Printing digital photographs

Digital photography programs such as Adobe’s PhotoShop offer unlimited creative control in manipulating and printing digital photographs. Unfortunately many of the options available in viewing and printing digital photographs are neither intuitive or well understood by many users. Digital files provided by Emery Photography, Inc. are TIF format RGB files in the Adobe RGB 1998 Color Space. This provides the highest flexibility and most longevity in your use of the files. Photographs can typically be sized and printed "as is" straight from the digital file. Your personal tastes, as well as the minor vaiations of your  system and printer, may require small adjustments to color or density which are easily made.

There are numerous settings, both in the program such as PhotoShop, as well as the printer setup, that can improve, or hamper, the quality of the printed photograph. The most important starting point for high quality prints is to use a high-end photo quality printer such as Canon or Epson, along with the highest photo quality paper BY THE SAME MANUFACTURER. A combination of a particular printer, specific inks, and a certain paper produce a given color. Changing any of these three parameters can dramatically affect the final print. Printers are calibrated by the manufacturer assuming the use of their inks and their paper. Saving a little cash by purchasing whatever brand “photo quality” paper is on sale may cost significant time and money in trying to match colors that would print accurately on the manufacturer’s own paper. Large color shifts can occur when using one brand of paper with a different brand of printer. The very best way to eliminate this as a potential problem is to stick with the paper and ink recommended by the printer manufacturer.

Printers come with ICC profiles. These profiles are software that tell the printer how to properly print the colors using a particular set of inks and paper. For proper color printing the correct profile must be used for the specific printer/paper/ink combination. Usually the factory profile is adequate for all but the most advanced printing. For more accurate color rendition, the printer can be custom profiled. In this process a test print from your printer is scanned to record precisely how a known color is printed. The software then adjusts the color output of the printer through a custom ICC profile. The equipment for this process can cost several hundred dollars but CHROMiX will measure your test print and provide a profile for your specific printer for about $100.

As for papers, the most expensive photo quality papers from a particular manufacturer will generally provide the highest quality prints. High end glossy papers offer the cleanest white tones, the highest contrast, and the maximum luster for digital photographs. Epson papers, our studio favorite, uses a star rating of 3 through 5 – with 5 being the best - for photo papers. This makes it convenient to compare the many papers that Epson sells. Always use a #5 rated paper for the best quality photographs. Photo programs such as PhotoShop use color management to make certain the colors of the file are printed correctly. Printers also use color management. Unfortunately this sometimes leads to “double color management” which will cause a poor quality print. It is important that the user understand the proper color settings in the photo program as well as the printer.

Enlargements can be, and often are, printed by clients on plotters. Plotters are designed for graphic images – not photographs. While plotters can print photographs, neither the printer, or the paper, is optimized to do it well. Don’t be surprised if the quality of the image suffers. This is not a reflection on the digital file but rather on the poor output quality of a digital plotter.

For additional information on printing with Epson printers on a PC system, click here.
For additional information on printing with Epson printers on a Mac system, click here.