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Tutorial 4: Printing Digital Files

This is the fourth in a series of tutorials about publishing a family history website. In this article I'll discuss ways to reprint old photos, and other documents, on inkjet printers. The last tutorial in this series discusses publishing your family history website.

High quality inkjet printing is demanding for both users and equipment. It is easy to produce mediocre inkjet prints but difficult to produce high quality, archival ones. As such there are only a few companies that invest in the expensive research and development necessary to continuously innovate in this arena.

Good monitor adjustment or "calibration" is critical to working with digital files and publishing a high quality, image-rich family history website.

Epson printers, inks and papers

Epson and Hewlett Packard (HP) are among the best known inkjet printer and ink manufacturers. I have always used Epson printers and inks because they have consistantly been on the cutting edge of this technology. I also think it is useful to pick a company and explore their products in detail rather than jumping from company to company chasing the "next big thing". Epson offers a complete line of integrated printers, inks and papers.

When compared to normal, everyday printing of computer documents, inkjet printing of photographic quality, archival images can seem very expensive. Most of the expense is in the ink and paper, not the printer itself. The real comparison, however, should be to traditional photographic prints.

Custom photographic prints from film or digital files can easily cost $15 for an 8x10" which is roughly 5x the cost of similar inkjet quality. So inkjet printing now offers all of the quality and permanence of traditional photographs at much less cost. When comparing costs keep in mind that because of changing printer head technology you can expect to replace your printer every few years.

Pigment vs dye-based inkjet inks

Inkjet printers currently use two different types of ink. Dye-based inks use color dyes that "stain" the paper. Dye-based inks are known for rich colors but are somewhat prone to fading. Pigment inks, on the other hand, contain particles of color, like an oil paint, that tend to be more stable but exhibit less color saturation than dye-based inks. Also, printers that used dye-based inks, such as the new Epson Claria inks (right), are typically less expensive than printers that use pigment inks.

Inkjet papers

Next to inks, what paper you use is the most important decision you'll make. Epson photo inkjet papers are optimized for Epson inks but there are also many third-party paper suppliers that offer a wide variety of beautiful, fine art papers. While I do not suggest that you use third-party inks, I do suggest that you try third-party papers such as Red River in addition to Epson papers.

Printer profiles (icc profiles)

Every paper and ink combination should have a "color profile" that tells the printer how to optimally handle the pair. Custom color profiles also take into account the small differences between individual printers while standard color profiles ignore these differences. Paper manufactures generally supply standard profiles for free and custom profiles for a fee, along with instructions for how to use them for a wide variety of printers.

[Tutorial #5: Website Publishing]

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