Printing Made Simple

We are printing a lot of our photo trips and vacation images shot this year by both of us.

Printing is a natural end to the total photographic process of framing, composing, exposing, shooting and finally displaying your image.

Displaying your paper and ink prints on the wall is a very different and much more satisfying experience than just posting your images online. Your computer screen with its digital backlit projection is very different and I believe not as satisfying as looking at a paper print you have created yourself.

Here’s a tip: If you’re print a lot of prints you’re going to run into a big cost when it comes to actually framing your images. One simple and cheap way is to just tack the images using non-destructive peel-and-stick products available on Amazon.

At home we are printing with a Canon Pixma IP 8720 which is available on sale from Henry’s Cameras for $250 (as compared to $500 on Amazon!). It’s the cheapest photo printer that will produce good results (when printing on “high” level). As such it’s limited to A3+ size prints (13 X 19) and goes through ink cartridges (which are small) with vigour.

A better printer would be anything else in the Canon or Epson range. A lot depends on how big an image you want to print and how much money you’re willing to spend.

If you’re considering selling your prints then you’re going to want to buy one of the bigger printers but be careful only in the sense that you’re starting to get into larger machines which need more space and can be awfully heavy to move around and will cost a lot of replace all the inks (which thankfully don’t go dry all at once).

I’m considering a mid-range printer like a Canon Pro 310 which while it won’t print a larger print than my 8720 does use 9 inks compared to 6 inks for the 8720 but it costs $1,000 (compared to the $250 for the Pixma).

The Epson P700 at $1085 at Henry’s takes 10 ink cartridges and would be another outstanding choice.

What I would not recommend is using an office “all-in-one” printer or anything cheaper than the 8720. Also if you want to print bigger you’re looking at $1500 roughly for a Canon P-1100 printer capable of printing 17″ X 22″ with 12 ink cartridges. The Epson P-900 is currently selling for $1375 on Amazon (as compared to almost $1800 at Henry’s).

Now it makes little sense to buy an expensive printer if you’re printing just a few 8 X 10 inch prints. But if you’re planning on printing a lot of prints especially larger prints buying and supplying your own printer with ink can make economic sense.

For example the cost to print a 13 X 19 colour photo will range commercially somewhere between $10 and $20. If you’re printing a bunch of 8 X 10s and let’s say 10 larger 13 X 19 prints you’re talking about $300 maybe more.

You will want to avoid getting prints done at “super centres” or discount stores that also sells groceries. It seems a lot of these types of stores outsource the printing to third party printers. You’re not going to have any control over how the finished print is going to look like. This can be an expensive and time consuming problem.

This is one of the great advantages of doing your own printing is you can have control over how your print actually will turn out.

You can purchase different papers (prices for paper can be reasonable to insanely expensive) and download specific “profiles” for your individual printer making printing easier. Also I have found the Canon printer software to be easy to use and I’ve got good results without a lot of effort.

You can pick your borders and the scale of your image and how you present it and how to frame it. To some extent you can even control your costs better.

One of the best explanations of how to print comes from “First Man Photography” and his YouTube video “I Sucked At Printing Photos….Until I Tried This“.

Here’s a tip: While you don’t need to have a calibrated monitor (I do using the Calibrate 123 tool) you can just print a small 4X5 proof print before printing your larger image. In this way you can determine how to setup your printer so that it outputs a print that will closely match what you’re seeing on your bright back-lit digital screen without investing in a full-size print and a lot of ink.

And another tip and this one is counter-intuitive but the larger printers like the 1100 actually print cheaper per litre of ink than the smaller printers. The cartridges do cost more but they last longer.

If you’re considering a Canon printer then First Man has a good comparison video here.

Printing with an inkjet photo printer is the natural conclusion to your artistic rendering of your photography.

It’s something you should consider.