Newbee on the loose (Look Out).

I am planning my firsy foray into the printing world and of course I'm
trying to learn everything I can. Do I need special software to allow me to
print photos or can I use the software that came with my D70 camera and also
hopefully with the printer.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.....Chuck.

You will probably get a slew of different replies to this query.

Before even jumping to software, it would help to have some sense of
your intended output.

What size images do you envision producing most of the time?

Do you wish to make large scale changes from the source materials, such
as compositing several images together, or cutting and pasting parts
together, or are you mainly interested in getting output that looks
generally like the image you photographed with your camera with minor
modifications in color or contracts, and cropping and such?

Do you do a great deal of image taking that you foresee making into
prints, or are you more the type of photographer who goes through a
"roll" every few months, unless you are on vacation?

Do you foresee sending a lot of images out as prints to friends, family,
etc.?

Do you wish to sell your prints in some manner as a paper based product,
such as greeting cards, etc, with them, or will you distribute most
electronically through email and the like?

Do you expect long term permanence from your printed images?

How patient are you with having to learn new software and hardware to
get good results?

Some of these questions are about the software, and some go to the
printer you might wish to consider. As has been discussed, in less that
ideal terms, on this forum recently, for some, the best answer is to not
do the printing yourself, but to leave it for a lab to do. Cost of
snapshots, and the ability to send them electronically and received them
at the store or at home makes the process for some too involved to do at
home, or too costly, and they choose to just send the files for a lab to
handle.

Once you've given thought to those questions a more reasonable answer
conforming to your situation can be "developed".

Hoping to hear from you soon.

Art

Faz wrote:

I am planning my firsy foray into the printing world and of course I'm
trying to learn everything I can. Do I need special software to allow me to
print photos or can I use the software that came with my D70 camera and also
hopefully with the printer.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.....Chuck.

Hi!

Do I need special software to allow me to print photos or can I use the
software that came with my D70 camera and also hopefully with the printer.

What software came with your camera? There are a lot of different packages
out there.

General advice:

You could do several things if what you want to do is print photos. As
you're aware, and with the right software, you can do it on your computer.
This is probably the most involved way to do it, but you get lots of control
over the end result. Print size, colors, quality, image correction...you
will have control of nearly every major aspect if your computer has the
needed software. You can also compose your photos into other projects, like
greeting cards this way.

A less involved way to print photos would be to purchase a printer that has
onboard memory card reader slots and a built in display. These printers
contain a basic photo printing program that makes printing your pictures
very easy. You can usually do some basic image editing work as well, such as
picture rotation. One such printer that I own (and really like, at least so
far) is the HP Photosmart C5180.

There also exist printers that connect directly to your camera, using
something known as "PictBridge" technology. You'll find some that are
general purpose printers that you can use with your computer to print
regular documents as well. There are others that are dedicated photo
printers. I have one from Olympus that is about as simple as they get. You
plug a compatible camera into it and tell the camera to print pictures. This
printer only prints one size of photo, and doesn't have any onboard editing
facilities. The camera does everything in this case. It's fast and simple,
but limited in capability and rather expensive if you have a lot of photos
to print. Some of these printers also support connection to a computer.

William

"Faz" wrote in message
news:3mgjh.519949$R63.443265@pd7urf1no...
I am planning my firsy foray into the printing world and of course I'm
trying to learn everything I can. Do I need special software to allow me to
print photos or can I use the software that came with my D70 camera and
also hopefully with the printer.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

Yes, but you actually have to read the manual to figure it out.