I’ve always admired the sharpness that I see in professional photographs, especially in landscape and architectural photography. It never occurred to me that my own DSLR autofocus could be out of whack. I just came across this article by Mark Dubovoy over at Luminous Landscape. I plan to test this and see if it’s an issue on my Canon 60D. (More on that test when I get around to it.) Makes sense. How come I never thought of that?
After an almost 10 year hiatus from the world of DSLR photography, my wife purchased a Canon 60D for me for Christmas. I had given away my first DSLR to my little sister (who has a great eye), and had made the conscious choice to enter the point-and-shoot world for good. Diaper bags and briefcases had taken the place of the camera bag in my travels, and I had made piece with that. So I was a little miffed that my wife had thrust me back into the “serious photography” realm – and at an expenditure that I felt that I could ill afford, both in terms of dollars and time.
To make a long story short, I am thrilled that my wife “did this to me”. Especially once I saw the quality of the images coming out of the 60D. Truly amazing stuff, even before we start talking about the amazing video capabilities of that camera.
We’ve been in our house for over two years now, and most of the walls remain embarrassingly bare. As I dove deep into photography again, I had giddy visions of our own photos gracing the walls. Though it had been packed away for almost 3 years, I thought it was probably time to dig out my Epson Stylus Photo 2200. While it was quite the printer back in it’s day, I wasn’t sure it would work, that I could get ink for it, or that it would be up to the task of printing at a quality that matches what today’s camera’s can produce. Suffice it to say it’s great on all fronts, although ink cartridges do typically have to be ordered online, as they are not typically stocked at brick-and-mortal retailers any longer.
Unwrapping the printer from it’s stretchwrap, knocking off a little dust, and plugging it in, I was ready to test this baby out. Alas, it would not print at all. Not even a nozzle check. Perhaps the chips on the cartridges have a “due date” coded in? Off to Amazon.com to order new cartridges. A week later, with the new cartridges installed, I went through the usual nozze maintenance and printing calibration procedures.
After many test prints and experimentation with settings, here is what I arrived at to get nice, rich, b+w prints:
Equipment:
- Macbook Pr0 / OSX 10.6.6
- Epson Stylus Photo 2200 with new cartridges
- Epson Matte Paper – Heavyweight
Aperture Settings:
- Printer Settings – Epson Stylus Photo 2200
- Rendering – Printer Managed
Printer Driver:
- Under the “Print Settings” drop down:
- Media Type: Enhanced Matte Paper (or to match your paper type)
- Ink: Black
- Print Quality: 1440dpi
- High Speed checked
To my surprise, the 1440dpi setting yielded the deepest blacks. When High Speed is unchecked the blacks are a slight bit deeper, so leave it turned off if quality is paramount, but I found it to be a negligible difference.