Printing Photos?

[SgtPencilPepperBand]

This may sound dumb, but how do you print photos from altavista.com? Do I use regular paper or photo paper? Does it have to be printed on a special printer? Sorry, I'm kinda new to sending my own stuff to celebs, as I usually ask for a headshot or Playbill.

[johnnylightning]

I dont know what altavista is but if you want to print your own pictures at home you will need a printer that says it prints photos and you will need to buy photo paper.

[SilentEcho219]

Any color printer will work. There is a common misconception that a printer made for photos is needed or that certain photo paper must be used with certain printers. Honestly, they are all branding and marketing things.

I used to work for OfficeMax, in their print department and on the sales floor, and even the HP representatives would admit that there is really no difference, but to basically lie and say that because its HP branded paper it will work better with HP printers.

Just get some glossy photo paper and put it in your printer. You might want to print at the highest quality setting. I print from an HP OfficeJet printer (not made for photo printing) on Kodak photo paper on the Normal setting and the photos are exceptionally and the colors are very vibrant.

You can use regular paper if you'd like, but the colors won't pop as much as they will on a glossy paper.

Also, I find Google images to be better for finding images suitable for printing. Google has more options to find larger images. On Altavista, Yahoo, and Bing, the "large" setting rarely gives you large enough results for good print quality images.

[SgtPencilPepperBand]

Any color printer will work. There is a common misconception that a printer made for photos is needed or that certain photo paper must be used with certain printers. Honestly, they are all branding and marketing things.

I used to work for OfficeMax, in their print department and on the sales floor, and even the HP representatives would admit that there is really no difference, but to basically lie and say that because its HP branded paper it will work better with HP printers.

Just get some glossy photo paper and put it in your printer. You might want to print at the highest quality setting. I print from an HP OfficeJet printer (not made for photo printing) on Kodak photo paper on the Normal setting and the photos are exceptionally and the colors are very vibrant.

Thanks! How do I know if a photo is the right size for the paper?

[SilentEcho219]

Thanks! How do I know if a photo is the right size for the paper?

The larger the photo, the sharper it will print. If it looks like it's too large to fit on paper, that's ok, because it will scale down to fit the page.

Keep in mind that what might look like the size of a full page on screen is not the same as printing, because screen resolution and print resolution are different. If your image is too small, it will be blurry or pixelated. You want to find photos that are at least 1000 pixels wide or tall (but larger is always better, as I said).

Windows has simple built-in photo printing. If you select the images you want to print, right click, and click Print, there is a simple wizard that will let you select what size photos you want to print (8x10, full page, 5x7, etc.) It will even crop the images slightly to fit and print them according to their orientation (landscape or portrait).

[johnnylightning]

I agree that you don't have to use certain brand paper but i disagree that all printers can print photos on photo paper & they turn out as nice as a printer made for printing photos,plus photo printers come with the software to size the photos properly as well as other cool things to make photo printing better,i personally only use canon photo printers for pictures.

[SilentEcho219]

I agree that you don't have to use certain brand paper but i disagree that all printers can print photos on photo paper & they turn out as nice as a printer made for printing photos,plus photo printers come with the software to size the photos properly as well as other cool things to make photo printing better,i personally only use canon photo printers for pictures.

The inks for all models are virtually the same across a company's printer models. It's true though, that most printers dedicated to photos allow you to add a lighter cyan and magenta, which is supposed to give you better looking photos, but in my experience, there really is no difference if you add those two extra inks.

Now a color laser printer that uses toner is definitely not going to look good, especially on glossy. Actually looks worse on glossy paper. But the inkjet printers are going to print identically regardless if it is made for office, home, or specifically for photos, because the inks and underlying printing technology is the same.

The photo printers are marketed towards people who want to print mainly photos, but they work just the same. They usually have a more streamlined interface, more media card slots, and photo editing tools built into the printer. The photo printers are also usually cheaper than the "office" printers, but there is a disadvantage here: for example, I know for a fact that HP prices their ink based on the price of the printer. The higher the price of the printer, the lower the cost of the ink, and vice versa. I was told this directly by the HP representative who came into the store to train me and the other employees. He specifically said that either way -- whether you buy an expensive printer or a cheap one -- they get about the same amount of money out of you in the long run anyway.

But this isn't about which printer she needs to buy. It's about what she already had, and what I was getting at is if she doesn't have a "photo-dedicated" printer, that the quality is going to be pretty much the same anyway, because the inks and technology are the same.

That's true that the photo branded printers usually come with software (another thing they use the sell photo branding). But honestly, most of the things that are on those applications now can be done just as easily in the operating system, built in programs or programs that can be downloaded directly from Microsoft, especially since Windows Vista and 7 with Windows Live Gallery, and the Mac has iPhoto.

[SgtPencilPepperBand]

I agree that you don't have to use certain brand paper but i disagree that all printers can print photos on photo paper & they turn out as nice as a printer made for printing photos,plus photo printers come with the software to size the photos properly as well as other cool things to make photo printing better,i personally only use canon photo printers for pictures.

The inks for all models are virtually the same across a company's printer models. It's true though, that most printers dedicated to photos allow you to add a lighter cyan and magenta, which is supposed to give you better looking photos, but in my experience, there really is no difference if you add those two extra inks.

Now a color laser printer that uses toner is definitely not going to look good, especially on glossy. Actually looks worse on glossy paper. But the inkjet printers are going to print identically regardless if it is made for office, home, or specifically for photos, because the inks and underlying printing technology is the same.

The photo printers are marketed towards people who want to print mainly photos, but they work just the same. They usually have a more streamlined interface, more media card slots, and photo editing tools built into the printer. The photo printers are also usually cheaper than the "office" printers, but there is a disadvantage here: for example, I know for a fact that HP prices their ink based on the price of the printer. The higher the price of the printer, the lower the cost of the ink, and vice versa. I was told this directly by the HP representative who came into the store to train me and the other employees. He specifically said that either way -- whether you buy an expensive printer or a cheap one -- they get about the same amount of money out of you in the long run anyway.

But this isn't about which printer she needs to buy. It's about what she already had, and what I was getting at is if she doesn't have a "photo-dedicated" printer, that the quality is going to be pretty much the same anyway, because the inks and technology are the same.

That's true that the photo branded printers usually come with software (another thing they use the sell photo branding). But honestly, most of the things that are on those applications now can be done just as easily in the operating system, built in programs or programs that can be downloaded directly from Microsoft, especially since Windows Vista and 7 with Windows Live Gallery, and the Mac has iPhoto.

I happen to have a Canon inkjet printer, so is it gonna look good?

[SilentEcho219]

I happen to have a Canon inkjet printer, so is it gonna look good?

Yep, it will!

[mightyswagman]

I try to look at all the pictures on google image search,but as for the paper,i find that the glossy finest heavyweight paper in Tesco is the best,it weighs around 260gms