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October 2008 | Margaret Brown
If you're printing directly from a camera or memory card, you simply select the images for printing, set the output size and hit the Print button. No more effort is required. A few printers provide basic adjustments for brightness and colour settings (making sepia or B&W prints) and some include cropping and resizing and/or red-eye correction. But generally, if you want any more control of the printing process you must connect the printer to a computer and work through a software application.
All printers come with software for producing prints. This bundled software always includes the printer driver and often adds editing application. An online instruction manual is sometimes provided. The functionality of the software usually reflects the price and complexity of the printer, with entry-level printers providing very simple editors.
Some software bundles include an organiser that can identify images when the camera or card reader is connected to the PC. Many will automatically create a new folder into which the images can be downloaded. In most cases, this folder is tagged with the date of the download.
If you want to do anything more with your images before printing them you need a proper image editor. Basic editing facilities are provided in the latest Window and Macintosh operating systems. More capable image editors can be found online, ranging from freeware applications to fully professional editors. We've listed some of our favourites below. Links to sources of more information and trial downloads can be found at the end of this chapter.
For novices:
Picasa3
Serif Photo Plus
ArcSoft PhotoImpression
Picasa3 is a popular image editor and organiser that is easy to use and available as a free download.
Intermediate Software:
ACDSee Photo Editor
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Corel Paint Shop Pro
For experts:
The GIMP
ACDSee Pro 2 Photo Manager
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Bordered or Borderless?
One factor you need to decide before making a print is whether you want prints with a border (usually - but not necessarily - white) or without. Most printers provide the latter option, although the image may need to be cropped to match it to a paper with a different aspect ratio. Some examples are shown below.
An image with a 4:3 aspect ratio printed without cropping on a 15 x 10 cm sheet of paper. Note the unprinted white strips on each side of the picture.
An image with a 3:2 aspect ratio printed on a sheet of A4 paper. Note the unprinted white strips above and below the picture.
To overcome these problems you can opt to print with a white border surrounding the picture. This option is best for prints that will be framed because the white border allows for a mat to be used to prevent the surface of the print from touching the glass. Furthermore, a white surround can often improve the presentation of the prints - particularly when the image has been cropped before printing - as shown below.
An example of how white space can be used to enhance a cropped photo when it is printed.
Easy Printing with Bundled Software
Most printers come with a software bundle that contains software for file browsers, organisers and layout programs that allow you to print several images on a sheet of paper. Some also add applications for creating projects such as calendars, greeting cards and other items, while others include panorama stitchers.
A file browser/organiser helps you locate desired images and provides an interface to printing controls.
Some organisers include metadata viewers that let you check the camera settings for the image.
Bundled printing assistants will usually interface with the printer to provide a range of paper size and paper type options to make it easier to ensure the image will be printed with the correct colours and intensity. They may also provide a few simple image adjustments (although never at the level of a dedicated image editing application). Some also provide facilities for printing two or more images on one sheet of paper.
A printing assistant should provide a selection of paper sizes and types and also warn you about possible incompatibilities.
Many printing assistants include some basic image adjustments.
Some printing assistants include facilities for printing two or more images on one sheet of paper.
More sophisticated printing assistants can display image metadata and most include trimming aids, titling facilities and test printing functions, some of which are shown in the illustrations below.
Metadata display.
Owners of some recently-released Epson printers can take advantage of a bundled software application, Epson Darkroom Print, which allows photographers to make a sample print showing variations in a key parameter, such as brightness (density), saturation, contrast or sharpness. Users can vary one or two parameters, producing either a 'test strip' or 'ring-around' style of output, each of which allows different settings to be compared.
Test print sampling options.
How Large?
For every digital image there is an optimal output size. If you make prints larger than this size, picture quality is progressively degraded (although you may not notice much change on your computer screen or unless the print is substantially larger than its optimal size).
The standard output resolution for small prints (snapshot-sized up to A4 size) is 300 dots/inch (dpi). Because larger prints are viewed from greater distances, resolution requirements go down as you increase print size and by the time you reach A3+ size (483 x 329 mm) you can drop the resolution to 150 dpi without seeing any loss in picture quality.
The diagram below shows the relationship between the resolution of a digital image and its maximum output size at an appropriate output resolution.
You can see from the above diagram that, in theory, you need a larger image to make an A4 print at 300 dpi than an A3 print at 150 dpi. This is because larger prints are viewed from a greater distance, which means finer details are less visible. In other words, you won't notice minor resolution irregularities.
In practice, some printers can also produce excellent results at lower resolution settings and there may be little difference between A4 prints at 300 dpi and 180 dpi resolution. As a rule, you should be able to make acceptable A4 prints from 2048 x 1536 pixel images. It's certainly possible to make excellent A3 (and A3+) prints from 6- to 8-megapixel image files and A2-sized prints from 12-megapixel or larger images. In other words, output resolution, can be adjusted to suit the viewing distance for the print.
Most printer drivers will automatically resize the image to fit on the paper you have selected. But it's worth understanding how far you can 'push' a digital image when you're making enlargements.
USEFUL URLs
The following websites provide links to software applications mentioned in this chapter.
Picasa3 - www.picasa.google.com/
Serif Photo Plus - www.freeserifsoftware.com/default.asp
ArcSoft PhotoImpression - www.arcsoft-photoimpression.en.softonic.com/
ACDSee Photo Editor - www.acdsee.com/
Adobe Photoshop Elements - www.adobe.com/products/
Corel Paint Shop Pro - www.corel.com/
The GIMP - www.gimp.org
ACDSee Pro 2 Photo Manager - www.acdsee.com/
Adobe Photoshop CS3 - www.adobe.com/products/
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