How to Print Photos the Right Way

Consider all the money, effort, and time that goes into printing photos at home, and you might think twice about DIY as the most professional option.
Photography is becoming an increasingly popular hobby among young people, and like with many disciplines these days, a do-it-yourself approach is what’s in style. You can spot plenty of young Brooklynites carrying cameras around their necks that many now consider archaic, going out of their way to find film that’s no longer commercially manufactured and take full control over their practice.
And that DIY attitude even carries all the way to handling the prints of your final product. Whether you’re shooting digitally or working with film, there are a few major and costly points you should take into consideration when trying to do your own printing.
Your own printer and a little gusto might give you some version of your work, but that method will not be affordable, practical, or produce anything that will truly give an impression of your talent as an artist.

Printer Problems

If you want to do this on your own, you’ll need a printer. And by that, I don’t mean just any printer — the one you got in that all-in-one-office deal won’t do justice to your gorgeous pictures. For a high-quality job, you’ll need a laser printer, which costs a pretty penny and, if you’re not skilled at maintaining it, will likely experience technological aneurysms after just a few prints.
Remember to check what the ink refills cost. Sooner rather than later, you’re going to have to replace that as well.

Pricey Paper

You could print on normal Xerox paper and put it behind a nice-looking frame, but it’ll look unpolished and yellow over time. Again, you’ll need to go for high-quality photo paper, which will again end up costing you a good chunk of change — especially if it’s specifically for your laser printer.
Finally, if you aren’t careful to make sure that your camera, printer, computer, and paper are all compatible with one another, you might find yourself attempting to return some fairly expensive items.

Color Trouble

Now comes the editing. You might dabble in Photoshop or a similar program, but you’ll need to adjust those skills for a new format and set of equipment. Color-correcting for a high-quality image is an entirely different animal from what you might already have encountered. Now you need to move onto picture number two — two hours later.

Time really does fly when you’re editing pictures by hand. An entire album of photos will occupy a sizable portion of your day — at least.

Live the Dream

While it’s completely understandable that you’d want to have as much control over your newfound passion as possible, what established artists in this business do is turn to the professionals at Printique.
What’s more, Printique gives you complete control over the final product. With our incredibly simple online ordering system, you can adjust your photo’s border, finish, and crop before the project hits the presses.
You can also choose to either to let the experts at Printique do the color-correction or print your photos as they are. Afterwards, each print will be inspected by a technician before they ship off your specially-packaged order.
It’s your job to capture your vision on camera — make it ours to put that vision on paper.