Printings photos from Photos with Epson XP-960

[conamor]

Good day,

I recently purchased an XP-960. Apparently in that price range it's the good printer to have.

After installing the printer driver, I have so many options to choose from when printing a photo. Quality, DPI, mode (epson bright color, epson standard, adobe RGB), Epson Color LUT, E-RGC (on or off), sharpness (standard or high), ColorMatching, use generic RGB, Image paralyzer option, epson profile, color model....

Anyway all these option to print a photo. I obviously want the best print. What am I suppose to choose, do you print your photo using something else? Lightroom? or do you simply go to the store and have them print them from a USB?

Before trying the epson driver, I tried the AirPrint or secure AirPrint, MacOS was proposing that. The picture came out great but too much exposition.

Using the epson driver, exposition is ok but the picture isn't sharp. I can almost see pixels.

The picture was taken by a photographer and I can zoom in to a lot and not see pixels so it's not the picture but settings on the epson driver...

Anyone has ideas on my issue?

Thanks!!

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

When you export your image for printing, make sure it's at a very high DPI setting, 240 to 320 DPI should print very well for the calibre of printer. Save it in sRGB format and always apply a little more sharpening for print than you think is necessary when viewing it on a screen!

If you have access to Lightroom you will probably get much better results than printing from Photos.

By "exposition" I gather you mean "exposure"? How light or dark the image is overall?

If you do have access to Lightroom, get the image looking good on your monitor, then you can define the export settings for printing there, keep the DPI rate high, save it as sRGB format, and apply sharpening for print on export, you may need to try it on the various sharpening settings to learn which one to use in future.

Good luck with it, there's nothing like actually printing your photo's to truly appreciate them!

 

[conamor]

When you export your image for printing, make sure it's at a very high DPI setting, 240 to 320 DPI should print very well for the calibre of printer. Save it in sRGB format and always apply a little more sharpening for print than you think is necessary when viewing it on a screen!

If you have access to Lightroom you will probably get much better results than printing from Photos.

By "exposition" I gather you mean "exposure"? How light or dark the image is overall?

If you do have access to Lightroom, get the image looking good on your monitor, then you can define the export settings for printing there, keep the DPI rate high, save it as sRGB format, and apply sharpening for print on export, you may need to try it on the various sharpening settings to learn which one to use in future.

Good luck with it, there's nothing like actually printing your photo's to truly appreciate them!

Thanks for the reply!

Actually I meant that the faces were too bright and the actual which such has beard or gloves (Santa Claus) is too white so the details are gone.

I will try Lightroom and see if I can get a better print.

I'm not sure I understand when you say export, I print it directly from Photos without exporting it.

Thanks!

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Thanks for the reply!

Actually I meant that the faces were too bright and the actual which such has beard or gloves (Santa Claus) is too white so the details are gone.

I will try Lightroom and see if I can get a better print.

I'm not sure I understand when you say export, I print it directly from Photos without exporting it.

Thanks!

Gotcha now, so you have lost all detail in the highlights by the sound of it!

I have never printed from Photos so can't assist you there, sorry.

In Lightroom, open your image in the Develop module and make sure the highlights are not clipped in the Histogram. Hit the "J" button on your keyboard to show any clipped highlights and shadows.
Drop the Whites and Highlights a little as needed if the Histogram is hard up on the right hand side showing clipping there, or until all of the red bits (showing the clipped highlights) on the image are gone.

Then use the "Print" module in Lightroom.

First define your print and border sizes, you may possibly need to enter these further down in Custom File Dimensions if you are using an obscure paper size. It may take a little bit of playing with, but you'll get it, it's pretty straight forward really.

Set the File Resolution to 320 ppi, Print Sharpening to Standard or High, Media Type to matte or glossy dependent on your photo paper type, JPEG quality to 100, Colour Management to sRGB, Intent to Relative.

Hit Print!

Hope that helps you a little. That is based on Lightroom Classic, your version may have slightly different settings.

 

[conamor]

Super! I will give it a try on Lightroom.

I'm not sure I understand the ppi. I shouldn't choose something higher such as 720ppi? Or that depends on the paper size? Let's say I will be printing 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 and 11x14. Do I always select 320ppi?

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Super! I will give it a try on Lightroom.

I'm not sure I understand the ppi. I shouldn't choose something higher such as 720ppi? Or that depends on the paper size? Let's say I will be printing 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 and 11x14. Do I always select 320ppi?

Going with 320 ppi will serve you well.

Yes, the PPI ratio should be fixed for all of your photographic printing.

It is a little confusing in that PPI actually means pixels per inch, which relates more to a monitor, than to printing, as DPI is the dots per inch for printing, but in the current version of Lightroom, it has an output field labelled "ppi" in the Print module!

As you go up in fineness of resolution (more ppi's) your image becomes smaller, and it then has to be enlarged for export to print. There is a compromise going on when you try and take an image too large in printing, as the software has to extrapolate all the extra information to fill in the blanks. A little bit of trial and error with your ppi ratio's, in conjunction with your printer and various paper sizes and I'm sure you will be able to sort it out as to what works well for your setup!

For now, simply go with between 240 and 320 ppi. Try out different ratios at different paper sizes, always adjust for glossy or matte papers, and see if you can see a difference with your printer at the different settings, to work out what's best for you.