SOME PRINTING IDEAS AND TIPS

A FEW THOUGHTS ON PRINTING:

Most of my printable projects are made at 300 dpi however quite often elements will still print well if enlarged another 50% ie to 150% 0f original.

Similarly I have reduced the size of many of my pages to 8" X 8" for a small album and they look OK. If I intend doing that I like to keep the layout simpler ...but that is my taste :)

You may like to use papers in A4 or standard US letter size images too.

Getting to know my printer.
Investigating the quality options for printing is a must before tackling any high quality printing exercise. Choose the finest/best/highest quality for optimum results.
Use the correct settings for paper type. This can make a world of difference.

Printers vary a lot, so I would tend to select a small area of my project and do a couple of test runs for colour on scrap paper similar to what I would be using... looking carefully at skin tones in particular. I use Paint Shop Pro as an imaging programme and find the simplest method of colour adjustment is to add an adjustment layer for hue/saturation/ darkness. Often a minor adjustment there particularly with saturation will make a world of difference.

I know my old CRT monitor gives me a much more consistent matching with my printer output colour than my new LCD flat screen. If you are going to be doing a particularly important project it may be worth while calibrating your monitor and or printer. This article is worth checking out.

Precious Photos.

Many of the older family photos I have, have been given to me by relatives from all over the world and whatever the quality cannot be replaced. Before I use them in a page layout I often need to do a bit of digital repair work. I've learnt from bitter experience to always work on a digital copy of the original and make sure I give it a different file name before saving it.

I've also found that slight changes in the hue of both sepia and "black and white" photos can make all the difference to their look on a page.

In an Album.

I try to make my pages "flow" by using matching pages opposing and not too many abrupt changes in colour and style...sometimes a bit tricky. A method which sometimes works well is to reduce the size of my page to say 90% and lay it on a background of a plain colour which blends both with it and the previous page...even if that is black!

And yes...I've changed my colour scheme completely after seeing my pages all laid out even if only in my browser :)