Tips for Printing Your Digital Images

With the Bluedog Photography-Photo Planet Weekly Challenge giving participants the chance to win an enlargement of one of their prints we thought it perfect timing to pass on a couple of tips for that perfect print.

There are numerous ways to bring your photos into the ‘real world’ and photo printing remains the most popular still today. So why are so many people finding it a challenge?

• Make sure your monitor is calibrated to your printer’s. Most respectable printers will assist you do this and you WILL notice a great difference. What may look like just right on your monitor may print too dark or too light.
  
• Resize your image to the size you need the print. You may ask for a 6”x4” and due to your cameras aspect ratio and you not resizing your image correctly you end up with a cropped image. The relationship between the height of your photo to its length is called the aspect ratio. Traditional 35mm cameras produce a photo with a 3:2 aspect ratio which is the ratio that 6”x4” prints (and 5”x7” and 8”x10”) are based on.BUT we are now in the digital era and our digital cameras are different! And digital cameras vary amongst themselves. There are Olympus cameras that use a 4:3 ratio; other brands use a 3:2 and this does make a difference. We’ll talk about this more in a later blog but beware you may loose if you don’t resize properly.
  
• Don’t skimp on cheap paper and ink. Quality paper and inks mean quality prints and today these are not dear.
  
• Stay with one printer. Develop a relationship with your printer so they know what you like.
  
  Thanks again to the team at Photo Planet for providing the weekly winner with an enlargement!For more info on Photo Planet and their printing services call Gerard on +61 7 55312227 or email pplanet@bigpond.net.au