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Submitted by: Ben Greenwood
You don t need to be a fully qualified designer to print out your own professional quality photos at home or at work (although it certainly doesn t hurt). All you need is a computer with basic photo editing software and a decent, well-calibrated printer. Of course, it s also helpful if the photo you want to print was well taken to begin with!
If you are using a PC that runs Windows XP or any subsequent Microsoft operating system, your computer will come preloaded with a basic photo editor. Simply open the photo you wish to print out using Windows Photo Gallery (this should be the default program your computer uses to open picture files). From there, click on fix and if you re feeling confident, start off by playing with the brightness and contrast settings until you get a bright and crisp photo. If you re less confident about your artistic judgement, you might still find the auto-adjust function will make a substantial difference to your print out.
If you are using an Apple computer, the basic photo editor is even more capable of making terrific adjustments to your photos before printing. Simply open the photo you wish to print using Preview (again, this should be the default program your computer uses to open picture files), then from the menu at the top of your screen, select Tools , then select adjust colour . The auto-levels function doesn t make as much of a visible difference as auto-adjust function on Windows computers but if you slide the black levels up a bit and slide the grey levels down, you ll often find yourself ending up with much better results than any automatic function can provide.
It s important to get to know how to use basic photo editors if you intend on printing out more photos than usual or require a particularly high standard of print for a certain project. Indeed, the more photos you print, the more you ll notice a difference between the way photos look on your screen and the way they look once printed out. This has nothing to do with the quality of the printer or its ink levels if your printer uses inkjet cartridges. The simple explanation for print-outs often looking a little bland compared to photos on screen if that your screen displays what is known as RGB colours which are a much brighter and wider selection than the CMYK colours printers use. To compensate for this, remember to always make your photo a little bit brighter and add a little bit of contrast to it before printing.
Once you finally do have a photo you are happy with, remember to ensure that your printer is correctly installed, using the installation disk if one has been provided. These disks often contain printer-specific software that will not only help you better calibrate your printer for sharper print-outs, but they will also keep track of your inkjet cartridge levels and let you know in advance if you are running low on any colour. Another function printer software often provides is cartridge head cleaning , which might be useful to you if you haven t used your printer for a while as inkjet cartridges tend to dry up after long periods of inactivity.
About the Author: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, the UK’s leading specialist in
printer cartridges
, including
toner cartridges
and
inkjet cartridges
.
Source:
isnare.com
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