Goleta DeskTop Publishing User Group
Meeting Information

Printing Pictures

The process of printing pictures sounds so simple (and the manufacturer's ads contribute to that expectation) -- just get an image, modify it as needed, and print it. But when you actually try to do it, all sorts of questions pop up.

The classic (and often encountered) scenario is you scan a picture, but it looks a lot different on the monitor (darker, lighter, washed-out, muddy, colors wrong). After you correct those problems so it looks good on the screen you print it, only to discover the print looks wrong again, but in a different way. Now what?

That's the subject of our meeting. We will have a scanner and a couple of printers and show how you can set up your system so you get pretty much what you expect.

Actually, there are various degrees of sophistication depending on what you want to do. The simplest is if you are going to print everything on your own printer, while the most sophisticated is if you want to share images with others and print on commercial equipment (like at a service bureau). I'll start with the simplest so you can see the issues involved, which makes it far easier to understand what is happening with the more sophisticated approaches.

We will also touch upon issues like scanner specs (like what is Dmax, is 36-bit output important, is 600x1200 ppi adequate), file formats (such as TIFF, JPEG, etc.), and how to calculate the proper scanning resolution.

Remember, the meetings are free and open to the public. Please bring a friend.

Please send email to gdtpug@troutcom.com with suggestions for topics you are interested in seeing covered. Or even better, volunteer to give a presentation!