I just bought a HP 812C color printer yesterday. First of all, what kind of software can I use to print my digital images? I have a Fuji MX700 that took picture in 640x480 and 1280x960 modes. I tried to print a 1280x960 on a 4x6" glossy paper but I just print a small middle portion of the picture. Do I need to resize it in Photoshop before I print it? Any good software that I can print my photo directly without resizing it? I wonder will I decrease the resolution if I resize it. Thanks. Another question is about the photo quality output of different printers. I would like to know whether the Epson Photo 750 is better this HP812C? What is the best printer less than $250? Would the ink of Epson Photo 750 be more expensive?

-- Jeffrey Fu (jfu@asl.dl.nec.com), October 27, 1999

Answers

Jeffrey,

I'm still struggling with questions about resolution and printing and using Photoshop to print images on my HP 970Cse. I do know that you can resize your image in Photoshop to 4x6, but when you do so be sure to uncheck the box that says resample the image and keep the check in the box that says constrain porportions. You will reduce the resolution by doing so, but the resolution should still be good enough to get the best quality print from your printer. I'm finding that even though my printer says it can do 2400x1200 dpi, in reality those are just the individual dots of the 4 separate colors along with white dots that combine to make a larger 'dot' that your eye detects as another color, such as a fleshtone or emerald green. It's hard to find out what the resolution of the actual larger dot is without doing lots of testing or research with your printer, but I've heard if you take the rated resolution and divide by 4 (maybe because of 4 ink colors) and that's a good number to start with. In your case, I think your printer is 600 dpi, so 150 dpi should be good image resolution to give you the best photo quality printout. Any more than that just adds stuff your printer can't print anyway.

I don't know about the Epson Photo 750. I've been considering that printer myself, but haven't found one locally to get a comparison. I was told that because it uses more ink colors and has smaller dots, it can reproduce fleshtones better. Now my new HP 970 printer supposedly can do as well with fleshtones (because of PhotoRetIII)and now has smaller dots. I guess that may be true, because from what I've read, the way for a 4 color printer to produce more variations of colors, you either add ink colors or add more smaller dots to give more variations within the same larger 'dot'. Hmmm...maybe the way to find out the resolution of the larger dot is to find out the number of colors the printer can do. Anyway, I've also read that you have to try both printers and see which looks best to you. Not very useful since that would require purchasing both and then returning the one you don't like.

I'm a complete novice at this, so take this info for whatever you think it's worth and I'd appreciate you sharing any additional info you may come across.

Brenda

-- Brenda F. Waltch (brendafw@gte.net), November 07, 1999.