Photos on a printer
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| mdl Aug 15, 2007 5:51 AM EDT |
I use GIMP for all my post-processing needs. GIMP may not be Photoshop, but it meets my needs very well. When I finish cropping, adjusting levels, sharpening, etc., I upload them to a photo printing site and order them. A few days later they arrive in my mailbox. The disadvantages of using your own printer are cost, convenience and quality. 1. Cost: The supplies (paper and ink) will cost a lot more than what you will pay online or even locally. 2. Convenience: Yes, it is somewhat convenient to be able to print your own photo and have it right away. However, photo printing is a slow process and one that you will quickly tire of, especially if you have large quantities. 3. Quality: It depends. Some photo enthusiasts spend a lot of money on high quality photo printers and get good results, at a high price. I have seen pretty poor results from some of the lower priced printers. They may be OK for snapshots, but not serious photography. IMO, your best bet would be to pick a test image and try printing it on your printer. Then send the same image to several online printers and compare. Most online printers will give you x number of free prints to try them out. I have found that there are wide variations in quality. I won't mention names here, but send me a message if you want to know who I have used and my opinions. |
| dinotrac Aug 15, 2007 6:48 AM EDT |
mdl - Lots depends on your use. For example,. it's hard to beat the convenience of loading up the printer with 4*6 paper, hooking up your camera, and printing a few shots. No computer in the middle, no nothing. The GIMP is quite nice for tweaking photos, but is overkill for most people. Heck, it's overkill for me when all I want to do is take out some red eye or crop a shot. There really is room for a simple click me once, click me twice, now your phots will look nice kind of app. As to quality, high-end Epson printers have delivered great quality for some time thanks to the gimp-print (now Gutenprint) project. Those folks have done seriously great work. My latest printer isn't even high-end -- a middling Epson with the new Claria dye-based inks, and it also does a great job. |
| Inhibit Aug 15, 2007 11:14 AM EDT |
Both price and quality wise I get better results from an on-line print shop. Borderless never works out right for me with a photo printer (Epson or HP) and the requisite manufacturer drivers (or CUPS native, for that matter). |
| tracyanne Aug 15, 2007 1:39 PM EDT |
There's one serious problem with printing your photo's on your inkjet printer - the photo's fade after a very short period of time, which makes them rather useless. |
| dinotrac Aug 15, 2007 5:03 PM EDT |
>There's one serious problem with printing your photo's on your inkjet printer - the photo's fade after a very short period of time, which makes them rather useless. Depends on your printer/paper/ink combination. The high-end Epsons can turn out 200 year life spans under the right conditions. Even the moderately priced Claria ink versions can go for 100. In real-world conditions, that means photos will look good enough long enough for just about any purpose, especially when you consider that you can keep the digital version lying around. |
| tracyanne Aug 16, 2007 12:04 AM EDT |
Well I've compared inkjet quality prints with Photo prints, and in as little as 6 months you can already see a significant difference. If you didn't have the photographic print, you might not notice, but once you've seen the two and compared then.... |
| dinotrac Aug 16, 2007 12:24 AM EDT |
What inkjets and what inks. It matters. They really are not all the same. BTW -- photo shop prints fade, too. Grab some color shots your parent took when you were a kid. |
| tracyanne Aug 16, 2007 1:11 AM EDT |
Quoting:What inkjets and what inks. Whatever the inks are that come with ink cartages for retail printers, the ones that home computer owners use. Quoting:It matters. They really are not all the same. Indeed it does, and indeed they are not Quoting:BTW -- photo shop prints fade, too. Grab some color shots your parent took when you were a kid. Indeed they do, but over much greater periods of time. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 20, 2007 1:01 PM EDT |
My Epson photo printer died, so I'm using a commercial source now, too. But before that, we never even hooked the thing up to the PC. I just used an SD card to transfer the pix and printed them from there. |
| Steven_Rosenber Aug 20, 2007 1:06 PM EDT |
And ... would HPLIP help in this endeavour? |
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