ray23 wrote:So guys what kind of paper should I be looking for to do photos?

This is an easy one.....Photo Paper

I have an epson photomate and an HP-1220. Both print photo shop quality photos when I use photo paper.

You know somehow I guessed that owuld be the answer.

Good guess...

Just to add, it really depends on what quality pictures you want Ray, and how you intend to keep them.

The printers often work best with "own brand" paper and you would need to do some expensive experiments to see what other brand papers worked as well. There is plenty of information on the web to shortcut this process when you have settled on your choice of printer as own brand paper is, unsurprisingly, the most expensive usually.

If you intend to display the prints, the inks used are an issue. The situation is much better than it was even 3 or 4 years ago however, when the pictures would change colour (color) and/or fade within months after exposure to light and the atmosphere.

John

Well it sound like a fun project, some I think I will just put in album but some I will want to frame and display. I also bought a cheap digital camera to start with, changes in lighting really causes problems so I will probably upgrade the camera at some point as well.

I'll keep the photos in the computer, untill I see what happens. Found out yesterday my CD reader is on the fritz, so I may up grade to a CD burner as well. All this will happen over the next year. My eyes are definelty bigger the budget. With the new house the wife has some ideas as well

It reall is strange having the time for hobbies, not something I experienced before, thank you Thailand

Ray, Just a work about keeping the photos on your computer. I have always been a shutterbug and take lots of photos. The key to taking good photos is not to take good photos but taking lots of photos (advice given to me long ago by a professional photographer).

I stuck to film long after digital cameras came out because film photos always looked better to me than ones from digital cameras. This frustrated me because viewing digital photos was cheap (Free) and developing and printing film was expensive but I liked the results of film better so that is where I stayed.

One day I took a digital photo that did not look up-to-par by film standards to a printer simply because I liked the subject of the photo and wanted a print not caring about the quality of the photo itself. Well, the print came out GREAT. I was so surprised. It was at that time that I realized that the digital photos that I was viewing on my computer could be displayed at no better quality than the monitor that they were being viewed on.

With that being said I will tell you this. Prints will almost always look much much better than they do on your computer. I keep all photos that I take and I take lots of them. I even keep out of focus and inadvertent photos like ones of the ground or my leg when I accidentally hit the shutter when I don't mean to. You never know when you may want/need an out of focus photo of something. Once you have it on your computer it costs you nothing to keep it there but once deleted it is GONE forever (after you empty the trash bin of course).

Doug

wansman wrote:
Once you have it on your computer it costs you nothing to keep it there but once deleted it is GONE forever (after you empty the trash bin of course).

Doug

Absolutely.... or in the case of a hard drive failure, it can be awkward and/or expensive to retrieve your pics... (depending on the type of failure of course). Always pays to keep a hard copy on Memory card,CD/DVD,etc. Could be a good time for that CDRW upgrade you mentioned Ray
and as a back up if your printer fails... many photo shops can print from CD.(Kodak Express 6x4,6 baht each)


Safe and pleasant journey by the way Doug