The advent of digital photography has enabled many people to make their own photograph productions right in their own homes. With a personal computer, a printer and some good photo papers, one can produce a variety of digital print jobs that would otherwise cost a hefty bucks when done in commercial photo labs.
Photo paper or photographic paper generally refers to paper rendered with light-sensitive emulsion (such as silver halide salts) coated over a colloidal material (a material that suspends only on top of another element, not “mixing” with the element), like gelatin, resin or polyester filaments.
When the photo paper is exposed to light, an image of the object intended to be printed appears or forms on it. Before the advent of digital photography, the images are formed on photo paper either through direct contact with a film negative, using an enlarger to create a latent image, or by directly placing objects over it to produce photograms (images created without a camera).
Today, photo paper commonly refers to computer photo paper, consisting of many types of commercial-grade paper for use in digital photo printing. Photo papers are categorized as glossy, semi-matte (also called silk) and matte. Their thickness also varies. Those used for commercial printing are thicker and heavier to be able to last longer when stored over long periods of time.
While there are a variety of generic photo papers and some are sold in pre-cut packages according to popular digital photo sizes, there are also photo papers that are marketed by the brands of printers available in the market today (such as Canon, Kodak, Epson or HP).
The idea is to optimize the definition and quality of the digital prints by customizing the printing specifications of the printer used (such as resolution) to render the best effect on the photo paper. The result is an excellent photo product that can be mistaken for professionally printed ones.