From Photoshop to Print

My one goal today was to try out the Canon Pixma Pro 9000 that I acquired along with the D5 camera ten days ago. I usually avoid reading manuals or doing the wealth of tutorials available both in purchased products as well as on the Internet but I am finding that to make the real progress I must now have I need to settle in my seat and do the homework.

After I found the documentation that was downloaded into the Canon utilities folder,  the task became easier. The printed Quick Start Guide was helpful to show what the printer parts are meant to do and how and where to load paper. The online guide which was in HTML was way better. It showed me what the several programs that came with the camera and the printer were supposed to do. 

Easy PhotoPrint Pro is an Adobe Photoshop plug-in (originally created for the CS version but works fine with the CS3) that printed better photos than I've ever printed. Photos printed with the built-in PhotoShop print command were inferior to those printed with the plug-in.
I stopped printing photos years ago because of the awful results I got with my Epson printers. Maybe I should have read the manuals. Tony told me he prints serviceable prints with his Epson inkjet five years old. These photos however on the Pixma look as good as any you would get at CVS or Wal-Mart. 

Before I closed shop to to go the gym at six this evening, I printed an 8 1/2 by 11 photo of this model, Lenny. The print command prints on this size photo that it calls "letter." Printing on this size showed the effect of the size crop tool I use on images in Photoshop. No problem though with irregular sizes. The Canon plug-in provided a way for me to re-crop the image inside the Print Command, even showing guide lines that divide the image into thirds! I did not want the image resized. Instead I wanted it to fill the borderless paper while including the parts of the image I wanted included. The plugin did just that.

I don't intend on printing a lot of photos with the Pixma printer. I will probably use Wal-Mart for the less critical printing I need to do and the print option on Smugmug.com for professional output. But I do want to experiment with various art papers. In addition to broadening my expertise with Photoshop technology, like using filters and layers and doing some image manipulation beyond creating a "normal photograph," I also want to experiment with print technology. 

My long-term goal is to create images for gallery and museum exhibits as well as for magazine editorials and, yes, books! I have a long way to go but taking the two hours I did this afternoon is heading in the right direction.

Where I end up is a toss-up. While driving to the gym at noon I listened to the interview with Tom Grant, an American cinematographer just back from China. He had gone there to film the demonstration of a group agitating to free Tibet. Chinese authorities identified him and threw him in jail the duration of the Olympic Games. He and other foreign prisoners were released an hour before the start of the closing program at the bird's nest. The Chinese confiscated over $10,000 worth of his equipment and sent him back on a plane charged to his own credit card. Asked if he would do this again, he replied, "In a heartbeat."

Right now I love photographing models and eagerly look forward to doing more model shoots. But I also want to get back to working on video and Final Cut Pro. Digital photography and videography open up possibilities one can only dream of. 

As I go through my day, especially when out of the house, I see people and think of events that with my camera I could document and share with other people through the Internet. Wielding a digital capture device is a huge responsibility because it gives one the power to share images and ideas. Art is awesome but it is sugar and spice if nothing more significant is communicated, if it does not touch people's hearts or ignite their minds that their lives change for the better.