days. If you notice any fading, then avoid that brand of paper in future.
 

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has made you realize there are some guidelines to producing good photo printouts. If you follow the tips above the next time you’re printing photos, I’m sure you will have printouts that you’ll be proud to share with friends and family.

Share Your Pictures at SmugMug

If you've tons of digital photos to share and but are not sure which photo sharing site to choose, then do take a look at SmugMug. I've been a happy user of their photo sharing service for two years now and I've been most impressed by it. The service allows you to upload, arrange and share your photos, as well as buy prints or burn picture CDs.

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