condor wrote:
One of my club members just told me that if you use a Mac to edit your photos then download them to a disk or flash drive it always gives you 3 print resolutions and the printers always default to the lowest one (used for email)so you should always specify which one you want. Anyone know anything about this?
I have never seen this on any of my Macs. It might be a function in a non-professional software, but in photography, some variation of Photoshop is the standard. In Photoshop, YOU set the standards for your resolution. If you want multiple resolutions, just start with (and save) your high resolution master, then do a scale to a lower resolution, perhaps to make an 8x10ish print (and save that VERSION under a NEW name) and then scale again, to 72 dpi, for your Web version, and "save for Web" under yet ANOTHER name.
The "Save as..." command is the tool for the above saving ritual, which I do all the time, basically just the highest unaltered resolution, both in LAYERED mode, and one in FLATTENED mode, and then load the flattened high res and scale IT to the Internet, and "Save for Web" that one.
The flattened high resolution image always is save as a TIF. When I need to make an enlargement for 24x36 inch printing on my BIG Epson, I send the full res TIF file to PhotoZoom Pro 4, which is an excellent enlargement utility.
I also use PhotoZoom Pro 4 when I'm doing publications work and find sent-in files to be too small for publication. This happens more often than you can imagine, and Photo Zoom Pro saves the day, most of the time.
Find it here:
http://www.benvista.com/photozoomproNow, as to day to day printing versus photo printing...
I agree, inks are the bane of our lives, as they are costly. Yet, a 24x36 inch print specs out at less than $1 for ink and paper. Still, I think ink is expensive when ONE color cartridge costs $120, and the machine takes a BUNCH of them.
The smaller Epsons have proportionately scaled ink costs, so it's still a pricey thing. Oh, well, it is still MUCH cheaper than a lab (which I used to own) and it delivers the same, and in fact often, BETTER quality if only due to Photoshop magic.
That said, if you have a lot of day to day printing, and the Epson seems expensive to handle photo and everyday tasks, the trick is: buy a day to day printer and save the Epson for your photos.
The day to day printer I use is a Xerox color laser. These are professionally intended printers and are amazingly fast printing color and black and white, or just text pages. I recommend Xerox color lasers mightily. You almost immediately appreciate the move to corporate level printing. As many Xerox color lasers are Pantone Certified and all are CMYK, you can do magazine proofing on them... yay!
Good printing, everyone!