The importance of inkjet paper

The most important factor in making a good photo print is to use a photo-quality paper. These papers are specially coated so the inks reveal all of your picture's details and rich colors. If you use regular office paper, droplets of ink spread out when they hit the paper, causing the colors to bleed into one another and giving your photo a dull, fuzzy appearance. Special paper coatings on inkjet photo paper prevent ink from spreading, thus giving photos a sharper look. Glossy papers make colors snap, but they can be marred by fingerprints. Matte papers don't have the vibrancy of glossy, but they aren't as vulnerable to fingerprints.

Media Types

COATED BOND PAPERS, (various weights, finishes)

A wide array is available from low end "thrifty" paper to "photo quality".

ALL inkjet paper is coated on BOTH sides Brightness ranges from 80 to 94+

Opacity is extremely important

GLOSSY PAPERS,

Bond paper used as a substrate, various thickness

and glossy finishes applied. (Usually premium)

Whiteness is not always the best measure

Consistency sometimes a concern

GLOSSY FILMS

Synthetic materials (polyester based)

Durability is greater than Glossy Paper

Much thinner, usually more expensive

SPECIALTY FILMS

Transfer Paper, Backlight, Silver, Gold,

Transparency, UV Reactive Transfer

TEXTURED MEDIA

Canvas, Silk, Linen, etc.

Resolution

Resolution refers to the number of pixels in an image. The more pixels in an image, the more detail the image can contain and the better the image quality. In short, more pixels mean bigger prints. Resolution is also used to describe the quality of an inkjet print. Print resolution is expressed in ppi (pixels per inch). A resolution of 225 ppi is sufficient for making a high-quality inkjet print. Some programs adjust the resolution of your digital picture file automatically, depending on whether you're printing or sending e-mail. Other programs require you to change the resolution yourself.

Adjustments

Most programs let you make adjustments to your digital picture on your computer before you make a print. See the list of adjustments below.

• Cropping—cutting off a portion of the original picture to eliminate distracting elements or improve composition. But don't crop too much or you'll reduce the quality of your print.
• Brightness—lightening a picture when it's too dark or darkening it when it's too light.
• Contrast—increasing or decreasing the difference in darkness between one tone and another.
• Sharpness—creating the appearance of sharper focus.
• Color balance—changing the overall color tint of an image when it's too red, too green, or too yellow.
• Saturation—the strength or purity of a color. More saturation adds more punch to the colors, but often distorts the true colors; less saturation brings the colors closer to shades of gray, black, and white.

When you're done making adjustments, save the enhanced picture under a new file name. Select "Save as" rather than "Save" to keep your original intact.

Getting quality prints

The most common problem is the source image being too small. In this case, we don't mean dimensionally; rather, we're referring to file size or resolution. A 72-dpi file that looks great on your monitor will probably look grainy or pixilated when scaled to a large size. Detail will not appear because it's just not there. You need to have more pixel resolution to get a good output image.

How big is big? We prefer to have files in the 10-20 Mb size for a standard 3 x 5-in. photo. We scan at actual size (200-300 dpi) to get this file size. This will be controllable from your scanner driver. At 200 dpi, the photo will blow up properly to a 24-in. width with almost no apparent image degradation. If you are producing wider images (36-48 in.), 300-400 dpi will work just fine. Just remember, the larger the file, the more disk and processing time it will take.

A common problem with scanned images is that they appear too dark. To solve this problem, most people will use a paint program and the brightness/contrast controls to lighten the image. Usually, the result is a washed-out image with loss of detail. The best way to handle this is to use a white-point control. This feature is common in many image-editing packages and may also be found in your scanner driver. What you want to do is locate an area in the image that you know is white. The control will be an eyedropper or something to that effect. Once you click the eyedropper onto the point that should be white, the image will brighten up without losing any detail or color.

Color is the biggest headache of digital printing. Matching the colors you see on your monitor to what the printer produces is virtually impossible without investing in specialized equipment and software. In most cases, however, you are looking for colors that come close. Reds are red, blues are blue, and most important, flesh tones appear as they should. The easiest way to achieve sufficient color is to use pre-matched links or profiles that work with your printer. Most of the RIPs and drivers will offer color/media combinations that automatically adjust the color. Use this function if it's available. You will only run into problems if you use different combinations of ink and media.

Glossary

Acid-free Paper - Paper that has the acid removed from the pulp so that it is a neutral 7.0 pH. Acid-free paper is commonly used for fine art prints, limited edition printing, and permanent records where contact with paper acidity could harm the documents.

Aliasing: The stair-stepped (jagged) appearance in printed diagonal lines.

Anti-aliasing: A technique that smoothes the printed appearance of stair-stepped (jagged) lines. One method is to fill the edges of the line with varying shades of color (or gray). This method averages the brightness values of the edges.

Banding: In digital printing, this term refers to patterns on a print caused by insufficient color or gray-scale ranges within the output device's image processor, or insufficient information contained within the original scan. Banding is most noticeable in printed areas that fade from light to dark.

Bitmap: Generally, a bitmap is associated with graphics objects. The bits are a direct representation of the picture image. In a monochrome system, one bit in the bitmap represents one pixel on screen. With color (or gray-scale) systems, several bitmaps in the bitmap represent one pixel or group of pixels.

Calibration: Setting up a scanner, monitor, printer, etc., so that the system produces accurate and consistent results. Because equipment and systems vary, to calibrate is to normalize a system's internal and received information so that it presents predictable colors. If devices or consumables change, recalibration is necessary.

CIE (Commission Internationale de l' Eclairage): An international color standards group sometimes known as the Intl. Committee on Illumination. In 1931, using a spectrophotometer to precisely measure color, this group defined a color model where numbers describe colors along three axes. Because this system can be used to store color information, it has become a crucial part of device-independent, digital-print systems. There are newer color models in addition to the CIE.

CLUT (color look-up table): Another term for a correction table, a CLUT is a color-management software reference file that maintains the proper calibration of devices, such as monitors, printers and scanners. (See also, LUT.)

CMS (color-management system): The process of using device calibration and profiling, software-based color correction, and other utility applications to obtain predictable, quality-printed output. The output must remain within the limitations of the different devices that make up a digital-production system.

CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black): The four colors in the four-color process. The primary additive colors, red, blue and green, when added together, produce white light. When overlapped, red and blue form magenta, green and red form yellow, and green and blue form cyan. These resulting colors are subtractive and when added together, they produce a dark brown. In order to create an accurate photographic reproduction, the color black must be added.

Color correction: The process of simulating the colors or original shade by using color-management software. Often, an inkjet printer serves as the CMYK output device. This process is important because spot colors cannot be acceptably reproduced with the CMYK color model without making adjustments.

Color gamut: The tonal range of colors that can be reproduced by a digital device.

Color measurement: The scientific determination of color. It uses specialized measuring machines to compare colors numerically. There is a CIE worldwide standard that helps the industry compare and match colors.

Color model: Also referred to as color space. A color model is a geometric or mathematical representation of visible colors. Well-known color models include, CMYK, RGB and HLS (hue, lightness, saturation).

Color profile: Also called device profile. This term refers to the relationship between the color models of the system devices.

Compression: The process of removing irrelevant information and reducing unneeded space from a file in order to make the file smaller.

Continuous tone: Like original photographs, drawings or paintings, continuous-tone images contain real gradients of grays or colors.

Dithering: A graphics display or printing process that uses a combination of dots or textures to simulate an original image or an output device. The purpose is to create the impression of a continuous-tone gray-scale or color image. Newspaper photographs, for example, are dithered. The more dots printed in an area, the darker the shade; and the more dither patterns that a device or program supports, the more shades of gray it can represent. In printing, dithering is called halftoning, and shades of gray are called halftones.

Dot gain: A term that refers to the "weight gain" of halftone dots. During the printing process, the half-tone dots increase in size. Because this is an inherent part of the printing process, the effect of increased dot size should be anticipated ahead of time.

DPI (dots per inch): A measurement of linear resolution for a printer or scanner. For example, a resolution of 300 dpi means that there are 300 dots across and 300 dots down. A higher number of dots creates a finer resolution.

Driver: A small software program that links together the computer and its components and peripherals: printers, scanners and the monitor. The driver functions as a medium.

Dye sublimation: A printing method in which the color (toner or ink) is thermally converted to a gas that hardens on the special substrate used by the printer. When printers use this process, the output appears in the form of soft-edged dye spots that produce smooth, continuous tones.

Electrostatic printing: Printing large-format prints in a process similar to, but not the same as, color photocopiers. If properly done, (and laminated) the images are used for billboards, truck graphics, banners, signs or murals.

EPS (encapsulated postscript): A file type that allows the carrying of different information between software programs.

Error diffusion: In actuality, error diffusion is a random dot-placement strategy (or dithering method), spreading out the inherent failing until it is indistinguishable to the naked eye.

FM (frequency-modulated) screening: A dithering method that uses uniform dot sizes and varies the distance between them. This method is different from conventional halftone screening, which aligns dots of varying sizes on a regular grid.

Gradation: The transition between colors or shades. Gradation occurs by mixing percentages of dominant and secondary color and then altering those colors to bring about a change.

Hexachrome: A color-matching system that allows for the combination of six colors in order to create a larger gamut of reproducible color.

Interpolation: Interpolation is the process of injecting additional dots to digitally enlarge the original.

LPI (lines per inch): A traditional halftone screen measurement that refers to the number of lines of dots per inch.

LUT (look-up table): The storage space for pre-set measurements and adjustments for different media, file types, printers, etc.

Media: Another term for substrate. Common inkjet printers generally require media that have special topcoats to achieve proper adhesion and proper drying characteristics.

PostScript®: An Adobe programming language that enables text and graphic images to be output from different devices with consistent and predictable results.

PPI (pixels per inch): A measurement of resolution. A pixel is a unit of data that should not be confused with dpi (dots per inch) or lpi (lines per inch). If there are more pixels per inch, the image will be sharper.

RGB (red, green, blue): RGB is an additive color model used in color monitors, conventional photo film and paper to create full color.

RIP (raster image processing): A process using mathematical algorithms to enlarge and print an image. Also, this software often includes "add-on" features, such as color-calibration software, various pattern selections, tools or a print-instruction screen.

Stochastic: An alternative to traditional halftone dots, this random-placement dot strategy is used to render enlarged images on large-format printing devices. Stochastic dots are uniformly sized "microdots," and their placement and frequency vary with the tone of the image.

Substrate: Ultimately, the material that receives the printed image. Sometimes, this term is called "media."

Subtractive color: Reflective color. The term refers to the CMYK color space used by conventional and digital printing devices to produce full-color printing. (See also, CMYK.)

Tiling: The process of dividing a very large-format image into smaller sections that can be output on the digital device.

Topcoat: The coating applied to the surface of inkjet or other substrates during the manufacturing process. The topcoat enhances ink adhesion and other performance characteristics; it also helps to control dot gain, drying time and moisture resistance.

UV inks: Inks that contain pigments or other methods to resist UV fade from direct sunlight and other UV light sources.

UV resistance: The resistance to fading under direct sunlight and other UV light sources.

Vector: An image plotted by lines on an X-Y axis. This image is different from a bitmap, which is composed of dots.