You know, it’s funny. On the sales floor, my HP spits out this gorgeous, picture perfect, high resolution demo photo - to prove its capabilities. And yet, when I go to print some scanned images (scanned in high enough res), the printer seems to “default” to a lower resolution causing my pictures to look so choppy.
Apparently, we have a few photo viewers (software packages) to choose from on our PC. My wife showed me the one that really does a great job, with many sizing options, and few hoops for me to jump through. Sure enough, the photos were picture-perfect (no pun intended). But, why should the viewing software matter at all?
In short, my question is this: Obviously, my HP can do just what they showed me in the store, but I don’t seem to have any control over this, correct? Why does the viewing software (seemingly) govern MY HP printer’s capabilities??? In my world, I thought any viewing software should be fine…thinking the resolution should be some printing option I should be able to control when I select “Print” from the “File” pulldown menu.
What’s the full story with printing decent quality (esp. full page) color photos? And, what control over this do I have? Am I at the mercy of the software?
Output resolution, as measured in dots per inch, is often a very poor method of determining quality once you exceed a certain value.
An image of decent quality should look pretty good when printed even at 300-400dpi provided that the output device can accurately produce those dots.
Computer screen typically have a resolution of 72-96dpi. As a result, it can be difficult to compare printed quality to on screen quality. Computer monitors are back lit with an antialiasing effect that allows for excellent viewing at a lower dpi than print.
You have a high level of control over your printer and the end result is that you are going wrong somewhere.
What software are you using? What printer is it? And yes…it should have options to set print quality (usually called Draft, Good, Better, Best…ect).
I’ll have to answer this piecemeal. First, I am trying to print from something simply called “Viewer”. (Is this like a generic kind of software for viewing photos, perhaps?) Anyway, I am printing on a HP deskjet 3820. I’ll have to dig out the user’s manual which might define the dpi for normal and high print quality. Could it be as simple as that?
Well, the only argument against that is how my wife uses something called Photoimpression 2000. Having watched her at work, I don’t recall seeing her ever really mess with the printer options. I’ll have to experiment a bit…
Does a jpeg file offer better resolution when printing, perhaps, than a GIF? If it matters, some of my photos are described as “Quick Time Picture” when viewing details. The icon has a little red apple in the center of the frame comprising the icon. Likewise, the “Viewer” (Picture Viewer, more correctly) software shows a little red apple in the upper left. (Is this just coincidence?) Oh, the photo was scanned in using PapertPort, if it matters.
I’m not using a Macintosh, but a lot of the old Mac stuff I once used had a similar apple on some icons and on the menu bars, too. Any relation? - Jinx
I’ll be happy to help you further, but initially I think you should go to the links below first to make clear that the printer is working correctly. I suspect you are having usage issues. Also, make sure you are using GOOD paper for your inkjet. Otherwise…it will always look bland.
JPEG: This file format can be fine for printing…however, if the file was saved with excessive compression to reduce size…it will loose quality. Don’t even expect to copy something off a web page to print and expect it to look great.
GIF: This format only supports 256 colors and in general is poor for printing. Great for web graphics in many ways (transperent channels and animation).
