The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers

Dedicated Photo Printers

Dedicated photo printers for home and studio work can produce gallery-quality archive prints on a variety of surfaces. Devices such at the Epson R2880 (www.epson.com) and the HP 9180B (www.hp.com) accept paper up to 13 x 19 inches, letting you create everything from snapshots to fine art.

I mention these two printers as good examples because they're designed to make photographs that are vibrant and that will last. You could use a standard color office printer, but it may not come with photographer-friendly software, such as color profiles for your paper, and the permanence of the prints isn't guaranteed.

Regardless of the particular printer you have, people have a perception about the voodoo that's involved with getting decent enlargements. But thanks to improved software and an abundance of paper profiles, today there's a lot more science to printing than there is black magic. Of course, this is true only if you know the steps to follow. With a little organization, you'll soon be churning out beautiful large-format images that will retain their integrity for decades if you store or display them properly.

Figure 8-4. The Epson R2880 photo printer

Ten Steps to Making a Beautiful Print

Some of the steps I list in this section will feel familiar to you, but I'll also talk about a new concept or two that I haven't discussed before, including ICC profiles. I'll get ...