printer rantings

[Kawarthabob]

As a gift someone bought me a canon pixma printer. I used matte paper and all my photos have come out looking like oil paintings. Ok I thought wrong paper. so to the store I went and bought semi gloss photo paper. Wow what a difference! It's actually worse! Now the contrast in the sky looks like etches for a water colour painting. The ten year old all in one printer a family member has is wayyyyyy better in the print process. So i just wasted paying for ink on this peice of crap!!!!
That's my rant for the day.

[JAS_Photo]

You may just need to do a print head alignment. I have three Canon Pixma printers from a 3-in-1 to a Pro 9500 and they all do a good job. You should make sure that your settings are on best and the appropriate paper choice is used. I find that I get best results by printing from Elements but I get good results printing from the computer as well. Also your file size should be the right size have the appropriate dpi for the size of photo you are printing. If you already know all this and are still having problems you may have to take it back to the store. Good luck!

[Kawarthabob]

what dpi would you suggest for a full size (8-1/2x11) ?

[Michaelaw]

I have the pima 6700 and the pro 9000Mk2 and they print wonderful images on the windows side, on the Mac there are many issues. All i've ever done is size my image in PS to match the size of paper I intend to print to in inches (Stuck in yesteryear :) ) My dpi is @ 240 for all sizes. In the canon printer menu (Windows) I choose the type of paper I'm using (NB) next is borderless printing and finally highest quality. They are (at least for me) awesome printers. As Jas said, make sure you go through the motions of aligning the print heads, which is the final step in the software installation.