Reimundo Garcia Jr.

Every photographer has certain preferences when taking photos. For instance, I prefer not to use flash in my photos. The same types of preferences apply to printing.

High resolution printing from your computer is very tricky. You have to consider the quality of your image, the type of printer you have, the type of inks you use, and the type of paper.

The quality of your image is the best indicator as to how great your print will be. The image must be good resolution — at least 150 dpi (dots per inch) or more — at the size you are trying to print. Most books and classes recommend to never print below 300 dpi. Some photo websites do not even let you print your images unless your uploaded photos are 300 dpi.

In my opinion, after several hundred high quality prints of my work, I can safely say that you may not need 300 dpi for certain applications. For instance, I took Electric Travel (shown at left), a 4 megapixel image, and blew it up to 20×30 using EL-CO Color Labs, based in NJ. I have also taken a couple of a 6 megapixel images, and printed them at 20×30 (after upsampling) using a rented large scale Epson printer. Printing such small images at these sizes is frowned upon by many websites and photographers. However, the results were stunning and my clients were very satisfied. Remember, at larger sizes, the print may not be intended to be viewed at close distances and can easily be enjoyed from a few feet away. Unless the image is very detailed, you can print it quite large without sacrificing visual clarity.

There are dozens of printer manufacturers and thousands of models. Many of these printers are fine for most applications (Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, simple business cards, etc.). There are some printers from each manufacturer that can do a great job of printing your photography well. What I have found is that most professional photographers use Epson printers for their work if they are printing the work themselves. Of course, there are many photographers who prefer Canon and Hewlett Packard printers, as well as other manufacturers. However, I love the quality of a print I get using an Epson 2200. It is an older model that is no longer sold although, during its time, it was quite a popular model.

Once you choose your printer, you need to choose the best inks. Ink is the most expensive part of your printing process. The easiest thing to do is get the inks that are made by your printer manufacturer. These are very compatible with your printer and will cause less headaches (except for your wallet). You can also buy 3rd party ink cartridges and bulk ink systems. As you can imagine, 3rd party ink is cheaper but can have side effects such as abnormal colors. Bulk ink (from Costco or BJ’s) is also a less expensive way to print, but these are also manufactured by 3rd parties. Although that makes these systems much cheaper, they also require a bit more work to install and may require frequent cleaning of the print heads to avoid clogging during printing. I decided to keep it simple and use Epson inks on my Epson printer. I want to have results that are reproducible again and again and am willing to spend a bit more to get the results I need.

The next decision is paper. There are two main classes of paper to consider, matte and glossy. There are various types of each and there are pluses and minuses to using them. Matte paper is a more subtle paper that has no gloss. It requires special ink, in most printers, and can produce a deeper print for most work. Glossy papers are what is used when you order prints from most online photo stores. These come in high gloss to low gloss options. (Note: some online photo stores offer a matte paper. It is really more of a dull gloss than the kind of matte paper I am talking about.) Overall, what paper to use depends on what the purpose of the print is. For prints that you intend on framing, I highly recommend using matte paper. For most other applications, I recommend using glossy paper instead.

In future posts on this topic, I will also talk about paper profiles, color management, and, most importantly, monitor calibration.