Photos are memories and unfortunately it seems we are losing them at a rate of knots. With the number of digital cameras being sold increasing every year, millions of precious pictures taken with them will never be printed!

There are a few very good reasons to print your photos:

• We are a tactile species and enjoy looking at prints in our hands. The family album is definitely not a thing of the past.
• Image longevity: Hard drives fail; CDs with images may become corrupted, or the technology may change and you may no longer be able to read them. Computers are not the best way to store data for a long time.

So making prints is a good idea.

Digital Printing Options

There are a number of options available for printing your digital images. Including:

• Inkjet or Color Laser Printers
• Photo Kiosks
• Photo Store
• Online Printing Services
• Prolabs

General Tips for printing

• Ensure you don’t reduce the size or resolution of your images before printing unless you know your image is too large. Because your computer’s screen resolution is relatively small, an image that looks fine on a computer screen after a resolution change may look blurry in print.
• If you’re not sure if an image is good enough quality to print, look at the file size for a guide. A size of 100 kilobytes is on the small size. 400 kilobytes is better and will normally allow a photo at 8″x10″ dimensions.
• Before you start each print job, check the printer settings (or preferences) and make sure you have selected the proper print size and type of paper (eg glossy, matte, plain).
• To save money, print a few different images on each sheet. The print wizard should give you a chance to select a particular page layout (eg two 5×7’s, four 3.5×5’s etc).
• Keep photo paper stored in a dark and cool place. Don’t leave it sitting in the printer tray. Exposure to sunlight and humidity will degrade this paper (as well as the prints you produce with it).
• Ink cartridges are expensive, so conserve ink wherever possible. If the image you are printing is, 400K in file size (or has a picture resolution of 300 dpi), and your print size is a small size (5×7 or smaller), select “normal” or “standard” print quality. If you select “high” or “best” or “maximum dpi” the printer will pump out more ink than is necessary without any real improvement in print quality. On the other hand, if you are printing large 8×10s, or if you have zoomed in, choose the top-quality print setting.

Learn the advantages and disadvantages of each of the different printing methods, plus much more, in my "Digital Photography Secrets" book.