Digital Art Photography For Dummies®

Chapter 17. Printing Prep and Printing

In This Chapter

• Following a step-by-step printing process

• Matching your image in Photoshop with your printer output

• Processing your photo for superlative prints

You have many options before you when printing your photos in the digital realm. You can print directly from iPhoto (on a Mac) or from the options within the software that came with your digital camera, which also likely contains some basic editing tools such as cropping and enhancing. However, most professionals and many amateurs use Photoshop to tweak their photos for the final output. Photoshop provides more alternatives to make sure your image keeps its detail, color, and contrast. (For more information about your photo's life as it's processed in Photoshop, viewed on your monitor, and transferred to a printer, see Chapter 3.)

In this chapter, I use a higher-end Epson Stylus Photo printer. Of course, models vary, but I think Epson makes excellent printers for art photos. (Many similar models are available, each printing at a variety of large sizes and able to print at sizes of 11″ × 14″ and larger.)

Discovering Proofs and Printing the Final Product

After your monitor is calibrated (as discussed in Chapter 3), you can make a proof — an estimate of what your print will look like when printed on the type of paper that you have in your printer — in Photoshop so that what you see onscreen is ...