Another Digital Camera Question...

Mary Sparrow · 11-10-2001, 02:32 PM

I have a Sony Mavica fd83 and was wondering if anyone knew anything about this camera..it was a fairly expensive camera (retail about $799) but was wondering if it was suitable for taking photos for painting, and OF my paintings.

When you use a digital camera for source material, are you printing the photos out on your own computer? or having them developed some other way. I have an inexpensive HP deskjet 932c, that the sales guy talked me into...but am not really crazy about the clarity of the photos I print.

Thanks in advance,
Mary

Cynthia Daniel · 11-10-2001, 02:39 PM

Regarding your HP932C, I have the same printer and I've been quite happy with the print quality. You might consider the following:

In "file | page setup", are you selecting "best" for your print quality? You'll have to reset it each time you print from your program unless you have that set as your default in Windows.

If you wanted to set the default to "best", do this: Windows start button | settings | printers. Right click your printer, in the menu, select "properties" and then click the tab called "setup". This is where you can select "best" as a default. The reason to not use best as the default is that it uses more ink. Just depends on your printing habits and needs.

(2) Perhaps you're not scanning your images at a high enough dpi. I scan 8x10's at 300 dpi, smaller photos at an even high dpi. Even if the image is larger than your paper, you usually have the option to size it down to fit the paper.

(3) Have you tried printing on photo quality paper? The colors are much richer.

(4) This may not be true with you, but I find for printing, I have to make the image much darker than what looks good on the monitor.

Mary Sparrow · 11-10-2001, 03:06 PM

OK..so Im embarrassed..but you were right..It wasn't set on BEST...and yes, it made a big difference..

NOW..if I can just figure out if my camera is a suitable one..Im set!

Cynthia Daniel · 11-10-2001, 03:10 PM

Nothing to be embarrassed about...there's much to know about computers.

There's quite a few posts about cameras and you may not have seen them all. At the top of the page, click on "search messages" and enter "camera" as your search term and you might find what you're seeking.