Best Advice: Digital Photo Printing Tips

If you own a digital camera rated for 2 megapixels or better, there's no reason you can't print photos at home that look better than a photo lab's. But most people, especially first-time digital camera owners, make two mistakes: they don't have their camera set for the highest image quality, and they don't have their printer set up for the right paper type and/or resolution.

First, go into your digital camera's setup menu and select the highest picture resolution (sometimes referred to as "quality" or "size"). Also, if your camera offers you the choice of saving the photo as a TIFF or JPG file, always choose TIFF. TIFF files are larger and you won't be able to take as many photos per digital memory card, but the images will look much cleaner, crisper, and more highly detailed than a compressed JPG image. The catch is that most digital cameras come with a paltry 8 or 16MB memory card, which holds only a few high-resolution TIFF images. Solution: buy a larger memory card, like a 128MB or bigger. It'll cost you $50-100 but it's well worth it when it comes time to print those photos. They'll look miles better than what you've been shooting at lower resolutions.

Then go into your printer's settings on your PC (Windows users go to Start/Settings/Control Panel/Printers and Faxes to find your printer's setup options) and make sure your printer is set for its highest quality color photo printing. Sometimes this is expressed in dpi, or "dots per inch". 2,400 or 2,880 dpi is what you want, unless your printer is a newer model that can do 4,800 dpi. Some printers also have a "Quality versus Speed" setting which offers a tradeoff between faster or better looking prints. For documents, use the Speed setting, but for photos, always go with Quality.

Last but not least, when you're ready to print, make sure you choose photo paper instead of plain paper - there's a big difference between the two, and not even the best printer on the market can produce professional quality prints on plain document paper. Photo paper, either glossy or matte finish, is a must for photos. Also -- make sure the photo paper you use is of the SAME BRAND AS YOUR PRINTER - VERY IMPORTANT! - this isn't a scam by the printer manufacturers to get you to buy their paper - printer makers design their printers around their own paper and vice-versa. In my experience you can kinda sorta get away with using a different brand of matte-finish photo paper, but it's the glossy paper that'll kill you every time you try mixing brands. Your prints will come out with smearing and weird, unnatural color balance. If you use glossy paper, always make sure your paper and printer are kinfolk.