Inkjet printing?

[c_k17]

<p>Hi I started printing some pictures with my printer at home. The thing is that I use a Brother printer with HP photo paper, and when I choose the best settings for the type of paper to print, the output isn't quite right.</p>

<p>I did a test print with regular copy paper at its regular settings and it seems to get the the colors about right, the quality is bad, but the colors are right. Now its the opposite with the photo paper and its specific settings, good quality but there are some color shifts.</p>

<p>For example the color gray, on the regular sheet it looks well, gray, and on the photo paper it looks gray with a hint of blueish green. side by side comparisons and they differ, Does anyone know what's going on?</p>

<p>I tried printing on the photo paper with the regular paper setting, and while colors look darker but about right, the only color that is printed properly is black in quality. All other colors are printed with a series of horizontal lines, like when you try to print as draft quality, though its not setup as draft quality to print. Its annoying. haha.</p>

<p>To make a long story short, is there any hope?, or should I go back to my lab? .. maybe change paper type? The lab does quite the job most of the time, but the results vary, while I was thinking of a more "controlled" situation with my printer, it seems to be giving me a headache.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for your advice.</p>

[jim_momary]

<p>I've observed in the past, that over the years (and technology has changed of course) between the Epson, HP and Canon printers I had used, they always seemed to work best with their own paper stock. They do a decent job of matching ink to paper, which as you see in the photo papers seems to be important.</p>

<p>There are a whole range of professional papers that seem to work well on various machine tpes. A lot has to do with creating a 'profile' that gives you the look you want for paper 'X' and then sticking with that. Others will have more to say on this.</p>

<p>For me, a lot has to do with availability. Near me, most places don't carry Canon paper (what I want), so I've resorted to mail order. Other factors come into play such as cost, 'look' and archivability. My needs are for 'nice looking' and affordable prints for family, mostly. Pretty simple concern for me.</p>

<p>Jim</p>

[acbeddoe]

<p>As Jim said, the paper/printer match is important. I struggled with getting good prints and found that monitor calibration and printer profiles are at least half of the solution. Decent printing has gotten easier in the last few years, but it's still a little complicated.<br>

I suggest you check the Digital Darkroom forum, your printer web site, and do some Googling on print profiles.</p>

[paddler4]

<p>Digital printing can be very complicated, unfortunately. Having struggled with this for awhile when I switched to digital, I think that two of the steps above are essential. First, you have to calibrate your monitor. Otherwise, it is a roll of the dice whether any printer will match what you see. For example, lots of monitors are too blue out of the box. There are free software tools for doing this, but I found them hard to use. I finally bought an x-rite eye one. I found that one of my monitors was pretty close because the video card had an sRGB setting, but the other monitor I used was way off.</p>

<p>The second thing is that you really do have to either (1) match the paper to the printer, or (2) load the ICC color profiles for the papers you use. For small prints, I use a relatively inexpensive Canon multi-function, the MP970, with the paper that Canon recommends for that printer, and I have never had to fuss with ICCs. The color rendition is good.</p>

<p>Finally, you have to make sure that the color management options for the software and printer are set right. Many times, this means turning it off at the printer and on in the software.</p>

<p>The alternative, if you want to avoid all this, is to use a good commercial printer. I recently decided that for prints larger than 8*10, that is what I am going to do.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Regular "copy" paper for "Xerox/toner" machines is often 20Lb paper and not coated. The "weight basis" of the sheeting is 17x22" for this class of paper. This means the nominal weight of 500 sheets 17x22" paper is 20 Lbs in actual weight on a scale. A wrapped wad of 500 sheets of 8.5x11 20 Lb paper weighs thus 20/4= 5 Lbs.</p>

<p>Copy paper costs about 25 dollars for 5000 sheets for cheap stuff; that is 1/2 cent a sheet.</p>

<p> 8.5x11 inkjet photo runs from 15 cents to over a dollar a sheet for fine fart canvas stuff</p>

<p>What printer, saw, drill and camera makers want is you only us their brands of stuff. Thus you use Canon paper in Canon printers; you only use Nikon Lenses on Nikon.</p>

<p>Trying to print a full dark photo image on 1/2 cent copy paper is possible; it is like painting on bath towel. The dark areas soak up the ink one looses the shadows; the print can take a day to dry. Coated papers allow the paper to accept ink and not have the dark areas lost in a sea of dark,</p>

<p>If you use the wrong combo of inkjet ink and inkjet paper; the print can be tack for days or weeks.</p>

 

[danny_low]

<p>While you can get decent prints from just about any inkjet printer, the best quality prints come from printers that are optimized for photos. However it looks like you are not willing to spring for a new photo optimized printer. The basic steps for getting good prints with what you have are:</p>

<p>1. Calibrate your monitor. If the monitor is not showing you the true colors of the photo, there is no way you can get the true colors on the print. The best way is buy a colorimeter such as the Spyder3. The free way is to look on the web for calibration pages that let you manually calibrate the monitor by eye. It is not as accurate but may be good enough for your purposes.</p>

<p>2. If it exists, find and use a color profile for your printer. You can use a profile that that your printer driver accepts or you can use a profile that your photo editing program accepts. Use one or the other but not both. If you cannot find a profile, you can still print but what you see will be what you get and you may not like the result.</p>

<p>3. Use the right paper. Printer makers usually have recommended photo papers. Third party photo paper makers lists the printers they have tested and know will make good prints. Otherwise you have to do it the old fashion way. Buy a sample package of paper. Many paper makers and specialty paper stores will have a bundle of various papers. Print a photo on each page of the samples and select whatever looks best as your photo paper.</p>

<p>4. Check http://www.wilhelm-research.com/ for any archival information on the printer/paper combination you use. Photo prints on inkjet will fade. (Actually photo prints on almost everything will fade as well.) The period before the fading becomes noticeable can be only a few years to hundreds of years. You think you can always re-print a photo until a flood or other disaster destroys your home and computer. Then the only copies of your family photo may be the prints that you grabbed during the evacuation. If those fade in a few years then you have no photos to pass down to your children. The longevity of a print may be the most important characteristic of a simple family photo. It is probably the best reason to invest in a photo printer instead of using any inkjet. The printer maker, paper maker and people such Wilhelm Research try to provide longevity information for the prints.</p>

<p>Danny</p>