David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Chapter 11. Photos on Paper—and Everything Else

Sooner or later, most people want to get at least some of their photos on paper. You may want printouts to paste into your existing scrapbooks, to put in picture frames on the mantle, to use on homemade greeting cards, or to share with your Luddite friends who don't have computers.

Using iPhoto or Picasa, you can create such prints using your own printer. Or, for prints that look, feel, and smell like the kind you get from a photo-finishing store, you can transmit your digital files to an online print shop. In return, you receive an envelope of professionally printed photos that are indistinguishable from their traditional counterparts—but you've paid as little as 9 cents apiece.

Alternatively, you can turn your photos into custom greeting cards or gorgeous, glossy month-by-month calendars, or breathtaking hardbound (or softbound) photo books.

Who said paper is dead?

Making Your Own Prints

Using iPhoto and Picasa to print your pictures is pretty easy. But making great prints—the kind that rival traditional film-based photos in their color and image quality—involves more than simply hitting the Print command.

One key factor, of course, is the printer itself. You need a good printer that can produce photo-quality color printouts. Fortunately, getting such a printer these days is pretty easy and inexpensive. Even some of the cheapo inkjet printers from Epson, HP, and Canon can produce amazingly good color images—and they cost ...