Filling your home with photos of family and friends is the perfect way to add a personal touch and homely feel to a space. Photos in decorative frames can also make beautiful gifts for loved ones on their Birthday or for Christmas.
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However, getting photos printed online can quickly turn into a headache with additional delivery fees or minimum orders so we’ve created a guide on how to print quality photos at home.
Read more tips from DSCENE editors after the jump:
Photo editing before printing
Before thinking about the printing side of things, it’s important that you edit your photos to ensure they print well.
Editing can be anything from sharpening the image to improve its quality and cropping unused space right up to applying filters, text and effects to create a certain style or add personalization to your images. There are many free photo editors online that will help create the perfect photo ready to print.
Photo paper
Next, purchasing the correct paper is another fundamental in making sure you print the best quality photos at home. Specialist photo paper is the best option but you can also buy other types of paper to help create a unique finish such as a heavy matte card. Everyday printing paper is usually too thin, absorbs too much ink during printing which will take away the sharpness of the image and could also crease up while printing.
Choosing the right printer
There are many printers that are built and designed especially for photo printing. So, if you would like to print out lots of photos at a time or are thinking about using them as gifts for lots of people, then it’s a good idea to invest in a printer that will help to print the best quality photos.
Many brands such as Canon, HP & Epson have specialist photo printers from A3 printing to portable photo printing and researching what best suits your needs will help you pick the perfect printer. Alongside this, you’ll also need to think about purchasing good quality ink for your printer but ink for a HP printer or Canon printer are easily accessible online and much better value than ordering prints online.
Printer settings
Lastly, something that most people are unaware of, is that there are normally many settings that are on computers and printers that can help improve the print quality of photos but are usually turned off. Most printers are set up to print day-to-day documents such as word or excel docs.
Going in to the ‘properties’ of your printer should give you a list of options to increase the quality of the print which you can save to print out photos. It’s a good idea to revert the settings back once you’ve completed your printing to ensure you don’t use lots of ink on less important documents which will cause it to run out faster.
Framing
Whether you’re a professional photographer looking to print and frame your own work for a gallery show, or simply want to frame a photo and make it look beautiful on your wall, the frame is very important.
When choosing a frame, you should consider the design of your room. If the room looks modern, you’ll want to avoid ornate, wooden frames. If the room is classic, you’ll want to avoid sleek or brushed metal, modern-looking frames. You should also consider the colors of your photo. If black and white, it will look better with a colored or black or white frame,. and if it has color, it will look good with either color frames or wooden frames. You’ll also have to decide if you want a thin frame, thick frame, shadow box frame, or other styled frame. If you decide to have a gap between the frame and the picture, you’ll also need a mat.
