It is one thing to be able to take great pictures with your digital camera and quite another to then produce fantastic photographic prints. In the old days of film most photographers passed on the responsibility of making a print to their local photo store. Most, that is, except for a few dedicated individuals who spent their hours in small darkrooms under stairs or in the attic.

Digital has changed all this. Now more shooters than ever before are creating their own prints. Gone are the dank and smelly darkrooms. Now the center of home print production sits squarely on the desk in the form of a table-top printer.

Printing Basics

There are several different printer technologies that can turn your digital pictures into photographs. The most popular, at the moment, is the Ink Jet (or Bubble Jet) printer, followed by Dye Sublimation and Laser machines.

Creating Millions of Colors from as Little as Four

Each of the printing technologies creates the illusion of millions of colors in the photograph by separating the picture into four separate base colors (some systems use six or seven colors). In most cases, these colors are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. This type of separation is referred to as CMYK (where K stands for the black component), which has been the basis of newspaper and magazine printing for decades.

Once the picture is broken into these four colors, the printer lays down a series of tiny colored dots in a specific pattern on the paper. Looking at the picture from a distance, our eyes mix the dots together so that we see an illusion of many colors rather than just the four that the picture was created from.

Tones and Colors Made of Dots

To create darker and lighter colors the printer produces the colored dots at varying sizes. The lighter tones are created by printing small dots so that more of the white paper base shows through. The darker tones of the photograph are made with larger dots leaving less paper showing. This system is called halftoning. In traditional printing, such as that used to create the book you are now reading, different dot sizes, and therefore tone, are created by ‘screening’ the photograph. In desktop digital printing different shades are created using ‘simulated halftones’.

This process breaks each section of the image into minute grids. Then as part of the separation process, the printer’s software will determine the tone of each image part and decide how to best balance the amount of white space and ink dots in the grid in order to simulate this tone. Sound confusing? Well let’s use a simple example.

We are printing a black and white picture with a printer capable of five levels of tone:

• • White,
• • Light gray (25% gray),
• • Mid gray (50% gray),
• • Dark gray (75% gray) and
• • Black (100% black).

We are using black ink only. Let’s say that one part of the image is represented by a grid of two dots by two dots.

If this part of the picture was supposed to be white then the software would print no dots in the grid. If the area was light gray then one dot (out of a possible four) would be printed. If the image was a mid tone then two dots would be printed. If the shade was a little darker then three dots would be laid down and finally if this part of the photograph was black then all parts of the grid (that is, all four dots) would be printed.

Keep in mind that modern photographic inkjet printers are capable of many more levels of tone than the five used in our example. Also remember that different colored dots are being laid down at the same time. In this way both simulated tone and color are created by drawing the picture with a series of dots using a small set of printing inks. The fact that all the current crop of desktop printers handle this type of separation and the creation and application of the dots with such precision and speed is nothing short of a technological miracle. Now let’s look at the three main desktop printing technologies in turn.

The Inkjet Printer

Costing as little as US$100 the inkjet printer provides the cheapest way to enter the world of desktop printing. The ability of an inkjet printer to produce great photographs is based on the production of a combination of fineness of detail and seamless graduation of the color and tone. The machines contain a series of cartridges filled with liquid ink. The ink is forced through a set of tiny print nozzles using either heat or pressure. Different manufacturers have slightly different systems but all are capable of producing very small droplets of ink (some are four times smaller than the diameter of a human hair!). The printer head moves back and forth across the paper laying down color whilst the roller mechanism gradually feeds the print through the machine. Newer models have multiple sets of nozzles which operate in both directions (bi-directional) to give faster print speeds.

The most sophisticated printers from manufacturers such as Canon, Epson and Hewlett Packard also have the ability to produce ink droplets that vary in size. This feature helps create the fine detail in photographic prints. Most photographic quality printers have very high resolution approaching 6000 dots per inch, which equates to pictures being created with very small ink droplets. They also have 6, 7 or even 8 different ink colors enabling these machines to produce the highest quality prints. These printers are often more expensive than standard models but serious photographers will value the extra quality they are capable of.

Printers optimized for business applications are often capable of producing prints faster than the photographic models. They usually only have three colors and black, and so do not produce photographic images with as much subtlety in tonal change as the special photo models.

One of the real advantages of inkjet printing technologies for the digital photographer is the choice of papers available for printing. Different surfaces (gloss, semi-gloss, matt, iron-on transfer, metallic, magnetic and even plastic), textures (smooth, water color and canvas), thickness (from 80 gsm to 300 gsm) and sizes (A4, A3, 10 × 8 inch, 6 × 4 inch, Panorama and even roll) can all be fed through the printer. This is not the case with laser printing, where the choice is limited in surface and thickness, nor Dye Sublimation printing, where only the specialized paper supplied with the colored ribbons can be used.

Laser

Though most laser printers you see are used for black and white business prints more and more are capable of producing good quality color output. These devices use a modified version of photocopier technology to produce their crisp hard-edged prints.

They work by drawing the image or text to be printed onto a photo-sensitive drum using either a laser or a series of LEDs (light emitting diodes). This process changes the electromagnetic charge on the drawn sections of the drum. The drum is then passed by a dispenser and the oppositely charged toner (the ‘ink’ used by laser printers) is attracted to the drum, which then is passed by electrostatically charged paper where the toner is deposited. Color laser printers use four different drums for each of the separation colors – cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

The strengths of laser printers are their speed, cost per printed page and the sharp-edged clarity of the prints they produce. For businesses that regularly produce short runs of color brochures a color laser may be a cost-effective alternative to printing outside, but for the dedicated digital photographer, inkjet printers provide a cheaper way to produce photographic quality prints.

Dye Sublimation

Where laser and inkjet technology printing prowess is based on the creation of tone and color via discrete dots, Dye Sublimation printers use a different approach. Often called a continuous tone printing system, ‘Dye Sub’ machines create prints by laying down a series of overlapping transparent dyes to build up the picture.

Expensive when the technology was first released, these printers have gained more popularity as newer models have dropped in price and increased in speed and image quality. Rather than using a set of inks, color is added to the picture using a heating element to transfer dye from cyan, magenta, yellow and, in some machines, black ribbons onto a specially treated paper.

The dyes are absorbed into the paper surface leaving a slightly blurred edge which blends with adjacent colors and tones. This gives the image a continuous tone (non-dotty) appearance at relatively low resolutions (300 dpi) compared to inkjet technology equivalents.

The dyes are layered on a full paper size ribbon and each color is added in turn. With some machines a protective clear coating is also applied at the last stage in the process. Accurate registration is critical throughout the whole printing process.

Other Printing Processes

Though less well known, the following processes are also being used to produce photo images:

Thermal wax transfer – Initially designed for use in the graphic design and printing industries this technology uses very small heating elements to melt and transfer color wax from donor sheets onto the printing paper. These printers produce very strong and vibrant colors but sometimes struggle to create truly photographic prints.

Pictrography – Developed by Fuji, this system uses a three-color laser (red, green and blue) to draw the picture onto a donor paper at a resolution of about 400 dpi. The donor paper is then placed in contact with a printing paper and the image transferred using heated water. The final print is very similar to standard photographic paper.

Offset lithography – Used for printing newspapers and magazines. Typically a color image is separated into the standard four base colors (CMYK) and a halftone version of the image created at the same time. This produces four separate versions of the picture, one for each color, which are used to create four different printing plates. The color inks (called process colors) are applied to each plate and the printing paper is fed past each plate with the ink being laid down in registration.

Image Resolution vs Printer Resolution

As we have already seen from our discussions in Chapter 2 the true dimensions of any digital file are measured in pixels, not inches or centimeters. These dimensions indicate the total number of samples that were made to form the file. It’s only when an image’s resolution is chosen that these dimensions will be translated into a print size that can be measured in inches or centimeters.

The image resolution determines how the digital information is spread over the print surface. If a setting of 100 dpi is chosen then the print will use 100 pixels for each inch that is printed. If the image is 800 pixels wide then this will result in a print that is 8 inches wide. If the image resolution is set to 200 dpi then the resultant print will only be 4 inches wide because twice as many pixels are used for every inch of the print. For this reason the same digital file can have many different printed sizes.

With this in mind, the following table shows the different print sizes possible when the same picture is printed at different resolutions:

Printer resolution refers to the number of ink droplets placed on the page per inch of paper. Most modern printers are capable of up to 5600 dots per inch. This value does not relate to the image resolution discussed above. It is a measure of the machine’s performance not the spread of picture pixels.

Keep in mind that different printing technologies have different optimum resolutions. For example, perfectly acceptable photographic images are produced on Dye Sublimation machines with a printing resolution as small as 300 dpi, whereas the same appearance of photographic quality may require a setting of 1440 dpi on an inkjet machine.

14.01 Basic Steps

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Basic Related techniques – 14.04–14.08 Menus used – File

Let’s revisit the basic steps used in printing from Elements before introducing some advanced techniques that will really help you to produce top quality images from your desktop printer.

Make sure that your printer is turned on and your image is open in Elements. Select the Print option from the File menu (File > Print). If your print was too big for the page in earlier versions of the program then a Clipping Warning will appear indicating that part of your image will be truncated if you proceed. You could choose to squeeze the picture onto the paper by checking the Scale to Fit Media box, click preview to take you directly to the Print Preview dialog or select OK to continue printing the trimmed image. This will open up the printer’s control panel, often called the Printer Driver dialog. The type and style of dialog that you see will be determined by the printer manufacturer and model that you own. Here I have shown a dialog box or printer driver typical for Epson machines.

A Little More Sophistication

Thankfully in version 5.0 of Photoshop Elements the whole process has been simplified. Now choosing the File > Print option takes you directly to the Print Preview option. With this dialog you preview your picture as it will appear on the printed page. This thumbnail snapshot of picture on page means that problems with sizing and picture orientation are immediately obvious. You can choose to let the program adjust the picture size to suit the paper automatically by employing the Scale to Fit option you can manually position and size the image. Simply deselect the Scale to Fit and Center Image options and choose the Show Bounding Box feature. Now you can drag the picture around the paper surface and scale the printed image using the corner handles in the thumbnail. To adjust paper size and orientation or change the printer you are using to output your image select the Page Setup button and input the values you require in the Page Setup dialog.

The Print Preview feature also provides the option for users to better control the way that Elements communicates how the colors in the picture will output to the printer. By ticking the Show More Options box and selecting the Color Management item from the drop-down list you can define the precise color profile to use when printing. Most photo-quality printers now include generic profiles that are copied to your system when you install your printer drivers. To ensure the best color reproduction from your printer select the precise profile for your model from the drop-down list. With the color management, paper size and orientation as well as image size and position set, pressing the Print button will start the output process.

Basic Settings

All the basic printer settings are controlled via the Printer Driver dialog. This is different for each printer model but generally contains similar controls (even if they are named slightly differently). Check to see that the name of the printer is correctly listed in the Name box. If not, select the correct printer from the drop-down menu. Click on the Properties button and choose the ‘Main Tab’. Select the media type that matches your paper, the Color option for photographic images and Automatic and Quality settings in the mode section. These options automatically select the highest quality print settings for the paper type you are using. Click OK.

Select the Paper tab to alter the paper size and its rotation. Also nominate if the paper is being loaded from the sheet feeder or via a roll. Click OK. Select the Main tab once more and input the number of copies you want to print. Click OK to start the print process. Depending on the size of your picture and the quality of the print this part of the process can take a few minutes before you will see any action from the printer.

14.02 Creating Contact Sheets

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0 | Difficulty level – Basic | Related techniques – 8.03 Menus used – File

With the one simple Contact Sheet command Elements can create a series of small thumbnail versions of photos in a catalog or those that were multi-selected before opening the tool. These small pictures are automatically arranged on pages and labelled with their file names. From there it is an easy task to print a series of contact sheets that can be kept as a permanent record of the folder’s images. The job of selecting the best pictures to manipulate and print can then be made with hard copies of your images, without having to spend the time and money to output every image to be considered. This is a real bonus for digital photographers as it provides a quick tactile record of their day’s efforts. Elements 5.0 contains a version of the feature that is part of the Print Multiple Photos dialog and is easier to use than the File > Contact Sheet II version that was found in earlier versions of the program.

14.03 Multiple Prints on a Page

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Basic | Related techniques – 14.02 | Menus used – File

The Picture Package option extends the contact sheet idea by allowing you to select one of a series of predestined multi-print layouts that have been carefully created to fit many images neatly onto a single sheet of standard paper. Previously located in the Print Layouts section of the File menu where the Contact Sheet command was also placed, the revamped Picture Package has now been integrated into the Print Multiple Photos dialog. Macintosh users can access the feature via the File menu in the Editor or under the Automate menu in the file browser.

There are designs that place multiples of the same size pictures together and those that surround one or two larger images with many smaller versions. The feature provides a preview of the pictures in the layout. You can also choose to repeat the same image throughout the design by selecting the One Picture per Page option. There is no option to add labels as there was in version 2.0 of the feature, but you can select a frame from one of the many listed to surround the photos you print. Whichever layout and frame design you pick, this feature should help you to keep both family members and football associates supplied with enough visual memories to make sure they are happy.

Ensuring Color Consistency Between Devices

One of the biggest problems faced by the digital photographer is matching the color and tone in the scene with what they see on screen and then with what is output as a print. This problem comes about because when working digitally we use several different devices to capture, manipulate and output color photographs – the camera, or scanner, the monitor or screen, and the printer. Each of these pieces of hardware sees and represents color in a different way. The camera converts a continuous scene to discrete digital tones/colors, the monitor displays a full color image on screen using phosphors or filtered LCDs and the printer creates a hard copy of the picture using inks on paper.

One of the earliest and most complex problems facing manufacturers was finding a way to produce consistent colors across all these devices. As many readers will attest too, often what we see through the camera is not the same as what appears on screen, which in turn is distinctly different to the picture that prints. These problems occur because each device can only work with a small subset of all the possible colors. This set is called the color gamut of the machine. As the gamut changes from device to device so too does the range of colors in the picture. For example, the range of tones and colors the camera recorded may not be visible on screen and the detail that can be plainly seen on the monitor may be outside the capabilities of the printer.

Add to this scenario the fact that if I send the same image to three of my friends it will probably appear differently on each of their screens. On one it may be a little contrasty, on another too blue and on the last screen it could appear overexposed. Each of the monitors is interacting with the digital file in a slightly different way.

So with all these complexities are digital photographers condemned to poor color consistency? The answer is a resounding NO! Through the use of a color-managed system we can maintain predictable color throughout the editing process and from machine to machine.

Essentially color management is concerned with describing the characteristics of each device in the editing chain. This description, often called an ICC profile, is then used to translate image detail and color from one device to another. Pictures are tagged, when they are first created, with a profile and when downloaded to a computer, which has a profiled screen attached, the image is translated to suit the characteristics of the monitor. With the corrections complete the tagged file is then sent to the printer, where the picture is translated, again to suit the printer’s profile.

A similar scenario occurs when viewing files on different machines. As the picture is passed around, the profile for each monitor translates and accounts for individual hardware and color changes. The result is a picture that appears very similar on all devices.

Pro’s Tip: To ensure that you get the benefits of color management at home, be sure to turn on color management features for your camera, scanner, monitor, software and printer. Always tag your files as you capture them and then use this profile to help keep color consistency as you edit, output and share your work.

Color Management and Printing

So how does color management impact on our printing workflow? Well as we have already seen when dealing with resolution, so much of how we start the digital process determines the quality of our outcomes. Color management is no different in this respect. It is a fact that the digital photographer who considers color management at the point of shooting (or scanning), and then again when editing, will output better quality (and more predictable) printed images than one who doesn’t. So at each stage of the digital process – capture, manipulation (editing) and output – your pictures should be color managed.

Think of the whole system as a chain. The strength of your color management and therefore the predictability of the process is based on both the integrity of the individual links and their relationship to each other. The ICC profiles are the basis of these relationships. They ensure that each device knows exactly how to represent the color and tones in an image.

14.04 Setting Up a Color-Managed Workflow

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Intermediate Related techniques – 14.05, 14.06, 14.07, 14.08 | Menus used – File

Now that I have convinced you that a color-managed system has distinct quality advantages over a ‘hit and miss’ non-managed approach, you will, no doubt, be eagerly wanting to make sure that you are working this way at home. So here are the steps that you will need to follow to put in place a full ICC profile color-managed system for capture, manipulation and print.

Scanners and Cameras

Start by searching through the manuals for your digital camera and scanner to find references for ‘Changing Color Spaces’ or ‘Tagging your Scanned File’. Most cameras automatically tag the images they make with the sRGB ICC profile. Even if there is no mention of attaching profiles to pictures in the camera documentation, don’t assume that the file is being imported without a profile. It may be that this function is occurring in the background and that your particular camera does not offer the facility to change or manipulate the camera’s color profile.

To check to see if your pictures are tagged, open the file in the Elements Editor and click the sideways arrow at the left of the status bar (at the bottom of the picture window) to reveal a flyout menu. Choose the Document Profile option from the list. Now to the left of the arrow you will see the profile name attached to your file. If the picture is not tagged then it will be labelled ‘Untagged RGB’. Alternatively, you can also display the profile as part of the Info palette (Editor: Window > Info) by selecting the setting from the More Options button.

Some more expensive cameras contain the ability to alter the default profile settings, allowing the user to select different color spaces. For the moment just make sure that the camera is attaching a profile to your images. We will discuss ‘which profiles are best to use when’ later in this chapter.

Do the same type of investigation for your scanner. Unfortunately you will probably find that most entry level scanners don’t seem to have color profile options, but this situation is changing. Many more budget models are ‘profile aware’ so make sure you search the preferences part of your scanner driver carefully to ensure that all color management options are turned on.

Monitors and Screens

Now let’s turn our attention to our screen or monitor. Most manufacturers these days supply a general ICC profile for their monitors that installs with the driver software when you first set up your screen. The default profile is generally the sRGB color space. If you want to check what profile is set for your monitor then Windows users will need to view the options in the Advanced settings of the Display control panel. If you are working on a Mac computer using OSX then you will find a similar group of settings in the Color section of the Display control panel which is located in the System Preferences.

At this stage, simply ensure that there is a profile allocated for your screen. In the following techniques I will show you how to create specific profiles for your screen using either the monitor calibration utility that comes with Elements, Adobe Gamma, or using a hardware tool called a Spyder.

Image Editing Program – Photoshop Elements

In previous versions of the program Elements offered three options for color management – No color management, Limited color management and Full color management. Users could nominate the option that they wished to use for an editing session by clicking on a Radio button in the Color Settings dialog (Edit > Color Settings). To use a fully managed workflow you needed to pick the Full color management option as this is the only choice that made use of a complete ICC profile workflow.

From version 4.0 of Elements Adobe revamped the color management system to make it easier to understand and more logical to use. You now have four options to choose from in the Color Settings dialog. In addition to these settings you also have the ability to change the profile attached to your photo or even remove it totally.

To ensure that Elements is operating with a color-managed workflow think about how you would normally view your work and then choose between Screen Optimized and Print Optimized options. If you need image-by-image control over what profile is used then select the Allow Me To Choose setting.

Assigning Rather than Converting Profiles

Selecting one of the options in the Image > Convert Color Profile menu will convert the picture’s color to the selected color space. However if you press Ctrl when selecting a new profile, it will apply the profile without converting. This gives the image the appearance that it has been converted but maintains the underlying colors of the original. This option is the same as Photoshop’s Assign Profile command.

sRGB Versus Adobe RGB

The two color space options available in Photoshop Elements 4.0 are widely used industry standards. AdobeRGB encompasses a range of colors (color gamut) that more closely matches the characteristics of both desktop and commercial printers, whereas sRGB is a profile that is very closely aligned with the gamut of the average computer screen. Choosing which profile to use as your standard will depend largely on what will be the final outcome of the majority of your work.

Printer

The photo quality of desktop printers is truly amazing. The fine detail and smooth graduation of vibrant colors produced is way beyond my dreams of even just a few short years ago. As the technology has developed, so too has the public’s expectations. It is not enough to have colorful prints; now the digital photographer wants these hues to be closely matched with what is seen on screen. This is one of the reasons why a lot of printer manufacturers are now supplying generic, or ‘canned’, printer profiles. Using such profiles at the time of printing greatly increases the predictability of your output.

To check that you have a printer profile installed on your system open the Color Management section of the printer driver and search the list of installed profiles for one that matches your machine. If one is not listed then check the manufacturer’s website for the latest drivers or profile updates. The general nature of these profiles means that for most pictures, on most surfaces, you will get a good result, but for the best prints you will need a different set up for each paper stock that you use. Some manufacturers provide matched profiles for all the media they supply, which makes the job of choosing a suitable profile much easier. Later in this chapter I will show you how to customize your printer’s output specifically for output on different speciality papers.

14.05 Calibrating Your Screen – Adobe Gamma

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Intermediate Related techniques – 14.04–14.08 | Tools used – Adobe Gamma

The profile that is included with your screen drivers is based on the average characteristics of all the screens produced by the manufacturer. Individual screens will display slightly different characteristics even if they are from the same manufacturer and are the same model number. Add to this the fact that screens’ display characteristics change as they age and you will start to understand why Adobe packaged a monitor calibration utility with Elements.

Designed to account for these age and screen-to-screen differences the Adobe Gamma utility provides a way for users to calibrate their monitor and in the process write their own personal ICC screen profile. The program provides a step-by-step wizard that sets the black and white points of the screen, adjusts the overall color and controls the contrast of the mid tones. When completed these settings are saved as an ICC profile that Adobe Gamma loads each time the computer is switched on.

In Windows Adobe Gamma is located in control panels or the Program Files/Common Files/Adobe/Calibration folder on your hard drive. For Macintosh users with OS9 and Elements 1.0 and 2.0, select the option from the Control Panels section of the Apple menu. OSX users should use Apple’s own Display Calibrator Assistant as Adobe Gamma is not used in the new system software. Regular calibration using this utility will keep the output from your workflow consistent and will also help to ensure that what you see on screen will be as close as possible to what others with calibrated systems also see. Keep in mind though that for the color management to truly work, all your friends or colleagues who will be using your images must calibrate their systems as well.

Before you start the calibration process make sure that your monitor has been turned on for at least 30 minutes to warm up.

14.06 Calibrating Your Screen – ColorVision Spyder

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Intermediate Related techniques – 14.04–14.08 | Tools used – ColorVision Spyder

For more accuracy when calibrating their screens professional photographers often use a combined hardware/software solution like the well-known Spyder2 from ColorVision (www.colorvision.com). Like Adobe Gamma the system will calibrate your screen so you can be sure that the images you are viewing on your monitor have accurate color, but unlike the Adobe utility this solution does not rely on your eyes for calibration accuracy.

Instead the ColorVision option uses a sevenfilter colorimeter attached to the screen during the calibration process. This piece of hardware samples a range of known color and tone values that the software displays on screen. The sampled results are then compared to the known color values, the difference calculated and this information is then used to generate an accurate ICC profile for the screen. Unlike the Adobe Gamma approach this method does equire the purchase of extra software and hardware but it does provide an objective way for the digital photographer to calibrate their screen. The ColorVision Spyder2 system works with both CRT (standard) and LCD (flat) screens.

In previous versions of the program the calibration process contains two steps handled by two separate utilities:

1. PreCAL, which is used to set the white and black points of your screen as well as balance the red, green and blue components of the display, and

2. OptiCAL, designed to calibrate the screen and create a monitor profile that will ensure that colors and tones will be displayed accurately.

In the latest release these steps have been combined into a single step-by-step wizard.

Getting Intimate with Your Printer

With the screen now well and truly calibrated and our scanner, camera and printer all ICC profiled terrific prints should be certain to follow, and in most cases this is true. But despite the use of a fully profiled system there are still those annoying occasions where the print doesn’t meet our expectations. As long as you keep to standard papers and paper surfaces these occasions won’t be too frequent, but the more that you experiment with different paper types and finishes the more you will be presented with unexpected results.

The culprit is the generic print profile supplied with your machine. By definition it is designed to provide good results with average images, surfaces and paper types. For those of you who want a little more than ‘average’ results you can fine-tune your printer profile for different paper and surface types.

As was the case with screens, here too we have a couple of different approaches. The first makes use of the extra color controls hidden away in the printer driver to modify your output and the second uses another ColorVision hardware/software solution to create separate print profiles for each paper type and surface that you use.

14.07 Calibrating Your Printer – Resolution, Color, Tone and Sharpness Tests

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Intermediate Resources – Web text images 14.07-1, 14.07-2 | Related techniques – 14.04–14.08

Good prints are made from good images and, as we know from previous chapters, digital image quality is based on high image resolution and high bit depth. Given this scenario, it would follow that if I desire to make the best prints possible, then I should at first create pictures with massive pixel dimensions and huge numbers of colors. The problem is that such files take up loads of disk space and, due to their size, they are very, very slow to work with, to the point of being practically impossible to edit on most desktop machines.

The solution is to find a balance between image quality and file size that still produces ‘good prints’. For the purposes of this book ‘good prints’ are defined as those that appear photographic in quality and can be considered visually ‘pixel-less’. As we have also seen the quality of all output is governed by a combination of the printer mechanism, the ink set used and the paper, or media, the image is printed on. To find the balance that works best for your printer set up and the various papers that you use, you will need to perform a couple of simple tests with your printer.

Testing Tones

There are 256 levels of tones in each channel (red, green and blue) of a 24-bit digital image. A value of 0 is pure black and a value of 255 is pure white. Desktop inkjet machines do an admirable job of printing most of these tones but they do have trouble printing delicate highlight (values of between 230 and 255) and shadow (values between 0 and 40) details. The absorbency of the paper in combination with the inkset and the printer settings means that some machines will be able to print all 256 levels of tones whilst others will only be able to output a smaller subset. Being able to predict and account for lost shadow and highlight tones will greatly improve your overall print quality.

To test your own printer/ink/paper set up make a stepped grayscale that contains separate tonal strips from 0 to 255 in approximately five-tone intervals. Alternatively, download the example grayscale from the book’s website (www.adv-elements.com). Print the grayscale using the best quality settings for the paper you are using. Examine the results. In particular, check to see at what point it becomes impossible to distinguish dark gray tones from pure black and light gray values from white. Note these values down for later use as they represent the range of tones printable by your printer/paper/ink combination.

When you are next adjusting the levels of an image to be printed, move the Output sliders at the bottom of the dialog until black and white points are set to those you found in your test. The spread of tones in your image will now meet those that can be printed by your printer/paper/ink combination.

Testing Resolution

Modern printers are capable of incredible resolution. Some are able to output discrete dots at a rate of almost 6000 per inch. Many users believe that to get the utmost detail in their prints they must match this printer resolution with the same image resolution. Although this seems logical, good results can be achieved where one pixel is printed with several printer dots. Thank goodness this is the case, because the result is lower resolution images and therefore more manageable, and smaller, file sizes. But the question still remains – exactly what image resolution should be used?

Again a simple test can help provide a practical answer. Create a high-resolution file with good sharp detail throughout. Using Image > Resize > Image Size make a series of 10 pictures from 1000 dpi to 100 dpi reducing in resolution by a factor of 100 each time. Alternatively download the resolution examples from the book’s website. Now print each of these pictures at the optimum setting for your machine, ink and paper you normally use. Next examine each image carefully. Find the lowest resolution image where the picture still appears photographic. This is the minimum image resolution that you should use if you want your output to remain photographic quality. For my set up this setting varies from between 200 and 300 dpi. I know if I use these values I can be guaranteed good results without using massive file sizes.

Testing Color

For the majority of output scenarios, using the ICC profile that came with your printer will provide good results. If you do happen to strike problems where images that appear neutral on screen continually print with a dominant cast then most printer drivers contain an area where individual colors can be changed to eliminate casts.

Wayward color casts often occur when non-standard papers are used for printing. The cause can be the base color of the paper itself, the absorbency of the paper or the type of surface being printed upon. Eliminating all-over casts is possible using the Color Adjustment sliders found in the Printer dialog.

Determine the exact settings you need for a specific paper type by running a series of print tests, carefully adjusting the color settings until the resultant output is cast-free. Save the corrective settings for use whenever you want to output using the same paper, ink and printer combination.

Testing Sharpness

Often overlooked but definitively just as important is the amount of sharpness that is applied to the photo. Unfortunately most image-makers apply a standard degree of sharpening to all their photos irrespective of the final printed size, subject matter and the stock that they will be reproduced upon. And just like other settings when it comes to sharpness, one size definitely does not fit all.

To find what works best for your set up, copy an indicative section of you image and duplicate it several times (at 100%) in a new document. Open the Adjust Sharpness filter selecting each duplicate in turn and filtering the picture part using successively more aggressive settings. Note down each of the settings for use later. Now print the test file using the same set up that you use for making final prints. Carefully examine the printed results using the same lighting conditions and viewing distance that will be used to display the print and select the best overall sharpness. This part of the process is pretty subjective but most viewers can pick over- and under-sharpened images when confronted with several versions of the same image sharpened to different degrees, making the task of selecting the best sharpness much easier. Now to apply the sharpness to the original print photo. Rather than applying the filter directly to the document it is best to sharpen a copy and save this duplicate with a name that includes it’s intended outcome, i.e. ‘portrait-A3-Epson2400-sharpened’.

14.08 Calibrating Your Printer – ColorVision PrintFIX

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Intermediate Related techniques – 14.04–14.08 | Tools used – ColorVision PrintFIX

Want to take your printer calibration one step further? The dream printing set up for most photographers is a situation where they have a profile created specifically for each of their paper, ink and printer combinations. Until recently this way of working has indeed been a dream, as the hardware and software system needed for creating high quality printer profiles could cost well over $1800. But ColorVision (www.colorvision.com) now produces a more economical option designed specifically for the digital photographer. Just like the Spyder, ColorVision’s PrintFIX comprises a hardware and software solution that takes the guesswork out of calibrating your printer’s output. The process involves three easy steps (illustrated below):

(a) Output a set of color test patches from your printer using the ink and paper you want to calibrate,

(b) Read the patches using a modified scanner supplied with the system, and

(c) Use the supplied calibration utility to generate an ICC printer profile based on the scanner output.

Using this system you can build a complete set of profiles for all the papers that you use regularly. The system saves you time and money by reducing the waste normally associated with getting the perfect print on varying paper stock.

14.09 Making Great Black and White Prints

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Intermediate Resources – Web image 14.9 | Menus used – File

Photography has had a long history of fine black and white print making. Practitioners like the famed Ansel Adams took the craft to dizzy heights, inventing the Zone system along the way. It wasn’t too long ago that digital prints were judged not by their visual quality but by their ability to disguise their pixel origins. Thankfully, shooting and printing technology has improved to such an extent that we are now released from the ‘guess if I’m digital’ game to concentrate on more important things, like making great images. After all, this is the reason that most of us got into photography in the first place. But producing high quality black and white prints digitally, even with a fully color-managed system, does have its problems. In my experience making great monochrome prints relies heavily on choosing the right paper and inks to print with.

Choosing Paper and Inks

There is now an incredible range of papers and inks that are suitable for use in desktop printers. The combination you choose will determine the ‘look and feel’ of your prints. One of the first things that screams quality is the type of stock that your images are printed on. Fiber-based papers have always held a special place within the photographic community. Images produced on this type of paper ooze quality and demand respect. Professionals and amateurs alike take a lot of time, and spend a lot of money, choosing the right paper for their photographs.

Selecting which paper to use when you are digital printing is no different. Surface, weight and base tint should all be carefully considered and tested before making your final decision. The papers supplied by your printer manufacturer provide the easiest way to obtain predictable nd reliable quality output. The surfaces of these papers are often specially designed to work in conjunction with the inks themselves to ensure the best balance of archival stability and image quality. But this is not the limit of your choices; there is a myriad of other papers available from photographic companies such as Kodak and Ilford as well as paper manufacturers like Somerset. Often specialist suppliers will sell you a sample pack containing several paper types so that you can test the papers that work best for you.

There are also decisions to be made about the inks to use to make your prints. The cartridges supplied and recommended by your printer’s manufacturer are specifically designed to work in conjunction with your machinery. These ink sets provide the quickest way to get great photo-realistic images. But along with standard four- or five-color inksets you now also have a choice of printers that make use of multiple blacks (black plus varying shades of gray) as well as cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY). The mid tone and light gray inks are used to create the tones in monochrome pictures and replace the colored dots that have previously been employed for the same job. Using this approach, digital photographers can produce the rich and smoothly graduated monochrome output they have preciously created traditionally, without any of the problems of strange and unwanted color casts creeping into their black and white prints.

Why Use Monochrome Inks?

Most photo-quality inkjets use the three colored inks as well as black to produce monochromes. Using the four inks (sometimes six – five colors plus black) provides the greatest range of tonal levels. With dot sizes now being so small it is only under the closest scrutiny that the multi-colored matrix that lies beneath our black and white prints is revealed. Balancing the different colors so that the final appearance is neutral is a very tricky task. Too many dots of one color and a gray will appear blue, too few and it will contain a yellow hue. For most users slight color variations are not a problem, but for image-makers with a monochrome heritage to protect, nothing less than perfection is acceptable.

Too often the black and white prints produced using a color ink set contain strange color casts. For the most part these errant hues are the consequence of mixing different ink types and paper products and can be rectified with a little tinkering of the printer driver’s color settings or by using a custom-made profile. One paper I use, for instance, continually presents me with magentatinged black and white prints. But as the cast is consistent across the whole of the tonal range, I am able to rid the pictures of this tint by adjusting the Magenta/Green slider in the printer settings. I saved the set up that produced a neutral image and now use it each time I print to this surface.

It is not these consistent casts that cause much concern amongst the critical desktop printing fraternity, rather it is the way that some printers produce a different cast for highlights and shadows. As we have seen already in this chapter, as part of my printer set up procedure I always output a grayscale to help me determine how the machine handles the spread of tones from highlights to shadows. The test prints remain fairly neutral when they are made with the manufacturer’s recommended papers, but as soon as I start to use different stock, the gray tonal scale ceases to be so gray. For the occasional print, I can put up with the strange colors present in my black and white masterpiece, but for the dedicated monochrome producer it is enough to send them screaming back to the darkroom. Well almost!

Specialist Ink Sets – the Solution for Monochrome Printing

With just this type of situation in mind several of the bigger printer manufacturers are now producing specialist machines that are much more suited to monochrome printing. The system they use is simple – rather than trying to create grays from three or more colors, these printers use extra gray inks for the task. So, in addition to the standard colors – CMY, the manufacturers have added in extra gray inks to create a seven- or even eight-color cartridge. All gray inks are derived from the same pigment base as the black, so prints made with these cartridges contain no strange color casts. That’s right, no color casts! That’s no overall magenta tint with my favorite paper, or strange color changes in the shadows and highlights of my grayscales.

Printing with a specialist monochrome printer is the closest thing to making finely-crafted fiber-based prints that the digital world has to offer. Not only are your images cast-free, they also display an amazing range of grays. With pictures that have been carefully adjusted to spread image tones and retain shadow and highlight details, the multi-black system produces unparalleled quality prints on a wide range of gloss, satin, matt and fine-art stock.

14.10 What about Permanence?

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 Difficulty level – Intermediate

So with the availability of such great products that produce fantastic images most photographers believe that we are living in Desktop Printing Navarna. To some extent this is true. The tools for the creation of great looking prints are well within the reach of most of us, but the youth of the technology in conjunction with our haste to embrace all that is digital, has us forgetting, or at the very least overlooking, some of the lessons of the past. Many photographic enthusiasts still see the 50s, 60s and 70s as golden years of print production. Then, just like now, countless image-makers were taking control of the print production process by setting up their own darkrooms and churning out high quality black and white prints.

The best crafted prints made during this period exhibit many of the characteristics we still value today. They are sharp, show good gradation and exhibit an exceptional range of gray tones, from deep blacks through to delicate highlights. In addition to the presence of these obvious image-quality characteristics, many of the prints made in this period also boast exceptional permanence characteristics. Put simply, if well cared for, these prints will last a long time, no make that a very long time, with little or no fading. Much time and effort was spent by companies and practitioners alike establishing archival print processing systems that would ensure that the images we created would last a lifetime. It was against this historical background that the first color print processes were introduced and, more recently, the first digital print systems invented.

New Doesn’t Always Mean Better

In embracing these new printing possibilities it seems that sharpness, gradation and gamut were held up as the quality characteristics to be cherished and poor old permanence ‘faded’ into the background. For a few rocky years image-makers were teased with the release of new printer models that boasted better resolution, tonal gradation and color gamut, but these advances were coupled with permanence characteristics that were well short of expectations. Thankfully this is no longer the case. All the major printer companies have spent the last few years chipping away at the print permanence issue and now we are blessed with a range of machines that not only produce a great looking print but also one that will last.

Print Systems are More than a Sum of Their Parts

By combining specialist inksets with matched papers and customized print heads, companies like Epson and Hewlett Packard have been able to achieve substantial increases in the projected life of their prints, without sacrificing the other image qualities that we all hold so dear. This revolution started in the high end or pro range of printers but now has filtered down to entry level machines. Permanence ratings beyond four score years is now a regular occurrence, with several ink, paper, printer combinations breaking the 100 year barrier.

The extended print life is directly related to the interaction of the matched papers and inks. Despite what you read in advertising campaigns, or even on the packets of ink and paper produced by third-party vendors, not all inks and paper combinations will provide this same level of permanence. Sure, the print might look the same when it exits the machine with sharpness, color, tonal range and brightness all equivalent to a photo produced with OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) supplied materials, but it is only further down the track that the differences in permanence become apparent. So if the image quality is comparable for photos produced with a variety of inks and paper combinations (both OEM and third-party) how do we tell if a print is going to last the distance? By testing its permanence.

Testing Permanence

Thankfully the major players in the world of inkjet printing markets, Epson, Hewlett Packard, Canon and Lexmark also uphold permanence as a key component of print quality. Over the last few years these companies have been instrumental in improving the longevity of their own print systems. In addition they have taken the permanence bull by the horns and have been testing the life of their products and publishing these results so the consumer can make informed decisions about their purchases.

But judging print permanence is a tricky proposal. After all how do you really know how long a print will last unless you are there to view it after the 100-year predicated life? Most industrybased tests are predictions based on light, humidity and temperature levels of an average display location. Rather than expose the print to these variables over a long period the photos are given a shorter exposure to a much brighter light source and the results then extrapolated back to the standard viewing conditions. With these results it is possible for manufacturers to predict the performance of individual printer, ink and paper combinations and for consumers to have confidence in the longevity of the prints they make.

Comparing ‘Apples with Apples’

Most manufacturers have settled on average display light levels of between 450 or 500 lux per 12-hour day as the basis of their predicated permanence ratings. I say most because there are still some players in the third-party media and ink market who either don’t publish their permanence findings at all or who use lower daily light exposure values to generate higher-predicted print life figures. As you can expect, this leads to much confusion when it comes time to purchase media and inks, with claims and counter claims of predicted print life featuring prominently on packaging of competing products.

How Long will my Prints Last?

To solve this problem many companies submit their products for testing and evaluation to Wilhelm Imaging Research, a well-respected independent testing company, to provide comparative results produced under the same stringent conditions. This process has worked quite successfully for the last few years with consumers ‘in the know’ seeking out the valuable testing results that are freely published on the company’s website – www.wilhelm-research.com. The information is then used to inform print system purchasing decisions or provide data about predicted life expectancy of specific printer, ink and paper combinations.

The WIR Certification Program

Taking the idea further, in 2005 the top four manufacturers of inkjet printers, inks, and inkjet photo papers worldwide – Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Canon and Lexmark – endorsed an independent image permanence testing program that includes a certified seal for print and ink packaging. With testing data supplied by the Wilhelm Imaging Research center the WIR certification program will provide customers with standardized print longevity ratings. The program has three components:

(1) The WIR Certified Tests – A comprehensive set of test methods developed by Wilhelm Imaging Research to evaluate image permanence,

(2) WIR Test Data – Permanence data generated with the WIR Certified Tests, and

(3) The WIR Seal – Signifies that the product has been tested by WIR, and that detailed image permanence data is available on the WIR website.

The standardized image permanence test methods and specifications undertaken by WIR provide consumers throughout the world with ‘apples-to-apples’ comparisons for a wide range of inks and photo papers. The testing program and associated seal will help us all differentiate between printer manufacturers’ papers that have been optimized for that company’s inks, and third-party and store-label ‘universally compatible’ papers that may use less demanding test methods or supply no image permanence information at all about this critical – but initially hidden – aspect of total product quality. For example, WIR gave one leading third-party inkjet paper a WIR Display Permanence Rating of 11 years when printed with an HP printer and the HP No. 57 inkjet cartridge. The paper’s manufacturer rated the display life of the same paper at 162 years by using far less rigorous tests, with 120 lux UV-filtered illumination and measurements made at only a single density point rather than the two that is the standard with the WIR tests.

To qualify for use of the Seal, a product must have a minimum WIR Display Permanence Rating of 25 years and a WIR Album/Dark Storage Rating at least equal to the display rating. Complete results and details of WIR test methods are available at www.wilhelm-research.com. You will start to see the WIR seal appearing on the packaging of your favourite print products over the coming months but until then, for the latest information on print permanence, check out the WIR website.

14.11 Preparing Your Images for Professional Outsourcing

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Intermediate

Professional lab services are now expanding into the production of large and very large prints using the latest inkjet and piezo technology as well as digital images on color photographic paper. Now that you are part of the digital fraternity you too have the choice of outputting your humble Photoshop Elements images on these ‘big printing beasts’.

Outputting to color print paper via machines like the Lambda and Pegasus has quickly become the ‘norm’ for a lot professional photographers. Adjusting of image files that print well on desktop inkjets so that they cater for the idiosyncrasies of these RA4 machines is a skill that most of us are continuing to learn. The re-education is definitely worth it-with image quality and archival permanence of our digitally generated imagery finally meeting that of traditional prints as well as the expectations of photographers and their clients. But just when you thought that you could become complacent with your new skills the wide format printing market has really started to take off.

With improved quality, speed and competition in the area, the big players like Epson, Kodak and Hewlett Packard are manufacturing units that are capable of producing images that are not only stunning, but also very, very big. Pictures up to 54 inches wide can be made on some of the latest machines, with larger images possible by splicing two or more panels together. You can now walk into a bureau with a CD containing a favorite image and walk out the same day with a spliced polyester poster printed with fade-resistant all-weather inks the size of a billboard. Not that everyone wants their output that big but the occasional poster print is now a very real option.

Getting the set up right is even more critical with large format printing than when you are outputting to a desktop machine. A small mistake here can cause serious problems to both your 48 × 36 inch masterpiece as well as your wallet, so before you even turn on your computer talk to a few local professionals. Most output bureaus are happy to help prospective customers with advice and usually supply a series of guidelines that will help you set up your images to suit their printers. These may be contained in a pack available with a calibration profile over the counter, or might be downloadable from the company’s website. Some companies will check that your image meets their requirements before printing, others will dump the unopened file directly to the printer’s RIP assuming that all is well. So make sure that you are aware of the way the bureau works before making your first print.

14.12 Shoot Small Print Big

Suitable for Elements – 5.0, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0 | Difficulty level – Intermediate | Menus used – Image

You know the scenario. You hand over what in a lot of countries amounts to a year’s salary for a snazzy new digital camera with all the bells and whistles and a modest three megapixel sensor only to be told by someone like me in the preceding chapters of this book that you can now print great photoquality images – but only up to 10 × 8 inches. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.

The thinking behind such a statement is sound. As we saw earlier in this chapter the recommended image resolution for most inkjet and professional digital output is between 200 and 400 dots per inch. So if we divide the pixel dimensions of the sensor the recommended resolution for inkjet output (200 dots per inch) we will get the maximum print size possible. For example, if we divide an image produced by a chip that is 2000 × 1600 pixels by a resolution of 200 dpi then the maximum print would be 10 × 8 inches. If a higher resolution of 400 dpi was used then the final print size would be reduced to a mere 5 × 4 inches. Right? Wrong!

In truth, this is still the way to achieve the absolute best quality from your digital files. But for the average camera owner the promise of superb image quality is no consolation if all you want is a bigger print. When faced with this problem those ‘nonprofessional’ shooters amongst us have been happily upscaling their images using the Resample option in the Image Size feature of Elements, whilst those of us who obviously ‘know better’ have been running around with small, but beautifully produced, prints. After all it is common knowledge that increasing the numbers of pixels in an image by resampling or ‘interpolating’ the original data can only lead to unsharp, and more importantly, unacceptable, albeit large, pictures. Right! Well, sort of!

Quietly over the last few years and right under our very noses it seems, a small revolution in refinement has been happening in the area of interpolation technologies. The algorithms and processes used to apply them have been continuously increasing in quality until now they are at such a point that the old adages such as

• Sensor dimension / output resolution = maximum print size

don’t always apply. With the Bicubic option set in the Image Size dialog it is now possible to take comparatively small files and produce truly large prints of great quality. This process, often called interpolation or upscaling, artificially increases the number of pixels in an image so that with more image data in hand, bigger prints can be made.

Upscaling Techniques

So what are the steps involved in increasing the size of my pictures. Here I will demonstrate two approaches to upscaling (see page 389). The first is the simplest and involves inputting new values into Image Size dialog (a) and the second, called Stair Interpolation (b), uses the same technique but increases the size of the picture incrementally rather than in one jump. Stair Interpolation is the preferred approach by many professionals, who believe that the process provides sharper end results. Both approaches use the Image Size dialog and are based on the Bicubic interpolation option.

From version 4.0 several changes were made in the Image Size dialog and its options:

1.The Resample Image option is NOT checked by default when you first open the dialog;

2.Bicubic Smoother (for upscaling) and Bicubic Sharper (for downscaling) options have been added to the drop-down menu of resampling methods;

3.A Scale Styles option has been included to automatically adjust any styles present in the picture in proportion to any size changes made.

The Results

In the example (on page 387), image skin tones and other areas of graduated color handled the upsizing operation the best. Sharp-edged elements evident in the lash areas of the eyes and the straight lines of the buildings tended to show the results of the interpolation more clearly. Though not unacceptable at normal viewing distances for big-sized prints, image-makers whose work contains a lot of hard-edged visual elements and who rely on ultimate sharpness in these areas for effect will need to ‘test to see’ if the results are suitable for their style of images. For portrait, landscape and general shooters upscaling using either of the two approaches listed here is bound to surprise and excite.

I still cringe saying it, but it is now possible to break the ‘I must never interpolate my images rule’ in order to produce more print area for the pixels you have available.

I will provide some provisos though:

1.Images captured with the correct number of pixels for the required print job will always produce better results than those that have been interpolated.

2.The softening effect that results from high levels of interpolation is less noticeable in pictures with general content such as landscape or portrait images and more apparent in images with sharpedged elements.

3.The more detail and pixels in the original file the better the interpolated results will be, and a well-exposed sharply focused original file that is saved in a lossless format such as TIFF is the best candidate image for upsizing. The improved Bicubic Smoother resampling option found in version 4.0 and 5.0 of the program provides great upscaling results without the need for incremental resampling.

14.13 Printing workflow

The key to producing good quality prints is knowing the characteristics of your printer. No printer is going to produce perfect results on all paper types with all images. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your machine will help you ensure predictable results more often. And the foundation of all such predication is a good color-management system.

It may be implemented using the built-in features contained in your camera, scanner and printer controls in conjunction with the color-management system in Photoshop Elements or it may take a more sophisticated form relying on customized profiles generated with specialist products from companies like ColorVision.

Either way the important thing to remember is that you need to start thinking about image management right from the time that you shoot or scan.

If you want to enjoy all the rewards of high quality output then it is critical that you employ a holistic approach to color management.

Just as is the case with factors like resolution and bit depth, decisions about color management need to be made at the point of capture, not left till it comes time to print.