Print quality

Everyone wants it, but what is it?

People ask about the print quality from different printers and papers, but what do they actually mean?

Keith looks at different factors that get lumped together and asks what’s really important to you.

No, there is no simple accepted answer, but hopefully after looking here, you’ll have a better idea what the term means to you and just as importantly which aspects you can ignore.

There is a print quality video (~20mins) supplementing this article

The mystery of print quality

Everyone wanting to print their own photos wants good prints.

Bad prints may jump out at you with poor colours and colour tints, but are some ‘good’ prints better than others? If so what made the difference? Was it your paper choice, your colour management, the inks or the printer itself – or was it simply your own skills or lack thereof…

Some of the test prints from one of my printer reviews – they look good, but what does that tell me about print quality?

I make a lot of prints during my testing and I’m still entirely uncertain what print quality means.

Print quality – What I’m asked

Of all the things I’m asked about by people wanting a new printer, or wondering to update one they have, print quality is one of the commonest themes.

If you’re a commercial printer, then there are all kinds of standards and criteria related to print quality and measuring the performance and consistency of your press setup. It’s a very precise area of colour management and process control, and the equipment and software to do it is not cheap.

The problem is that there are no real standards governing photo printers. Any time you read something like ‘superior print quality’ in a printer description, then you know the dead hand of marketing has been at work…

Attempts to use commercial printing criteria run up against the problem that they are utterly meaningless to most users of photo printers. Meaningless unless you expect people to learn about colour management and a host of other things related to commercial printing, inks and paper characteristics.  No, it’s not going to happen.

What people seem to want

I know that many people want me to tell them which product is best and make recommendations. Well, that simply isn’t going to happen.. ‘Best’ is an even less well defined concept than print quality. I’ve an article explaining why if you’re curious:

• Why I never recommend the ‘best’ 

However, I am happy to suggest what areas may be important to you:

• The best paper for your prints – things to consider
• Video: The best printer – why review ratings are meaningless
• Video: The best paper

Some people ask for numbers. Sure, I can give them a number, such as a profile gamut volume on a particular paper, but I might as well roll some dice to create the number for all the good it is on its own.

The problems are context and meaning.

If I tell you a printer (with a particular paper) has a print quality score of 116 and another printer with the paper has a score of 110, does that mean the first printer is better?

Two printers – they are both black

Of course not. Without a lot of methodological explanation, you don’t know what those numbers mean. That’s fair enough, but the trap a lot of people fall into is to blithely assume some correspondence between precise data and meaningful data.

Wherever I see  something like a ‘gamut volume’ in a printer or paper review I’m inclined to wonder if:

• The article is partly aimed at those liking the spurious certainty of numerical data
• The author has space to fill, and the graphs/charts look good and show ‘expertise’
• The publisher wants to be able to tell readers what is ‘best’, even if it means nothing

Most magazines hate not being able to say A is better than B.

A gamut volume – pretty, but is it of any use?

I was asked a few years ago about writing a printer review for a publication. It never got off the ground, because I said I could not give simple scores or rank products.

Can you see good print quality?

Bad prints, or prints with problematic areas are pretty easy to spot. The first proper images I print on a new printer are known good test images.

These are created explicitly to show up print problems. Here’s one I use a lot.

A print of it helps assure me that

• The printer is working ok – no blocked nozzles or banding
• The paper is compatible with the inks
• The print settings are not drastically wrong
• The icc printer profile I’m using is OK

All the panels test different aspects of printing – see the full description on the printer test image page (it’s a free download)

• Printer Test Images

The test images show problems, but let’s say you print the image on two printers, of different makes, on the same paper and compare them.

It sounds like a simple comparison, but…

If the two printers are different makes, what make was the paper? If it was a paper from the maker of one of the printers, is it a fair comparison?

If it’s a third party paper, and you’ve made (or downloaded) an ICC profile for the paper for each printer, then are you really comparing the printer, or just how well that particular paper works with that printer and its ink set? Are you sure the profiles are of equally good quality?

I’m also glossing over the difficulties in comparing prints – it needs careful lighting for example. Then there is the matter of how close you should look, and whether differences it takes a microscope to see are of any real relevance.

Print quality faults are easy to spot

With care, a good test image lets you see and potentially eliminate many common printer/paper/settings faults.

No, this paper does not work with this printer

There comes a point though where the picture just looks OK and you’re looking at the paper surface, and other features of the paper finish.

At this point it can become a matter of personal taste as much as anything.

Now you might be wondering if there is some way I can measure how ‘correct’ the colours are and do some testing?

The problem is that no print can ever match a screen and every paper exhibits different characteristics with different inks and printers. I can certainly look at this, but it’s partly testing the quality of my paper profiling.

A bigger issue for me is that colour accuracy is but part of how a print looks. Unless you are doing work that is absolutely colour critical (press proofing for example) there is that element of personal preference coming in – especially once you start printing your own photos, where your photography and editing skills also factor in.

I mentioned press proofing there – If you’re into this, then yes there are all kinds of standards, equipment, software and procedures you can go through. This is an extension of the commercial printing I mentioned earlier. If you’re doing this, you likely have all the background to produce meaningful numbers AND know what they mean. If you’re curious about this huge area of printing, have a look at the Fogra site.

We’re at the point where with current A3+ and above desktop printers, where I need to write on the back of my test prints as to what paper/printer they were made on. If I don’t, then within days I’m unlikely to be able to tell you which printer it was printed on.

Any good modern printer can make great looking prints – if you know how

Are some ink types or more inks better?

Are pigment inks ‘better’ than dyes? I’ve covered this in more detail…

• Video: Dyes vs pigments
• Article: Dyes or pigment inks for you?

Well, you tend to find higher end printers using pigments. Is that because people assume pigments are better, since printer marketing almost universally says so?

At it’s broadest I find that pigment ink printers give me better looking prints on a range of papers more easily.

However, the pigment ink printers I look at tend to have more inks and are more expensive and better specced.

Would a dye based 10 or 12 ink printer look absolutely superb? Or have the printer makers pushed the ‘pigment quality’ line so much, that few customers would be OK with buying a very high end dye based printer?

For an interesting printer which uses dyes and a pigment black (on some papers) look at my detailed review of the Epson ET-8550

• Review: ET-8550

B&W print quality, pigment works better

One are where I can make a much clearer choice is for black and white printing. Here I see a distinct advantage for pigment ink printers.

The reason is also very clear from looking at detailed measurements from my B&W testing. The black dye inks are not quite so black in red light. This light imbalance makes dye based B&W printing much more problematic and prone to changes under different types of lighting.

Different papers, different images, different look

See my B&W on the PRO-200 article for a close look at how you can get good B&W from dyes, but it is more dependent on setup and paper choices:

• B&W printing on the PRO-200

More inks = better print quality?

A basic photo printer has cyan, magenta yellow and black inks. CMYK  (the black may be in two forms for different paper types)

Print small dots of these and you can give the illusion of continuous tone. A light cyan area of the print though may need a relatively sparse application of dots, increasing the chance that they will be visible.

Extra inks such as light magenta and light cyan give more flexibility for the printer to mix dots and keep them closer together.

This makes the basic 6 colour printer CMYK +light cyan + light (or pale) magenta (C/M/Y/K/LC/LM). No light Yellow, since it is already light.

You can add a grey ink or even a light grey as well, to give 8 inks. The greys are used to reduce the need for colours for less saturated print colours. As a side benefit, the grey inks may improve the black and white print performance of the printer.

Additional ‘strong’ colours may be added to the ink set. These may extend the gamut (range of colours) slightly in some area, and they may allow smoother gradations of colour and tone.

Typical colours added include red, green, blue, orange, and violet.

A clear coat ‘colour’ may be included, to alter the gloss characteristics of some printed areas.

The more inks in use, the more cartridges, more ink lines and more complex print heads are required – these all bump up the cost. That means that more inks appear in higher end printers

12 inks in a Canon large format printer – note red/green/blue and greys

So, more inks in these big printers does make for better potential print quality [smoothness and colour range] BUT it’s dependent on profiling, paper choices and knowing how to get the very best out of the printer. I’m also going to say that it’s often not the sort of thing anyone will notice unless you point it out to them.

This is not the same as with smaller printers where a grey or red ink may be added to the mix for all sorts of reasons, depending on the other inks there as well. So a 4 colour printer potentially doesn’t get to what a 6 colour one could manage in terms of tonal smoothness.

So, yes, more colours can be a good thing, but it only starts to show more in bigger (more expensive) printers.

The print longevity ‘problem’

There is a lot of mis-information about concerning the whole issue of print longevity – it’s one of those aspects of print quality that you can’t see. Maybe you’ll not even live long enough to see it…

Years ago, dye based inks were associated with prints that started to fade within months of printing them. However, both inks and papers have come on a lot.  Sure, if you use cheap unbranded ‘photo paper’ and cheap 3rd party inks I’m sure it’s still possible to make prints with very short life expectancies, but use the right inks and good paper and the current dye based prints should last for years.

Now there are differences, so the inks of the Canon PRO-200 are better than the inks of the Canon G550 I looked at – however other aspects of use far more readily differentiate these two printers.

• PRO-200 review (incl. links to videos)
• G550 review (incl. links to videos)

Both Canon and Epson publish ink longevity information and articles – I’ve read them and if you filter out some of the marketing, they are fundamentally reliable sources of info.

If you really want to dive down the print longevity rabbit hole then the Wilhelm Imaging Research web site is a place for you.

So, pigment inks are (if kept well and on suitable paper) likely to last longer. That’s great – but you need to decide if it really matters to you, or is just some fuzzy concept that makes you feel better…

What goes into print quality? The Giclee problem

Anyone selling printers or paper wants to emphasise print quality – the fact that there are no useful standards means it’s a marketing feature, meaning whatever you want it to mean, or even better, what you want readers to assume it means…

It’s also a print selling feature, particularly at the higher end. Go to many fine art printing sites and you’ll read paragraphs of meaningless nonsense, of the sort you use to sell expensive things.

Test prints on a cotton rag paper – they are archival too…

If I’m selling prints, I’m happy to point out that I print them on fine art media with pigment inks and may mention their archival properties.

So, Acid-free, OBA free, cotton rag, archival pigments, museum grade and other terms all set the level (and price) we’re working at. You may even hear the term Gicleé used  – a sure-fire indicator of spurious marketing nonsense.

I’ve always believed that stuff like this perhaps impresses people who deserved to be impressed, but if you are doing your own printing and looking for a printer, be very careful before taking any of this guff too seriously.

I do have more on this in a video

• Video: Fine art print sales marketing – Does Giclee matter?

Big pigment ink printers can make superb prints, but you need to know how to get the most out of them. What’s more, if I was printing A3 test prints, I’d still need to write what they were printed on, on the back.

Of course, the best prints to sell are ones people want to buy. Have a look at this video for some examples from what many might dismiss as a printer ‘not good enough’ for selling prints.

Of course, there is always the problem of being just too cheap in your choice of media (and 3rd party inks)

Printer capability

Surely not all modern printers are effectively the same? There must be differences.

Yes there are. The larger printers 13″ width and above) tend to have more inks, larger cartridges (lower ink cost) and more options for settings.

They support more paper types (out of the box) and often tend to be better in overall usability, with better screens,  interfaces and print software.

The bigger printers have more capable paper feeding mechanisms, and any support for roll paper gets better. So the 17″ P900 will work with an optional roll adapter, but the bigger 17″ P5000 has a powered roller, a paper cutter and sheet paper cassette handling paper up to A2 (it has more inks too).

In general, any good photo printers are A3+ (13″) and above.

I regularly get asked for what is “the best printer” – If it fitted in my house and I had £10k to spare, I’d quite like an Epson P20000.  I suspect this is rarely the answer people who ask such questions want from me…

• P20000 review

All very nice, but that’s not to say you can’t make good prints on small (A4) printers, just that they are less flexible and you’ll need to work at getting good prints.  However, small printers are aimed at the cost conscious customer, not the one wanting to make prints as good as they can.

• Video: Where are the high quality A4/letter photo printers?

Why are there slightly lower print quality expectations with cheap printers? – because the people who buy them won’t notice.

That means that if you do notice, then you probably need to spend more…

The profile problem

In all my testing of printers, I make custom icc printer profiles to optimise results for a particular paper, whether a 3rd party one or one from the printer maker (Original Equipment Manufacturer or OEM).

Some printers come with basic profiles for common OEM papers – these are usually installed along with the printer driver.

The better the printer, the wider is the range of papers supported with profiles. Some cheaper printers don’t come with profiles at all. My review of the Canon G550 covers this and some workarounds.

When it comes to third party papers, many suppliers will provide profiles for their papers on some printers. It will come as no surprise that they are far more likely to do this for higher end printers and not cheaper ‘home office’ type printers.

So, get a cheap printer and you’ll find that no-one provides paper profiles for it. Some suppliers (at least here in the UK) will make custom profiles for you if you buy paper, but apart from that, you are on your own.

You could make your own icc profiles, but that needs expense and expertise that relatively few will want to look at. I’ve covered aspects of this in some reviews and articles, but it’s not something for most people wanting to ‘just’ print their photographs.

• Printer profiling i1Studio
• Video: Making your own profiles
• Video: Media settings or profiles – what are they and why you need to set them

Profiling target prints – used to make my ICC profiles [G550 shown]

What things can you do to get the best out of your printer?

There are quite a few things you can look at without needing to rush out and spend a fortune on a bigger printer.

Best results come from using a printer profile and sending the best image data to the printer.  That means that having your monitor calibrated for editing is an important step in print quality and consistency.

It’s quite possible that your disappointment with your prints is nothing to do with the printer or paper – it’s your editing or even your original photography. This is one reason my first test prints are of known good test images.

Is best best?

If you look at the print driver settings for your printer you will see various ‘quality levels’ available.

It’s natural to think that turning all the settings up to ‘best’ will make the best print (albeit printing a bit slower).

Hold on a minute though… marketing has its fingers in what you’re seeing. A lot of the extremes of quality/resolution are there for marketing bragging rights and looking good in assorted printer marketing blurb.

You ideally do need to experiment to see.  I’ve carried out some tests with the Epson P700/900, Canon PRO-200 and PRO-300 to see what difference different setting make. The articles contain links to videos as well

• Epson P700/P900 optimal print settings
• PRO-200 print settings and detail
• PRO-300 print settings and detail

I’ll be including this in future as part of my review testing for other printers.

Media choices

As I mentioned with profiling, better printers tend to support more OEM paper types with profiles and have a much better chance of having profiles made for them by 3rd party paper suppliers.

So, in this respect, you are likely to get better prints from a more expensive printer – not because of any inherent quality differences between models, but because of what they enable in the rest of your workflow and how they are supported.

Sure, there are differences in ink-sets and printer performance specs, but any significant changes in print quality are likely not from that.

It does mean that if you’ve a good, working, older printer, then upgrading/replacement is more likely something to consider for other aspects of printer functionality than ‘basic print quality’.

Just one other thing about media choices…

Avoid rushing out and getting test packs of paper with a new printer – Learn to use it properly first, so you have a fighting chance of being able to meaningfully decide if a new paper is more to your tastes (not ‘better’). See this for more…

Colour management and print quality

I’ve mentioned printer profiling  and monitor calibration/profiling already. There is no way round it, if you seriously want to get the best results from your printer.

There are hundreds of articles/reviews/videos on the site in the printing and colour management sections of the web site:

• All of Keith’s colour management info
• All of Keith’s Printing related info (incl. test images)

Here’s a video covering the basics of colour management for printing:

The things people perhaps don’t want to hear – and what I can cover.

I’m asked about printers a lot. Some questions are obviously just asking for agreement with a purchasing choice, others just checking particular aspects of functionality. That’s fine.

The ones I cannot answer are the one which give no context – “I want the best printer for my photos” is typical.

I can’t answer this – well yes I can, but I doubt Epson have sold many P20000 printers as a result of it…

More info is needed. Budget is the most obvious, but so is what you want to do with the prints.

Budget is a tricky one – the printer, the paper, and ongoing ink use all cost money. Yes, printing has an ongoing cost.

If you want high print quality, it generally costs more.  I mention these areas, since acceptance of this varies widely. If you are drawn to third party inks and paper by their lower costs, then I’m minded to suggest you are only partially drawn to optimal print quality.

The hardest questions for me to help with, are for people who know nothing, and care even less about colour management, editing and the like. It’s such an integral part of my own printing that not using it myself isn’t going to happen.

If you are printing from a phone or an iPad, then I’d suggest you are in the wrong starting place to worry about ‘print quality’ in a meaningful way – or perhaps I should change that to ‘a predictable way’.

• Ease of use? – certainly
• Cost of printing? – of course
• Print quality? – who knows?

Remember that I write my reviews and make videos coming from the POV of a working photographer – it’s what I do.

That doesn’t mean I think you shouldn’t try printing from phones or iPads, just that my experience of this and cheap basic printers in general is so lacking that my opinions are pretty worthless.

I’m positive that I could produce quite reasonable looking prints on almost any basic printer, but it would take software, experience and equipment far in excess of what i could expect somebody looking at a £100 printer to have. All it would show is that at the level of the physical printer, it can work well.

If you want truly great prints you need to spend money and take time to understand the basics of the photo printing process.

Great prints take some effort – not just pressing ‘Print’

For me print quality starts when I pick up the camera and ends when the print comes out of the printer. I wrote this a while ago as to why learning to print can benefit all of your photography.

• Better photography by printing your photos

In many ways, the technical side is easy – you spend a bit more money and it becomes easier still. Once you’ve mastered that, you realise that the real key to great prints is a great photo.

Rubbish photos make rubbish prints

Maybe this helps…

I hope this article has been of interest.

Please do feel free to contact me or comment on the videos (I try to reply to nearly all comments)