Need Printer Advice quick (before rebate expires)

[Groundhog246]

Can I offer some basic math here? 720DPI X720 DPI is .518Mdots/sq inch, printing a 4"X6" photo means nearly 12.5 million dots (or pixels) or 2.5 dots per pixel of camera resolution, therefore at 720X720 you've already exceeded the cameras resolution by 250%. Therefore a higher resolution say 1440X720 just means you've got 5 dot's the same colour representing one pixel, instead of 2.5 dots.
Or in simpler terms, as others have said, I don't think you'll see the difference.
Bear in mind, to get the max quality of final image, DO NOT save them in jpg format or you'll loose about half the fine detail, use tiff. Commercial scanning of a colour slide (most professionals use colour slide film, generally finer grain than negative type) is at 2400DPI and up, generating files in the 100MB range.

 

[ReyeR]

Here's an extract from luminous-landscape.com that explains why you can't make out the difference when prints are made at higher dpi on an inkjet printer:

There are some folks who haven't yet seen well-made high quality inkjet prints, and who therefore
mistakenly believe that these somehow can't equal traditional chemical prints in terms of sharpness. It's worth noting that a 6 colour 1440 dpi inkjet printer (like the Epson 1270 / 1280 / 2000P Photo printers) when fed a 360 dpi output file, is capable of about 16 pixel per millimeter. This translates to 8 lp/mm right in the high-end of the ballpark for meeting the limits of human vision's ability to discern maximum sharpness.

This also explains why the latest generation of printers speced at 2880 dpi (like the Epson 1280/1290) don't make prints that look any sharper to the naked eye. Under a loupe, yes, but not unaided. The reason why, we can now appreciate is because at about 8 lp/mm we are already near the limits of the eye's ability to resolve fine detail. All we end up with is slower print speeds and greater ink usage.

 

[ReyeR]

More from luminous-landscape:

Most photographers do their printing these days with a desktop inkjet printer and the Epson Photo printers are the most popular so I'll use them by way of example. These printers, such as the models 870/1270/2000P are (somewhat misleadingly) listed as 1440 dpi printers. This means that they are capable of laying down that many dots per inch. But, to create a colour image they need to use 6 different inks, so any particular pixel reproduced on a print will be composed of some dithered composite of coloured dots using some or all of these inks. That's why you need more dots from your printer than you have pixels in your image.

If you divide 1440 by 6 you end up with 240. This is the true minimum resolution needed to get a high quality photo-realistic prints from a 1440 dpi Epson printer. Many user, myself included, believe that a 360 ppi output file can produce a somewhat better print. If my original scan is big enough to allow this I'll do so but I don't bother ressing up a file to more than 240 ppi when making large prints.

 

[ahplee]

:wacko:

oh he wasn't kidding This is what the web site says:

"This software enables support for EPSON PRINT Image Matching technology.
This software is for download by customers living in AUSTRALIA or NEW ZEALAND only. Please do not download this software if you reside in a different country or region, as licensing restrictions apply"

 

[Groundhog246]

ReyeR once bubbled...
These printers, such as the models 870/1270/2000P are (somewhat misleadingly) listed as 1440 dpi printers. This means that they are capable of laying down that many dots per inch. But, to create a colour image they need to use 6 different inks, so any particular pixel reproduced on a print will be composed of some dithered composite of coloured dots using some or all of these inks. That's why you need more dots from your printer than you have pixels in your image.

I know that the colours we see are a matrix of other colours. I work on laser printers for a living and know much more about them than inkjets. On a 600DPI laser you get 600DPI of each colour. So 600DPI Black, 600DPI cyan, 600DPI magenta & 600DPI yellow. So a 600DPI image will get up to 4dots per pixel (assuming you have software that can print that way instead of outputting screened in which case you'll get 120 lines/inch on a 600DPI laser). So if you used all 4 colours you could have up to 2400DPI, but they don't measure it that way.
If they're not measuring an inkjet the same way (i.e. 1440 dpi is actually 360DPI of each of 4 colours for a standard 4 colour model lower for a 6 colour model), then I'd call them guilty of misleading advertising (wouldn't that be unusual
:mean: ).

 

[SubMariner]

Did you do anything to calibrate your monitor to your printer? I'm concerned that the photos won't look like they do on my screen.

Dee, we didn't do anything to "calibrate" the monitor to the printer (or vice versa). Although there is a minor difference in what you see on the monitor & the finished product, the software drivers and the print monitor seem to pretty much do WYSIWYG.

BTW, we are off to Bonaire on the 15th and Pearce will be using his Ikelite strobe.

Take care, eh?!

~SubMariner~

 

[Dee]

SubMariner once bubbled...
BTW, we are off to Bonaire on the 15th and Pearce will be using his Ikelite strobe.

Take care, eh?!

~SubMariner~

LOL.....ya'll have a great time! How many strobes is Pearce using?

Only 39 days until Roatan for us

 

[SubMariner]

LOL.....ya'll have a great time! How many strobes is Pearce using?

:egrin: He's using ONE... as far as I know.

Or has he bought another Ikelite while I wasn't looking?

~SubMariner~

 

[zaf88]

buck up and get get an oly p400, cant beat the dye sub printers and it also prints fullsized paper