Picking the Paper

What you print on makes almost as much difference as how you do the printing. You can get various types and weights of paper for all kinds of printers. There are special papers for inkjet printers and for laser printers. If you want your picture to resemble a photograph, consider investing in a pack of photo-weight glossy paper. It's a much thicker paper with a glossy surface that really does help make your inkjet or laser printed picture look like something that came out of a real darkroom rather than a computer.

You can get coated papers for printing color on inkjet printers. These give you photo-quality prints with a matte surface, rather than the glossy one just mentioned. Transparency paper is clear acetate film, specially treated to accept the inks. Use it to make overhead projection slides and overlays.

You can also get art papers for some kinds of inkjet printers. These are heavy rag papers, much like artist's watercolor paper. Find these at www.inkjetmall.com, among other places. I've had very good luck printing on Somerset Smooth and Somerset Velvet with the Epson Stylus Photo 750 and 1200 printers. These fine-art papers are ideally suited to printing pictures that you've converted to imitation watercolors, pastel drawings, and so on. This is because they are the same papers generally used for those techniques. If you use a heavy art paper, feed in one sheet at a time and set the printer for thicker paper (if it has such an option).

For some kinds of art projects, printing on canvas or foil would be ideal. You can find treated pieces of thin canvas with a paper backing that will go through the printer very well at many art or office supply stores. There are also foils, treated to accept inkjet ink, and probably more kinds of cloth and other surfaces to print on, since the last time I looked . You can even buy sheets of rice paper or sugar, as well as edible inks, and put your photos on cakes or cookies. (Check out www.computercakes.com or www.icingimages.com for these materials.)

Label stocks come in all kinds of sizes and shapes , and literally hundreds, if not thousands, of kinds and weights of paper for both inkjet and laser printers.

Finally, you can buy packs of iron-on transfer paper (for color laser or inkjet printers), which let you put your images on T-shirts, aprons, tote bags, or anything else onto which you can iron. Follow the instructions with the paper and don't forget to flip your image before you print it so that it reads correctly.

Paper Matters

I used to use inexpensive photocopying paper for most of my work. It's fine for printing a quick proof to see how a picture comes out. For serious proofing, though, you need to use the same paper that you'll use for the final print. Otherwise, you aren't proving that the combination works. For work that a client will see, I use a coated inkjet paper like Weyerhaeuser Satin Ink Jet paper because the colors are brighter and don't bleed into each other. If I want the picture to look more like a darkroom photo, I'll pay the extra money to print it on special glossy paper.