Digital photography has sure come a long way. Remember when you had to take a roll of film to be developed at the local camera shop? Thank goodness that is not the case any longer.
In order to get good quality prints at home, there are some things you need to know before you begin. Here are a few tips which will make it a whole lot easier in the long run.
Choosing a good printer is essential
First, you will need to choose a good quality printer that will allow small 4×6 size printing. The HP Photosmart, the Epson Workforce, or how about the Canon Selphy Wireless photo printer, these are excellent printers to keep in mind. There are so many to choose from so do your homework and research. Of course, it all depends on your budget which one you decide to purchase. But lately the prices have really come down on printers. The HP Photosmart has a program built in just for printing your own prints at 4×6" size. The printer has a special tray for that particular size of photo paper. In this program you just choose the photo you want to print and the size, and the program will fit the photo into the size you need. Unfortunately, if your photo is too small in resolution, you will not get a good quality print. So be sure, as a rule of thumb, to save your photo at the highest resolution so that you can always have the larger size to work with.
Make sure you have a photo editing program
The other thing to keep in mind is that there will inevitably always be some kind of editing to be done on photos. Taking the red out of eyes is one, or any glare that might be in the photo. There are some printers, such as the one mentioned earlier, which have their own photo editing program built in as well. Or if you happen to own Photoshop, then you are set to go. Photoshop has so many available options for editing photos, it's a great program to use, especially when editing colors and sunlight and brightness. Ultimately, you are the judge and you will be the one making these changes to your photos, so choose a good program that will allow you the flexibility to do this effectively.
Good quality photo paper is also key to good photo prints
Depending on your personal preferences, there are many good brands of photo paper out in the market today. They all offer basically the same type of photo paper, just with different names. The thing to keep in mind is what type of finish you like the best: semi-glossy, glossy or matte? Then the rest depends on how much you would like to spend. The higher the quality of paper the higher the cost. Of course your best photos will be the ones printed on the highest quality photo paper, so keep your budget in mind when you are shopping for paper.
Online printing is another easy and good option for printing
Now more than ever there are numerous places online for printing photos, such as Photobox, Shutterfly, and many others. These allow you to just upload your edited photos onto their website, choose your size and let them do all the work.
Whatever method you decide to use, remember your photos are precious memories that you want to keep for many years to come. Hopefully, choosing the best quality printer and paper will help you to achieve this.