Digital Photography 101 – How to Best Print Digital Pictures

One of the highlights of learning digital photography is sharing your pictures with other people. With digital photography, there are lots of different ways to share your pictures (like email, websites, etc) but for those really important pictures they deserve to be printed and framed in stunning unique picture frames.

In addition to framing and displaying your best pictures in hanging wall frames, there are several other reasons that you may want to print your photos. Here are a few of the many ways printed photographs are used.

• Displayed in wood picture frames on the mantle, table and wall displays
• Posters
• Wallet pictures
• Memory books
• Greeting cards
• Photo crafts
• Photo competitions

Even in our digital day and age, we still have lots of interesting and beautiful things to do in print! Unfortunately, printing a picture isn't as simple as clicking the print button on your computer. Printing a high quality print is harder than just printing out a copy of an email or document. The following tips will make the process easier:

Digital Photography 101 - Pixels Matter

Before you resize a picture on your computer, figure out first if you may ever want to print it. If you do want to print it, always save the original. 

When taking pictures, you always want to know if you plan to print the picture so you can take it with a high enough resolution to get a quality print in the size you want. Below are some examples to help you know how many pixels are needed for different sizes of prints.

High quality 10 x 13
2592 x 1944 pixels (5 megapixel camera set for high resolution)

High Quality Picture: 9×12 inches
2272 x 1704 pixels ( a 4 mega pixel camera set for high resolution)

High Quality: 8 x 10 inches
2048 x 1536 pixels ( a 3 mega pixel camera set for high resolution)

High Quality: 4 x 6 inches, 5 x 7 inches
1600 x1200 pixels (a 2 mega pixel camera set for high resolution)

So, it's true that you don't need a camera with a lot of mega pixels in order to get quality photographs.

Using the proper settings on your printer is also important to getting a quality picture. Look at your camera manual or the manufacturers recommendations on their website. Then use a photo editor to resample the photos to the appropriate dpi. If you're new to digital photo printing, dpi stands for “dots per inch.”. The more dots per inch, the smoother the picture grain and the better the image looks. Ink jet printers used today for printing quality pictures often have dpi resolution of around 1200 to 4800. This sort of dpi will produce quality prints of photographs that have around 140 to 300 pixels per inch.

Please note that the ppi or pixels per inch is the measurement for the resolution of a photograph taken with a digital camera, not to be confused with the height and width of the photo. For example a 200 pixel x 300 pixel photograph would be quite small, while a photo with a 300 ppi needn't be small because ppi refers to the quality not the physical size of the picture.

Digital Photography 101 - Using the Right Type of Photo Printer Paper

Use photo-printing paper and if possible that which is made by your printer's manufacture and is recommended for your model or model family. Use special paper for projects such as greeting cards. Both are sold at many office supply and crafts stores, as well as online.

If you're looking for an easier way to get high quality prints, say for a special event such as a contest or a large size photograph you want to frame and display, remember that a local or online printer is another option.

Have fun printing your digital images!

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Tags: digital photography 101, Digital Photography Tips, photo digital printing, photo resolution, photos printing, picture resolution, print resolution