Improving photo print quality

I had to delete CS3 and re-install it and now photos printed on my Epson picture mate do not look good. I had this problem before, but don't remember the exact solution. I could not find specific instructions for getting the best photo print quality by searching in the forums. I would think this would be a big topic. We all want to print the best quality pictures and once the instructions are well documented, I would think they would be easy to find. Could someone help me out? I am using Leopard.
Thanks,
Tom

If it's just a color setting, you shouldn't have to download anything.
I'm not sure if it's the same method in CS4 as in CS2, which I'm using, but you could just open Photoshop, select Edit from the top of the screen, and click on Color Settings…
In there, you can choose one of the presets from the "Settings" drop-down menu: Monitor Color, North America General Purpose 2, North America Prepress 2, etc. Or you can manually select from various CMYK, RGB, Gray, and Spot working spaces below that. Just use whichever works best for you.
Regarding not finding what you're looking for easily, I have a feeling it has something to do with lack of specifics. Your original post didn't really mention in what way your photos looked bad. If it's a color thing, are your photos too dark? Too light? Too blue/yellow? Or is it, instead, a resolution issue (too pixellated and/or blurry)? "My photos look bad" doesn't really provide enough info.

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The photo print quality from my Mac to my Epson Artisan 810 is poor. When I take the same photo files (JPEGs) to my PC to print to the same printer without even uploading them to the PC, they print brighter and crisper from my PC.

The photo print quality from my Mac to my Epson Artisan 810 is poor. I just purchased my iMac for my photography business in Jan. (this is my first Mac). When I first tried printing, I noticed the quality wasn't as good as I expected it to be. Then, I had to print 4-3.5x5s on a sheet, so I e-mailed the image to myself and opened it on my PC to print it (much easier to print that way on PC in Windows Photo Gallery - I think it's impossible to print that way in iPhoto). That's when I first noticed that when I take the same photo files (JPEGs) to my PC to print to the same printer without even uploading them to the PC, they print brighter and crisper from my PC.
I've already been on the phone and e-mail w/Applecare many times over this issue. We've tried creating a test user and printing from there, and we've tried reinstalling the OS. I've tried printing from iPhoto, ImageCapture, and Preview apps/utilities, all w/the same result - no comparison to the PC-printed versions (no enhancements have been performed on the PC).
I'm out of ideas, and so is Applecare. They say it's most likely a driver issue b/c the printer is outdated, and that the only solution is to buy a new printer. BUT it is a pain for me to purchase a new printer - it takes days of research due to the nature of my business and the fact that I need a printer that can print directly onto a disc. I love this printer and don't want to have to buy a new one if I don't have to.

englishfreak2004 wrote:
Yes. I've checked for updates, and the driver I installed is the same as the one on Epson's website. I also spoke with Epson Customer Service, which was a dead end. Apple says the problem is due to an Epson driver issue (blaming Epson), but Epson says that with the older printers, it's actually Apple who creates the driver, so the problem is actually with Apple. Typical he-said, she-said...
Maybe not. Probably worth checking here:
Epson drivers for Mavericks:
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/SupportMavericks.jsp

How to improve the printing quality of pictures, printing a database layout

I have a database that contains also pictures in multimedia containers. If I print a layout containing a picture, the quality of the picture is really bad! Pixeled with big pixels.
Is there a possibility to get better prints?
The pictures are JPEGs of reasonable size.
The picture in the layout on the screen looks MUCH better.
Printing to an PDF and viewing this on the screen is equally bad.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

I'm guessing that your images are JPEGs. AppleWorks changes the resolution of all graphic formats except PICT to 72 dpi. There are a couple of things you can do improve the print quality of images.
1. Turn on Fractional Character widths in Preferences > General > Topic: Text. This is a text setting, but it does improve the print quality of images.
2. Open the image in Preview or GraphicConverter & Save As... a PICT to use in AppleWorks.
PICT is generally the best format to use for inserting or pasting into AppleWorks. I find the resulting graphic can be resized somewhat & the resulting saved AW file is much smaller than if using JPEG or TIFF.

Photo print quality from the HP EVEN 5532

I have tried a number of times to print off a photo from my Envey 5532 printer, Using 6 x 4 sizes glossy paper. The out come is what I can only call a disaster, what comes out from the printer is a total mess, it looks as if to much ink has been sprayed and the colours have all run into each other

Hey @crescent30 ,
Thank you for joining us on the HP Forums today, hope you enjoy your time with us!
I understand you are getting really poor quality on your printed photo with your HP Envy 5532.
Here is a document that deals directly with print quality issues surrounding the HP Envy 5532. Fixing Print Quality Problems for the HP ENVY 5530 e-All-in-One and Deskjet Ink Advantage 4510 e-All...
Let me know how it goes! Have a great day!
I worked for HP.

HP Officejet Pro 8500A photo print quality is terrible

If I print using the default of plain paper, change the quality to high and actually use plain paper, the quality is acceptible. However, if I use photo paper, whether I change the paper setting to HP Photo Paper, Other Photo Papers, or leave it at plain paper, the quality is just terrible. The ink is splotchy, the resolution - for lack of a better term - is gummy. There is so much ink on the photo that it smears on my hands after sitting and drying for an hour. The paper product I'm using is from Costco. It's the Kirkland Professional Glossy Inkjet Photo Paper. It worked beautifully in our Canon inkjet printer when printing high quality and selecting glossy photo paper or photo paper pro as the paper type. What am I doing wrong? Or is this printer not designed to print on photo paper? Thanks.

The Officejet 8500 will print on photo paper, but you need photo paper designed for pigmented inks. It sounds like you are using photo paper designed for dye based inks. The Officejet 8500 uses pigmented inks which will not interact properly with the coatings on photo paper designed for dye based inks.
Bob Headrick, HP Expert
I am not an employee of HP, I am a volunteer posting here on my own time.
If your problem is solved please click the "Accept as Solution" button ------------V
If my answer was helpful please click the "Thumbs Up" to say "Thank You"--V

Photo print quality thru iPhoto?

Call me a cheapskate, but when we had our engagement photos done I paid for a DVD of full resolution images so I didn't have to pay through the nose for prints through our photographer. So I loaded them into iPhoto and thought I could order some through there.
Question is: are they worth the trouble? Do they turn out anything close to professional, what kind of paper do they use, etc?
Thanks for the help!

In general people are happy - some have problems but usually those are caused by technical problems (incorrect color profiles, etc) or production problems and are solved easily
Apple guarantees the quality - http://www.apple.com/support/photoservices/returns/
Here is what Apple says about paper, etc - http://www.apple.com/support/photoservices/product_specs/
Order a few and see what you think before you order a bunch - no one here can tell you if you will be happy or not - only you can do that
LN

Appleworks Print Quality Question

I am using Appleworks 6.2.4 and iPhoto 7.1.5. I have been trying to put together an Appleworks (drawing) document that includes a photo that I exported from iPhoto. I have tried various exports, various printer settings (using a Cannon i960 photo printer)but no matter what I do I cannot get the imported photo to print in as nice a quality as it prints when I print straight from iPhoto.
I have tried:
-exporting as "current" quality from iPhoto (1.2 meg file) and using Appleworks scale by percentage to reduce to 4x6 size.
-exporting as JPEG at medium (24 k), high (32 k), and maximum quality (120 k) and printing without adjusting size in Appleworks at all.
Surely this can be done, iPhoto is able to reduce the photo to 4x6 size and print crisply, why is it so difficult to get Appleworks to do the same?

Welcome to Apple Discussions
AppleWorks changes the resolution of all graphic formats except PICT to 72 dpi. There are a couple of things you can do improve the print quality of images.
1. Turn on Fractional Character widths in Preferences > General > Topic: Text. This is a text setting, but it does improve the print quality of images.
Open the image in Preview (32-bit) or GraphicConverter & Save As... a PICT to use in AppleWorks. PICT is generally the best format to use for inserting or pasting into AppleWorks.

Print quality terrible, may not be the printer - how can I fix it?

I've been cleaning and replacing cartridges in my printer lots but no improvement of print quality, in fact a deteriation so that now only magenta and a tiny bit of black print. I just used someone else's printer and same problem (different colour error though) but printed using their computer and the printer is fine. Could there be something I need to change in my mac rather than from the printer to solve this?
I have a MacBook Pro 13" and my printer is HP 8600dn, which has worked fine for 2 years.
The second printer which I can't print on but does work from another computer is the Epson Stylus SX420W.
I've just put new HP cartridges in and it's claiming to have finished the yellow despite me not seeing any yellow being printed.
Can anyone help?? This is driving me crazy and I really need my printer! Thanks, Eve

There are alterate drivers in OS X for each of those printers. Try Generic PCL 6 for the HP and the Gutenprint driver for the Epson. - in other words, add the printer again, but select the alternate driver.

Print Quality Question

When using the J6400 series there are several ways to set print quality.... There is the button on the front of the machine as well as the printing shortcuts that show up under preferences when you click on print. Which selection over-rides the other and takes priority? I have several customized shortcuts that use fast-draft and black cartridge only. I'm hoping the button on the machine that always defaults to mid-level quality doesn't take priority over my customized settings.

Welcome to Apple Discussions
AppleWorks changes the resolution of all graphic formats except PICT to 72 dpi. There are a couple of things you can do improve the print quality of images.
1. Turn on Fractional Character widths in Preferences > General > Topic: Text. This is a text setting, but it does improve the print quality of images.
Open the image in Preview (32-bit) or GraphicConverter & Save As... a PICT to use in AppleWorks. PICT is generally the best format to use for inserting or pasting into AppleWorks.

Photo/print question

Another likely "dumb question" from a rookie ID user:
I've imported a photo and the color looks off (on my screen) -- should I be concerned about photo print quality?
The photo seems to look OK when printed off my printer, but it will eventually be printed via some type of offset printing (as I understand it)
P.S. I haven’t researched this much, so if there are answers out there and you can point me in the right direction, I’d appreciate it.
ID-CS4 6.0.3
Mac OS X 10.5.7

The only way you can come close to knowing what the color will look like is to calibrate and profile the monitor (use a colorimeter), and preview using the appropriate output space as the proof setup.
You absolutely should ask to see a printed contract proof of the job from the printer -- not a PDF or JPEG proof, because they will look different on your monitor unless the calibration is done -- that they guarantee to match in the actual print run.
Peter

Epson Artisan 810 and Snow Leopard and Photoshop....Print quality??

I'm a little lost to be honest. I'm not sure where my problem is...Photoshop, Epson, or Snow Leopard
I'm using Photoshop CS4 to edit my photos. I've constrained my cropping to designated print sizes, thus pixelation changes as well.
For example to create an 8x10 from a jpeg file uploaded to my computer from my camera (a sony cybershot dsc-w170 if you need to know, which by default upload files as jpegs), here is the following image info:
3000 pixels x 2400 pixels
25.4 cm x 20.32 cm
with a resolution of 300 pixels/inch
I have the resolution set to BEST and when I print I've tried both document and proof quality (with printer color managment)
I'm using photo paper, gloss, but not Epson brand paper (don't know how much that might be contributing to the problem, if at all).
When I go to print my image the quality off the Epson is HORRIBLE.
Is there something I'm missing or doing wrong?? How do I get better print quality?
There is no option/method of changing the print type (document or photo) on the printer itself, which is obviously made to work best with a PC. So that leaves me with Photoshops options as far as I know.
Although I don't know if there's a way to change default print quality settings within Snow Leopard, or if I even have to.
Whatever the case may be...ultimately I need to know the following:
paper brand/quality matters?
what program should I be trying to print photos from (photoshop, iphoto, whatever)
how to manipulate the photo quality within whichever program I should be using
and anything else important that I may not have thought of
Thanks so much. I've seen great reviews of photo print quality for this printer, so I have hope that this problem can be remedied....?

Your printer is supported by the latest update supplied by Apple.
Cheap paper usually results in cheap looking results.
I'm using HP paper with a HP printer with a Canon Eos Rebel camera that outputs
something like 2592 x 1944.
CS4 handels these .jpgs quite fine.
I would first buy some premium Epson paper and see what happens.

HP1280C print quality problem

So I finally got my friend to upgrade his aging powermac G3 (with OSX and pagemaker 6.5 etc) to a new Mac Mini, He bought inDesign CS2 and Photoshop CS2 etc. for it (got a good deal) so I thought all was well.
Then he goes to try and print one of his pagemaker files with it, and thats when the problems start, the greys aren't grey, they are blocks of random red/green/blue pixels, black lines aren't crisp but have jaggy edges, printed letters aren't crisp and black but have pixels all around them, sort of like it's trying to print anti-aliased but the printer interprets it as black & white and dithers everything.
I don't know how to fix it, short of buying a different printer? He makes publications for a living, things have to look good, and they did with the crusty old computer.
so, any suggestions on improving the print quality? we played with the settings in the print dialog, like forcing color or B&W, didn't seem to do anything.

Which driver are you/he using?
Do you have Rosetta installed, so that legacy drivers can work?

Light print quality from PDF documents

Windows Vista Home Premium
Adobe Reader 9.0
After scanning a document to PDF form when I print the document the print quality is very light, not nearly as dark as the origianl document. I have reset the laser printer to "best quality" & "dark" print settings but that improves the print quality only marginally.
How can I scan a document to PDF format then get a printed document nearly as good as the original one?
Thanks

Hi wconner, Welcome to the HP Forums. I see that you're having some printing issues with the quality. Please click on the following link that deals with HP LaserJet Pro M1536dnf, M1537dnf, M1538dnf, and M1539dnf Multifunction Printers - Troubleshooting Print Quality Issues. If the troubleshooting does not help resolve your issue, I would then suggest contacting HP's Technical Support to see about further options for you. , : click here. Thank you,

How to improve print quality from PSE9 on Mac?

Is there a combination of various options in the Photoshop Elements 9’ and the HP Photosmart (C7180) printer’s dialogue boxes (on a Mac, OS 16) that would result in acceptable photo prints? I’ve browsed around in both the corresponding HP and the Adobe forums and found numerous inquiries with similar problems. Thus, this issue may impact larger audience. Therefore, I am describing my problem in more details below with the hope that someone will offer a satisfactory resolution:
I’ve used earlier versions of Photoshop Elements in a Windows environment to print photos on my HP printer – with quite good results. I wanted to improve quality, so I bought a Mac (after all, “Mac’s forte is graphics, photos, etc.”, isn’t it?) and also upgraded to Photoshop Element 9. Well, to say that the result is a disappointment would be a great understatement. I’ve wasted countless hours, ink and paper in trying different PSE - printer options combinations. The prints are not even close to the quality that I used to get with my earlier setup. Is it possible that a conflict exists between the PSE’s and the printer’s Color Management?
In my earlier setup (under Windows), there was an explicit option to turn Color Management off if I wanted PSE to manage colors (which I still want). In the Mac version of the printer menu I do not find this option (although PSE 9 still gives a warning: "Did you remember to disable color management in the printer preference dialog?"). In the PSE 9 print dialogue box (under “Color Management” – “Color Handling” in “More Options…”), there are three options: “Printer Manages Color”, “Photoshop Elements Manages Colors” and “No Color Management”. In the printer’s dialogue box, there are only two options: “ColorSync” and “Vendor Matching”. There is no “Printer Color Management off” – as it was under Windows setup. Anyway, these options seem to be irrelevant, because they are predefined in accordance with selections in PSE. If either the second or third options is selected in PSE, the “ColorSync” button is preselected in the grayed out Printer dialogue box. If the first option (“Printer Manages Color”) selected, the “Vendor Matching” is preselected in the grayed out HP Printer dialogue box. Of course, I do NOT want the printer to manage color.
Thus, is there any way to turn of the printer’s color management if I want Photoshop Element to manage color? Is it necessary (or “ColorSync” automatically takes care of that)?
Anyway, this is all very confusing. The bottom line is: Is there a combination of various options in the PSE9’s and the HP Photosmart printer’s dialogue boxes (on a Mac OS 16) that would result in acceptable photo prints? What would be this combination?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hello
I wonder if you ever solved this problem.
I have a very similar problem with Photoshop CS5 on Mac OSX 10.6 + HP Photosmart C7180.
If I choose "Photoshop Manages Colors" the results are lousy.
If I choose "Printer Manages Colors" the results are OK. not necessarily great.
I believe I have all the correct settings after going through books and web advice (and wasted a lot of paper and ink).
As far as I can see, "ColorSync" is the internal Mac management which is the only option available with "Photoshop Manages Colors" and "Vendor Matching" appears to mean the printer vendor (ie HP) will provide the matching. Either can be selected if "Printer Manages Colors" is used. It seems the type of paper can be set in three different places. if That's all a bit academic as the results are poor regardless.
My wife suggests I buy a new printer - Epson's looking good.
Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

Poor quality Photo printing with the HP Officejet 6600

Is anyone having a problem with the HP Officejet 6600 having very poor quality photo prints?

Hi HereInJersey,
Welcome to the HP Support forums. I understand that printed photos from your Officejet 6600 don't have the quality that you expect.
I have included the "Fixing Ink Streaks, Faded Prints, and Other Common Print Quality Problems" troubleshooting document. It has detailed steps to take to improve the quality of your print jobs.
Regards,
Happytohelp01
Please click on the Thumbs Up on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!
Please click “Accept as Solution ” on the post that solves your issue to help others find the solution.
I work on behalf of HP

Improving photo print quality

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