Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Chapter 16. Printing Your Photos

There’s a lot to love about digital photos that remain digital. You can store hundreds of shots on a single CD; you can send them anywhere on earth by email; and they won’t wrinkle, curl, or yellow (until your monitor does). Still, sometimes there’s no substitute for a printed photo. You can paste prints into scrapbooks, display them in picture frames on the mantle, use them to make your own greeting cards, or share them with your Luddite friends who don’t own computers.

This chapter looks at three ways to turn your digital photos into prints you can hold in your hand.

• Making Prints at Home. The first part of the chapter shows you how to set up a color printer so you can make great prints at home. The actual printing process varies depending on your software, so this chapter takes a step-by-step look at printing with Kodak EasyShare (Section 16.1.3.2), Google’s Picasa (Section 16.3), and Photoshop Elements (Section 16.4).

• Making Prints at Kiosks. You don’t need to invest in a printer: The photo kiosks in discount and drug stores do an excellent job (Section 16.4.3.2). And you can have prints of your soccer game shots before you even get home!

• Ordering Prints Online. For the ultimate in convenience and print quality, you can order prints from an Internet photo service. The last sections of this chapter show you how to do it using EasyShare, Picasa, Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Photoshop Elements.

How to Make Great Prints at Home

Digital photo software ...