One of the advantages of digital photography is that anyone can print their own photos at home. Of course, you can upload files to a website or take them to a local photo printing company for someone else to print for you, but almost all printers. today it is able to print photographs that look as beautiful and durable as for professional photo prints. However, when the goal is to make your own photographic impression, it’s good to know some basics before you start.
In addition, printing photos yourself also gives you the ability to adjust brightness and contrast results, simple photo editing settings that can make your images awesome. This factor is especially true for professional photographers, which allows you to print photos whenever you want. to check the final result.
- It’s also worth mentioning that learning how to make your own photo impression will save you money for your pocket.
- As most photo printing kiosks typically charge a few tens of cents for each printed image.
Despite everything you’ve heard about photo printing, keep in mind that this process can be relatively simple, by the way, like any other article made from a computer, however, you need to know how to do it the right way.
Similarly, there are many ways to work with photo printing, knowing that each one helps you take different postures if your first attempt doesn’t go as planned.
Below is a basic guide to printing photographs of the items to consider before starting this work.
If you only want to print your photos with minimal settings, for simple verification of the result, the simplest focus is to print them directly from your DSLR camera, your memory card or your flash drive. The first two options allow you to completely skip However, the third will use the computer as a workstation for the files, only to temporarily store them before copying them to the USB stick.
Depending on your printer and the memory card your digital camera uses, you may have one or all of these options for direct photo printing. Learn how to take advantage of each of these situations below:
This feature is only available for PictBridge-enabled cameras and printers. In this case, printing photos directly from the camera becomes a quick and easy option, to do this, simply connect the camera to the camera printer and print as many images directly as you want. Some printers even allow photos to be printed directly from the camera of the same manufacturer by other means, such as a manufacturer-specific design, but PictBridge is the industry standard when it comes to printing photos directly from your camera. .
How do I know if your printer offers PictBridge? The easiest way to get this answer is to closely observe your computer, look for a USB connector, usually on the front or side of the printer. Most of the time, it will be labeled with the PictBridge logo, when it has this feature.
As for your camera, it will probably come with a USB cable when you have PictBridge, allowing you to connect it to any printer compatible with that system or to a computer that intermediates the process. One side will have a standard USB connector, the other side will have a pin to match your camera, mini USB, for example.
Photo print controls from the camera usually have details that vary by brand, but in general, you connect the cable, you view the photos on the camera screen, you choose the photos you want to print, and then you give the print command.
Some camera models also offer editing options before printing photos. For more details about your equipment, refer to the camera manual or the manufacturer’s website.
The mobility and freedom of wireless photographic equipment is increasingly evident in today’s technological age, especially when printed from mobile phone cameras. This could not be different with photo printing, some printers allow you to print photos directly from the camera via bluetooth connection.
How you connect these two essential equipment to any professional photographer varies by manufacturer and specifications of your DSLR camera, as well as the printer selected for the job.
While some printers offer built-in Bluetooth, others need a USB adapter to make the connection, similar to a USB stick. However, once your computer is connected, the photo printing steps are the same as to use a USB cable connection.
Instead of groping with Bluetooth cables or connections, some people find it much easier to print photos directly from their camera’s memory card. Almost all you have to do is remove the card from your camera, insert it into the corresponding printer slot, browse the photos to find what you want to print and then choose the Print command.
However, before printing photos from the memory card, make sure that the printer supports a particular card format, including the physical characteristics of the memory card, capacity, and file format. Unfortunately, many newer printers are not compatible with the CompactFlash card, which is used in some cameras, so you should check this with the manufacturer before purchasing the printer.
Similarly, printers also tend to avoid using small memory cards, such as microSD cards, but with a suitable adapter, it is possible to use it on most printers on the market. printer’s manual or the manufacturer’s website to ensure that the printer supports this type of adapter connection.
Printers that print photos directly from memory cards usually allow you to view photos on an LCD screen, so you can choose an image and give the print command, but it’s worth visiting the menus and reading the printer’s manual to see other options.
Many, if not most, printers also allow you to specify the print size of the photo, so that you can, for example, print multiple images of different sizes on a single sheet of photo paper.
This photo printing mode, in fact, is a natural consequence of direct printing from cameras and memory cards, that is, a mixture of all the styles we have seen so far. The main reason for this is that the USB stick uses the same PictBridge connector as your camera, allowing you to print photos this way for most printers on the market.
In addition, the step-by-step way for printing photos directly from flash drives is the same as printing from a memory card, with the same reading and image processing in both cases. With this correlation, there are few, if any, printers that you can print directly from flash drives without being able to print from PictBridge-compatible cameras and memory cards.
However, the opposite is not true, many printers capable of printing from PictBridge-compatible cameras and memory cards cannot necessarily print from flash drives. However, the most interesting thing is that even printers with manuals and menus that do not mention this possibility, you can print from them without any problem.
Moraleja of history: If your printer offers direct printing from PictBridge-compatible cameras and memory cards, but doesn’t mention anything about flash drives, try printing to see if it works. When your printer does not print photos with a USB stick, it will send an error message immediately after logging in, enough to tell you that you cannot print from the USB stick. If you do not return a response, make sure that the option to print from a USB stick has not been suddenly added to the printer menu; Otherwise, try the menu options to print from a memory card. In many cases, they work to print photos to the USB stick in the same way.
While direct photo printing is probably the easiest way to print high-quality photos, printing from a computer isn’t very difficult, especially if you’re taking advantage of the photo printing features built into Windows. Move the photos to the computer.
Most digital cameras come with utilities to copy photo files from your camera to your hard drive. Files are often placed in special album folders that you can view and manage with the same software. Folders are often called automatically with the date the photos were taken. a system that some people like and others don’t, although it helps if you can add a descriptive sentence. However, with most cameras, you also have the ability to ignore these utilities and use the tools you already know in Windows.
If your computer includes a reader for your camera’s memory card format, you can connect the card directly to the computer and copy the files. Alternatively, by connecting almost any newer camera model to your computer’s USB port, using the cable provided with the camera, Windows will recognize it as a camera or as a USB mass storage device. In the first case, you will find the camera in the list of Scanners and Cameras. In the second, it will appear as a disk player. you can treat it as a drive, using Windows Explorer to copy or move files from the camera to the hard drive.
Depending on how Windows recognizes camera memory, you may need to navigate to the folder on the memory card. Once you have copied the photos to your hard drive, the obvious place to place them is in the My Pictures folder (according to the Windows version).
As an organizational criterion I recommend that you manage your files in subfiles, if you empty them all into a single folder the number of files will be overwhelming and almost impossible to find your favorite photos, for example you can create an Anniversary folder, and then create separate folders for each birthday. Also note that there’s no reason why you should put everything in the My Windows Images folder, you can use other folders at will, as long as you can get the minimum organization you need.
To view photo thumbnails in any folder, while working on Windows 10, Windows 7, or Windows Explorer View versions, choose the AFFICHER option in File Explorer, then select from medium, large, or very large icons. Select the More Options button to get a list of views, or right-click an empty area of the window, you can also press the Maj F10 keyboard shortcut to open a menu that includes the View option.
There are several options for printing photos from a computer. Since the problem is how to print easily, we’ll stick to Windows photo printing options, specifically the Windows Photo Gallery app on Windows 7.
Windows Photo Gallery is installed by default with Windows Vista, but with Windows 7, it’s a free optional download, easily accessible on the Microsoft website. To see if you already have it on your system, open the Start menu and type photo gallery in the search text box. If it’s already installed, you’ll see it as an option you can click to open it. At any time, as long as you are connected to the Internet, you can go directly to the site to download it if it is not already installed on your computer.
To use Windows Photo Gallery, first make sure you include the file folder the image is in, or move or copy the image file to a folder already listed to make things easier. You can also add the appropriate folder to the gallery, to do this, click on the File option. Include the folder in the gallery. Then go to the folder where the file is located and choose OK. To print a photo, simply select the image file, click Print, choose the appropriate options in the Print Images dialog box, and give the print command.
You can also edit an image in the Windows Photo Gallery before printing it. Choose Correct from the main menu and you will see an automatic adjustment, as well as manual controls for brightness, contrast, color temperature, hue, saturation, etc. (There is much more to the Windows 7 version than in the Vista version). When you are satisfied with the changes, choose Print from the menu.
You may want to take advantage of programs with more sophisticated photo editing tools than you’ll find in the Windows Photo Gallery or in any printer’s menu. Options range from using a beginner photo editor that can be provided with your scanner, camera, or inkjet printer to professional-level programs like Adobe Photoshop. There are also many mid-range programs, such as Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Even if you switch to an editing program, a simple approach to photo printing is sometimes the best solution for a given circumstance. All approaches discussed here will be the best options in some cases, and should all be useful for your knowledge.
Just keep in mind that the bottom line of photo editing is the complexity you want to add to your photo printing, that is, for photographers who want more accurate images with few post-processing adjustments, the software mentioned in this article certainly can help you get the best result with hassle-free photo printing.
However, if your main interest is to add professional photo editing resources or correct images, you’ll need to opt for more comprehensive programs like Adobe Photoshop itself, for example.
Remember that this is a basic guide to printing photos, so not all tools and techniques for this purpose have been processed here, however, you can add your own advice in the comments field below or leave your opinion about it.