Printing pictures at home

[iceman (Mike)]

Does anyone else print digital camera pics at home?

What sort of printer/paper do you use and are you happy with the results?

My wife does scrapbooking, so I print pictures from our digital camera for her to use with her scrapbooking.. I'm generally happy with the results, especially for my old 5mp camera and a $250 printer.

I've got the Epson Stylus CX3100 MFP (printer,scanner,photocopier). I make sure i don't scrimp on paper though - good quality paper is worth it as the results are definitely better.

I use Kodak Premium Ultra Glossy or Premium Satin, the 230gsm stuff. It's about $1/sheet but it's worth it.

The printer can do borderless printing, and I've printed a full A4 page (right to edge) of one of my apostles shots, and it turns out surprisingly well.

Does anyone have a link to a page that says how big a print you can get given a certain sized megapixel camera? or, how many pixels wide/high the image has to be for a given photo size?

Thanks

[33South (Chris)]

I agree the premium ultra glossy paper gives best result, from memory I use 230gsm Fuji, havent bought any for a while.

This link explains image and print sizing pretty well, along with links to other stuff. http://www.vividlight.com/articles/3116.htm

Chris

[ving (David)]

i use the same photo paper as you mike

[ving (David)]

oh and my 2.1mp will give me an ok 8x10

[Striker (Tony)]

Mike...definetly use high quality paper as you are doing...The only other option that makes a huge amount of difference is your printer settings.

Some dont realise you need to match the paper to your properties under printing settings to get good quality prints...they tend to leave it at normal printing with standard paper...I'm sure you fully aware of these settings by now if you already have done some nice prints.

I use the Epson Photo R310...best printer I have ever had...but with 6 ink cartriges at $20 each....ouch

[fringe_dweller]

Epson photo paper for me - mrs and I also like the epson double sided matte paper (used mostly for making cards at home) its noice its different, its unusual..
some techie mates were horrified that we bought an epson stylus photo rx630 scanner/printer/copier multifunction thingy a while ago - apparently multifunctions (especially those with fax) are notorious??? for having problems
but it has been fine so far?
I would think a 5mp camera shot taken at max quality wouldnt print past A4 at full res print quality normally

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Leisa is a scrapbooking maniac, I'll try and convince her to register and post an answer :-)

Bird

[33South (Chris)]

Originally Posted by 33South

I agree the premium ultra glossy paper gives best result, from memory I use 230gsm Fuji, havent bought any for a while.

The FujiFilm paper is actually called Premium Plus Photo Paper and its 235gsm.
I preferred the results to those on Kodak, maybe its a printer thing, mines a Canon i865. Great printer.

[Jonathan]

Hi Mike,
If your after really good quality prints send them off to www.fujicolor.com.au, they use Fuji Crystal Archive paper, which is arguably the best going around. The colours they print are very accurate and won't fade anytime soon. They're pretty cheap too, especially for enlargements. Otherwise, BigW are OK (bit cheaper for 6x4's), but the Fuji paper is meant to be a bit better so that's who I use for anything bigger than 6x4. I don't bother printing anything at home.

The standard for printing is 300 x 300 DPI, but it all depends on how fussy you want to be, you can go a fair bit bigger without loosing too much quality.

[iceman (Mike)]

That's a nice link Chris, thanks.

Jonathan, for big blowups i'll send it off to a photolab but the convenience of printing at home for the normal 6x4 size, plus to preview what the shots look like in print, is definitely a plus.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

[silvinator]

Hi Mike. I have a canon pixma 5000 at home. I recently printed my floriade pictures (taken with the D50) with excellent results. I print on canon photo paper plus glossy, 270gsm. I have tried most of the kodak photo paper and I agree with 33south - I find that I don't get the best results with it. The pictures just seem lifeless. It must be a canon thing. Or perhaps it may be my printer settings but I have tried different settings to no avail.

I buy my photo paper on ebay or from this online store. They have a wide range of epson paper you might like to try at a good price. I'm only suggesting this as I did read somewhere (probably in the canon printer manual! :p) that it's best to use the same photo paper from the same manufacturer as the printer as they would optimise the paper to print well on all their printers.

[ving (David)]

been thinking bout getting our paper on ebay... how much cheaper is it?

oh and welcome back silvie

[silvinator]

Hey David I'm not sure about other brands of printing paper but for canon it definitely beats paying retail. I've paid from as little as 29c per sheet to as much as 40c per sheet (this calculation is based on total price paid, including shipping price), compared to 50c to 60c per sheet retail.

[ving (David)]

thanks silvie, i'll have to check it out!