There aren't many things that can compare to the satisfaction of printing your own crisp, colorful photos in your own home or office. There's no stressful waiting to see how they'll look from the print lab, you have more control over the final image and it even makes you feel more professional. While you don't need a sophisticated setup to turn out good quality prints, there are a few things you'll need and one or two that will make the process more rewarding. Let's take a look:
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 Graphic Arts Printer
The final photo is only as good as the printer can make it. This one can make it beautifully and make the process easier for you. Canon's Graphic Arts printers are engineered for flawless performance, ese of use and brilliant photo reproduction. The 17-inch capacity PRO-1000 incorporates an ink delivery system with 18,432 nozzles and sensors that continuously monitor status and deliver optimum results.
That's far from all this photo printer offers. Colors are matched with a LUCIA PRO 11-color system, giving it one of the widest gamuts on the market. An air feed system with skew correction keeps your paper aligned, mar-free and jam-free. It comes with its own color calibration tool and Print Studio Pro plugin, as well as a full suite of management tools that even keeps track of printing costs for your jobs. It's fast, intuitive, user-friendly and delivers everything a discerning professional needs in a production printer.
Canon Fine Art Museum Etching Paper
If you're going to really get the most out of a graphics printer, feed it the best photo paper. Obviously, printing in-house gives you many more options, but this is a photo paper you owe it to yourself to try. This heavyweight fine art paper has a textured surface that delivers warm, natural whites, gorgeous, saturated colors and deep blacks. If you haven't seen what museum-quality paper can do for your prints, do yourself a favor and try this one out. Choose from the sizes below:
Datacolor Spyder5 Monitor Calibration
Accurate, vivid color printing starts with calibration. Ensuring that your monitor is representing the colors in your photos accurately is an important step in that process. Datacolor's Spyder5 is the most advanced calibration tool around, featuring quick, easy, guided calibration and 5-minute periodic checkups so you can keep your monitor tuned over time. Choose the suite that's right for you:
Spder5EXPRESS
Spyder5ELITE
Spyder5PRO
Datacolor SpyderCHECKR & SpyderCUBE
Calibrating your monitor and printer ensures accurate output, but what about the accuracy of your camera? Every sensor is different, so it's important to compensate for the differences in your capturing and processing workflow. The fastest and most reliable way is to create a color-matched profile for your camera, then use a test target for lighting conditions when you're shooting, then automatically correct colors as well as white and black point in processing. Here are the tools that will make that possible:
We hope this short list gives you some inspiration for bringing at least part of the printing tasks home. When you need supplies and equipment for any aspect of your photo business, be sure to check with our friends at Hunt's Photo and Video: