Why are pictures very pixelated on 2600n

[Philhadley66]

Hello all,
I didn't buy my 2600n for printing pictures but a friend is interested in buying one and he does sometimes need to print a couple of pictures. I showed him the demo page and he was impressed with the picture of the toy train and soldier that is part of the demo page. I printed a picture from my digital camera (opened in Adobe Photoshop 6) and it was pretty blocky. The effect was exactly like if you magnify the image 200%, blocky little pixels everywhere. It printed the image at the correct size but the effect was like a 200% blow up. (Camera is 2megapixels)
What did I do wrong? As I said the picture on the demo page was really good.
Cheers
Phil

 

[kiddpete]

2 megapixels isn't very large. You are probably printing the image too large. You need to find out how to print smaller, or get some software that can increase the size of the image (i.e. pixels).

 

[Philhadley66]

I printed the image at a size of 5"x3.5" and also half as big again. In both instances the grass particularly is blocky, I have had this picture printed before at a photo developer and it was very good at 6X5. The effect as printed is like a 2mp image blown up 200% in Adobe Photoshop or a 5mp blown up 400% and it looks like that whatever size I print it, even 2". I'll try to print a 5mp at a similar size and see what happens. I'll let you know.
Phil

 

[Philhadley66]

Ok I printed a 5mp picture at 5x4 and still got the same results, blocky images.
Any ideas on settings?

Phil

 

[paparazi]

Philhadley66
5mp? what do you mean? megabytes as in file size?

OK, so 2 megapixel images aren't going to be particularly large files but printed at only 6 X 5inches they should be completely sharpe and without any visable loss of quality.

My own thoughts are:
When sizing the image you are loosing overall file size or
you are printing at low DPI settings.

So resize but make sure you set the DPI to retain the same overall file size of the original.

A couple more questions: are you using genuine inks and
are you using quality heavey weight photo quality paper.

Martin


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Participate and help others.

 

[Philhadley66]

I am just using normal A4 paper. I am not trying to get a true photo image to put into an album, my old HP Deskjet 3550 (very cheap and cheerful) did a much better job. I leave the settings on "normal" I only have 2, normal (Image REt 2400) and draft (600dpi).
Yes I did mean 5 megapixels. This is the first laser printer I have had and the text quality is really good, the image on the demo page was very good, just jpg's not too hot.
Can I overcome this at all?
Cheers
Phil

 

[paparazi]

Philhadley66
"The picture on the demo page was really good"
Well it would be!
Almost definately taken on a pro camera with 6 megapixel or higher, perfectly exposed, so ideal for printing, image REt function for best quality and specialist HP high gloss paper used for best possible finnish.

Plain paper has ink spread so is never as sharp.

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[Philhadley66]

Yes I understand that. I know plain paper gets ink spread, ink spread isn't the issue here though, the picture looks like a mosaic, my 3550 deskjet was 100 times better, on plain paper. The exposure isn't an issue either. The only issue is the mosaic effect of the printout. The demo page was printed on MY printer using PLAIN paper and is very good. It was not a demo page sent to me from HP.

There must be a setting somewhere in either Adobe or the HP software.

Phil