Photos for Mac and iOS: The Missing Manual

Chapter 7. Printing Your Photos

Let’s face it—digital pictures have a lot of advantages over printed images. They’re super easy to store, share, and show off to others. Heck, once you turn on iCloud Photo Library (Importing from iCloud), your entire photo collection travels around with you on your iOS device(s). Nevertheless, there will come a time when you want to print some pictures. Maybe you want to frame a favorite face to place atop your desk, order a slew of prints to chronicle your latest sporting achievement, or experience the unique joy of seeing your own artwork adorn a wall. (Prints make great gifts, too!)

The process for printing your own pictures from Photos for Mac is exceedingly simple, and you don’t even have to wrestle with your printer—you can order gorgeous prints in a variety of popular sizes from Apple instead. Photos lets you customize your print order in a variety of ways to ensure your pictures are perfectly cropped, zoomed, and positioned to fit the print size you pick. (If you did any printing in iPhoto, you’ll find more customization options in Photos.) This is the easiest way to go, especially if you want to print at sizes beyond what your home printer can handle, such as panoramas and posters.

In this chapter, you’ll learn everything you need to know to about producing high-quality prints on your own inkjet printer and ordering them from Apple. This chapter also explains what resolution is, and teaches you how to calculate it yourself so you know exactly ...