Use only a printer
manufactured within the last 5 years (Canon,
Hewlett-Packard, or Epson are the brands most used by
experienced photographers.)
Newer ink designs are way better
than older inks. They work better and resist fading very
well.
Use your manufacturer's own ink
brand and not "refill" inks for wedding photos, to
avoid fading risks.
Use your manufacturer's
BEST GRADE of photo paper. The paper grade makes a
HUGE difference in image quality.
Buy a printer that uses AT LEAST
5 COLORS of ink. Six colors are better. Good 5-color or
6-color printers sell for less than $200. And truly first
rate 8-color printers start at $300 (Hewlett Packard
makes one.) Canon and Hewlett Packard printers, in
my own experience, have been less finicky to use than
Epson printers.
Most printers sold today use
only 4 colors. Some are only 3 colors. They simply do not
print enough detail for good wedding prints.
Those popular "Multi-function"
printers are ALWAYS just 3-color or 4-color designs so I
do not recommend them for wedding pictures. (The more ink
colors a printer has, the better it will show details,
and the flesh tones it prints will look more
natural.)
Important: When printing
pictures at home most users will need to add a "gamma
adjustment" to brighten up the prints. Epson, Canon,
and HP all have print dialog boxes (in their
software) which contains this manual adjustment
feature. My Epson printer routinely needs a +1.15 manual
gamma adjustment.
If you don't add a gamma
adjustment the prints will come out too dark, even when
the image looks perfect on your monitor screen. THIS
BRIGHTNESS PROBLEM OCCURS DUE TO A WELL KNOWN DESIGN
FLAW* and has nothing to do with the actual image quality
which the photographer captured in his camera!
When printing pictures at a
photo lab kiosk the same problem may occur.
SOME self service photo lab kiosks let you manually
brighten pictures before printing them. But not all of
them allow adjustements. (For example, Costco's printing
equipment is professional quality but their new kiosks
give you NO adjustments.)
Many labs & kiosks try to
fix the brightness problem with some kind of automatic
feature, but machines often guess wrong. It may work fine
on picture #1 and then is way, way off on picture #2.
Before printing a large
quantity, have test prints made and verify the results
first, to avoid waste.
Would you prefer to use a photo
lab instead investing in a $200 to $300 printer? If
so I recommend you choose a more expensive, pro-oriented
photo lab that offers "best quality" or "custom
print" grades. Use those magic words to find out
if a photo lab is capable of offering the quality you
need. And order prints in those grades ONLY. When you do
that, the lab is supposed to automatically make density,
gamma and color balance adjustments for you.
Warning: you MUST ask them to use their best quality
grade or they may print using economy grade. Best
quality/custom costs more but is worth it to avoid delays
& headaches.
We'll be happy to suggest some
local and online labs that offer best-quality service. We
want your prints to come out well because they're our
best advertising! Even if you don't order prints thru us,
we want your pictures to look their best. (Our local
recommendations are for the Sacramento and Roseville,
California area.)
Of course, if you're Doug's
customer, you can order reprints though us and we'll
automatically take care of those details.
