Originally Posted by Sew-n-Sew
Another family member printed the pictures using transfer paper that she got at an office supply store. The previous quilt I made at Christmas time, I took the pictures to an office supply store and they transferred the pictures for me onto my precut fabric squares. They had an awesome Photo Shop program so they could arrange-rearrange-crop-enlarge-blurr the edges-etc. of the pictures. It was so cool and easy! Those pictures turned out with less of a plastic feel than the ones in this quilt.
Now I am confused. The transfer paper from the office supply store...Is it color fast? There are some in the market that absorb the ink permanently, but they are usually not available at office supply stores. Your Christmas one: Was the fabric treated to be colorfast after printing?
Your quilt looks amazing, but my best advice is not to wash it, and when hung, keep away from direct sunlight. It could fade very quickly.
Many programs used to alter photos can be used to obtain the quality of these pictures. It really has not much to do with the printer. If the program can adjust the saturation of the ink, increase the saturation when printing on fabric to get that sharp image on the fabric. Sometimes it can be done with the printer software. I usually print on paper with my printer set up to draft to save on ink, but if you set it to high quality, the pictures are sharper too.