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Why Does My Photo Print So Badly

Written by: Mathew Georghiou

Article Overview: Ever wonder why your photo or graphic looks good on your monitor but blurry, jagged, or the wrong color when printed? Here are the possible reasons.

Why Does My Photo Print So Badly

Ever wonder why your photo or graphic looks good on your monitor but blurry, jagged, or the wrong color when printed? Here are a few possible reasons.

The resolution of the image is too low.
Images are displayed on a monitor and printed on paper using tiny dots. And each dot is a specific color. Resolution refers to the level of visual detail contained in an image.

Resolution is normally referred to in “dots-per-inch” or “dpi”. The more dots per inch, the finer the image. Images that do not have sufficient dpi will appear blurry, grainy, or pixilated (jagged).

Computer monitors normally can only display up to 72-dpi, while good quality printers can print hundreds and sometimes thousands of dpi. So while 72-dpi is often the target resolution for images intended for display on a computer, 300-dpi or higher is a common target resolution for images intended for print. Because of this discrepancy, it is common for an image to look good on a monitor, but print badly.

To improve printing results, it might be possible to reduce the size of the image. If that doesn’t work, then you may need to rescan the original image at a higher resolution.

The image is in RGB instead of CMYK color.
CMYK refers to the colors Cyan–Magenta–Yellow–Black. RBG refers to the colors Red–Green–Blue. Mixing these colors can create nearly any color in our visible spectrum. A problem can occur because printers print by mixing CMYK inks, while computer monitors
(and televisions) display colors by mixing RGB. So an RBG image will appear differently when printed.

To assure consistent color reproduction when printing, an image should be converted to CYMK before printing – this can be done using an appropriate image editing program, such as Adobe Photoshop. Color matching is a major issue in printing and can be a complex
process to perform accurately.

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