Gone are the days when you had to hold down a button and wind a tiny crank to roll up your film. The digital age has begun and having to get film developed is a thing of the past. But even though it's easier to take pictures, you still have to go through the complicated process of waiting in line at a drugstore's photo kiosk with your memory card to get them printed, or do you? Maybe it's time to look into printing from home.
The main benefit of printing your digital pictures at home is its simplicity. Many of even the cheapest digital photo printers allow you to connect your camera or plug in your memory card and print directly. With photo editing tools built into the menus of new cameras, a computer is usually not even necessary!
Consider it as an investment. Sure the initial cost of a printer may run you a couple hundred bucks, but ultimately it's going to pay off because the cost per photo is drastically cheaper than what you might pay in a store. Sure there's ink you need to buy, but even with the cost of ink and paper, it still ends up being cheaper.
The newest photo printers are able to rival the quality of even the best prints you can get in a store, so this really adds to the reasons of why you should purchase a printer. Depending on the paper you use and the ink you buy, prints can last a very long time, too. Imagine no more having to drive or wait in lines. Photo printers allow you to print without having to wait to pick up your pictures later on. Actually printing of prints is fast, too.
Okay, so now that you're convinced in that you need to buy a printer instead of going to a store, how do you go about choosing which printer to get? One of the biggest things you should consider is the size of the prints you're going to want. Some printers only print 4x6, some let you print as large as 8x10 or even 11x14! There's no point in spending on what you don't need, so be sure to think about what you're buying.
The next thing you'll want to look into is the quality. This is usually measured in DPI (dots per inch). Also a part of the quality is the type of printing the printer does. Dye-sublimation printers use a completely different technique than actual ink or toner. Be sure to research and weigh the options of what you really want.
The last thing you should look for are the printer's features. Are you going to need borderless printing? Double-sided printing? Some printers are easier to use than others, so one of the best things to do is check out the printers in the store. Most places let you print a test page so you can see the quality and speed of each printer. Do a little research and figure out how much ink is going to cost, too. Some printers are cheap, but overprice their ink, while other printers are expensive but their ink is cheap. It's almost always better to just make an investment.
Printing photos at home is convenient. There is no wait time you can just push the print button and in a few seconds you have your photo ready. There are disadvantages of course to home photo printing. One is cost ? if you do not print many photos purchasing a high quality photo printing is an expense that is hard to justify. The other disadvantage is quality most low end home photo printers can not compete with professional printing services that use high end color printers.
Lately however the price of high quality photo printers has dropped and today for a price of less than $500 you can own a very good high quality photo printer like the Canon PIXMA Pro 9000. Many home photo printers are locked at a specific photo size most likely a 4X6 printer. If you need bigger photo prints you must send your digital photos to a professional service. The Canon PIXMA Pro 9000 on the other hand can go all the way up to 13? X 19?.
One of the challenges of color photo printing is color tuning. Photo printing services spend a lot of time and money on color tuning their printers. The Canon PIXMA uses a unique 8 color ink system that together with special color tuning software from Canon makes printing photos in the right color palette easy. The printing heads use Canon's FINE technology for high precision printing accomplishing very high resolutions of up to 4800 X 2400 dpi.
Another important parameter in photo printing quality is paper choice. Paper quality can vary and so does its price. Some photo printers only support one type of paper, usually a special photo printing expensive paper. The Canon PIXMA supports a wide variety of papers, from very think to very thick 1.2mm papers, from regular printing paper to high end photo paper thinckness of up to 1.2mm, matte as well as glossy.
Matte or glossy? That is another question to tackle. Which one to use really depends on how you are going to use the photo prints. A general rule is to use glossy photo prints for color prints and matte photo prints for black and white ones. Matte is better for photos that will be touched a lot and held by many people.
Although Canon tried to make photo printing easy it can still be confusing to the amateur or occasional photographer. If you are taking photos for fun and just need to print a batch every now and then it is probably easier and cheaper to just send them to an online photo printing service like Snapfish or Shutterfly. If you are a semi-professional or a professional photographer the Canon is a good option to quickly print photos, create samples for your customers and more. The cost of photo printing does not end with buying the camera. Expensive ink and paper can make each print cost in the cents and more.
Both Johnny Smallhat & Ronnie Hammond are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Johnny Smallhat has sinced written about articles on various topics from Wine and Spirits, Holidays and Photography. Johnny Smallhat. Johnny Smallhat's top article generates over 12100 views. to your Favourites.