Hi all,

I hope I am in the correct section to ask this...but my sister wants me to create a graduation announcement for her son within one week! Anyway, the style she found had a black background with a black and white photo in the middle and sepia (correct word?) colored images around the B&W photo. That's not the problem. The layout is the easy part. What I can't figure out is what to print on so the photo's look like real pictures and not like they were printed on paper thus appearing dull and how does one print on a black background using B&W images? It can't be that they "filled" in the background or that would use a phenomenal amount of ink, right? I just can not figure out the black background and what kind of paper to print on so the pictures appear crisp like a photo and not dulled like when printing on regular paper. Do you think the printer makes the difference? I have an HP Photosmart printer. I wonder if the pro’s use laser printers?

Here is the link of the example she sent me to go by:

http://www.babyfacecards.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=13

Again, it's the announcement with the black background.

Thanks folks,
Beth

not sure how good your printer is, but try some photo paper made by HP or Kodak..it isn't cheap but will give very good results...

Hi Beth,
The only way to get the black background is to print it black. Yes it does use a lot of black ink.
If your prints look degraded compared to the image on your screen, perhaps you need to calibrate your screen and printer profiles.

If you figure your ink cost your likely going to find this job is cheaper at Kinkos or another local printer. I would suggest brochuer paper for the printing. Cheaper than photo paper, two sided, decent image quality.

My friend just made baby announcements and had the photos printed spray mounted them to color paper; in this case blue but could be done with black paper????
Just a thought.
~Nancy