For those who have some trepidation or just some questions about printing your own sheets let me share how I print the PRINTED sheets.
This is from my experience of printing thousands of collage sheets over the years.
My current printer is a Canon Pixma Pro 100, which I’ve been using for about five years. This is an inkjet printer.
I’ve always used Canon printers because I have always had a Canon camera. It's just a personal preference; there are other photo printers out there that are highly rated among their myriad users. I do, however, recommend a photo printer.
PAPER
The paper I use for the printed collage sheets is Epson Presentation Paper Double-Sided. I’ve used this paper for more than a decade. A personal favorite. I have a Canon printer and have had no issues using Epson paper with it. There is a version of this paper that is single-sided that is a bit less expensive - it's also a bit lighter in weight but still nice. I prefer double sided because it's a bit heavier and I can print on both sides (comes in handy when proofing prints).
When using an inkjet printer, I find office paper, including office paper for color printing will tend to give you washed out colors and in my opinion, doesn't compete with the Epson Presentation Paper. Again, a personal preference - I prefer a rich colored print and I prefer selling rich colored prints to my customers. I also like that I can use wet media on this paper (within reason) and the ink doesn't run.
PRINTER INKS
I always use OEM inks - genuine inks made by the manufacturer of my Canon printer. These inks are archival and made specifically for my printer. I highly recommend using the inks made by the manufacturer of your printer and avoiding cheap knockoff generic inks. In the beginning of my printing career I made a huge mistake using generic inks and ruined my printer because the cheap ink plugged up the print nozzles of my printer. I'm all for paying the extra $ so you know your inks are compatible with your printer and you know whether they’re archival.
Side note: Be prepared to spend a lot more on printer inks over the years than you spent on your printer. I've found it worth the investment.
MY PRINTER SETTINGS
The settings I use for my printer are:
Media Type: Matte Photo Paper (based on the paper I'm using which is matte)
Print Quality: Standard
My printer happens to print a bit on the dark side so standard works best for me. You may discover that standard doesn’t give you as rich an output as you’d like so you may need to use High as your print quality.
And that is it! My secret printing formula.
In my opinion getting a good output boils down to ink, paper, printer settings. Photo printers nowadays generally have excellent print quality and you don’t need to buy a beast of a printer for $$$ to get beautiful prints.
❤️