I use downloaded images for my floors, interiors and signs for my buildings. I had been printing them at the highest image quality on normal copier paper until this week. I printed an old 50s style diner checkerboard floor and an exterior business sign on premium glossy photo paper with a deskjet printer. I chose the glossy, because when using the matte or satin paper, those papers are not smooth, but have a texture to diffuse the light. It also softens the lines in the image, as well.
Sign - The left one printed on regular copier paper, the right one on glossy photo paper
Floor - Left one, regular copier paper; right on glossy photo paper.
In the picture of the flooring, you’ll notice that the one on the right is glued to a piece of wood. I’ve begun cutting a piece of 1/8" thick birch to a little larger than the inside footprint. I then sand it until it just fits snugly inside the walls. I glue this to a piece of styrene that’s cut to the outside footprint. The birch raises the inside to model a step up from the sidewalk out front. The styrene represents the building’s foundation. By making the piece of birch fit slightly snugly, it holds the building in place, while allowing it to move in case of those dreaded “elbow earthquakes”.
That’s pretty cool. It makes sense to print the flooring on glossy paper as the represented floor tiles would be glossy. Have you ever tried printing exterior signs onto tracing paper or decal paper? I was thinking of giving that a try.
That floor looks great. When I get that far I hope my pritner is up to the task, if not - out it goes.
I wonder if they still make those wax printers anymore, back in the day they were the higher quality alternative to early color inkjet, plus they made the most awesome transparencies - of course no one uses those anymore either, it’s all projectors and PowerPoint. The colors were always crisp, although the finished product couldn;t stand much handling or the wax would start to flake off. They weren;t good at photos, quite horrible actually, but for signs or floors like that it would be perfect. Since the finishing roller in the printer essentially burnished the wax to the paper, it came out naturally a bit shiny - almost exactly what you’d see on a floor that was waxed.
In case you haven’t seen it, the latest issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist has a great article on printing wallpaper and even pictures and ‘photos’ to hang ont he wall to make an interior, Seems like no more work really than putting a blank piece of black paper inside as a view divider, and this way the view lookign in the window is very realistic. Overkill for a background building but for something up front…
Anyone considering a new printer should look into a photo quality printer; mine is an Epson Stylus Photo R200. I have had it for a few years now, so it probably has been superceeded by a “new and better model”.
One thing to look for is a printer that has an ink cartrige for each color instead of a color cartrige that has all the colors in one package. With a color cartrige, when one color runs out you have to throw the whole including the unused ink in the parts that are not empty. My printer has 6 ink cartriges: black, cyan (blue), light cyan, magenta (red), light magenta, and yellow. The software that comes with the printer moniters the ink level in each cartrige, and tells me when one is empty. I keep a set of spare cartriges on a drawer next to my computer, so I can immediately replace what runs out. It is much more cost effective than dealing with multi-color ink cartriges, and produces much better results. I can print on photo quality paper for signs and floors as well as make good home made decals.
I ONLY buy printers that have individual color cartridges. The combined ones are a total waste, invariably you run out of one color before the others and waste a lot of expensive ink. I don’t knwo if they still make it but HP once had one that held I think 8 cartridges - a complete set for regualr printing plus a complete set of photo inks. I can see how that would not be for me - go a long time withotu printing one or the other and you just wasted a lot of ink, again. I print so rarely that I have issues with that even with just the regular cartirdges.
Sign - The left one printed on regular copier paper, the right one on glossy photo paper
Floor - Left one, regular copier paper; right on glossy photo paper.