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Example of one pixel printed at 200 pixels per inch with the printer set to 1000 dots per inch. |
Use decent paper.
Use photo paper (glossy or matte) for the best results.
Ink jet paper is OK, say, for printing letters to friends including a few snaps.
Copier paper is fine for printing letters but useless for photographs.
For the best and most consistent (and most expensive) results use the paper and ink that is recommended for your particular printer.
'Compatible' papers and inks can still produce good results and can be much cheaper. (However, some, particularly the printer makers, say that the inks can clog your printer nozzles).
Buy paper and ink from MX2 or 7dayshop for much better prices than the High Street.
One of the most confusing things for even experienced digital photographers to understand.
As an example we will assume you want to print a picture 7" by 5", in photographic quality.
Your digital image needs to have sufficient detail to start with. I suggest that it should contain 200 pixels per inch, i.e. 1400 by 1000 pixels. You can resize your image as we saw earlier (remember that resizing upwards is likely to lose some quality).
You can probably get away with 150 pixels per inch but any less will certainly start to look jagged or blurred. Anything more than 300 pixels per inch is pointless. The eye cannot distinguish this level of detail so all you are doing is using up storage and slowing things down.
For the best quality your printer resolution should be set to about 1440 dots per inch. This controls how many tiny spots of ink the printer puts on the paper. It has NOTHING to do with the image's pixels per inch. Printing at 2880 dpi or more is unlikely to produce a significant increase in quality but will slow down printing.
Suppose you are printing a picture with 200 pixels per inch and you have the printer set to 200 dots per inch. This means that the printer will only be able to put one biggish blob of ink (or one of each of yellow, magenta, cyan and black) for each pixel:
a) this will look very grainy
b) it is very difficult to get subtle gradation of colour - it would need 255 different sizes of blob.
Turn the printer up to 1440 dpi and it can get about 50 dots for every pixel. The dots are smaller and closer together so you don't see the grain. And by only printing some of the dots the printer only needs to control 5 different sizes of dot.
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Example of one pixel printed at 200 pixels per inch with the printer set to 1000 dots per inch. |
