Dark photos often don't print very well on an inkjet printer because so much ink gets put down that it oversaturates the paper. Not only does the resulting output look messy, but you also waste ink and paper. Try reducing the ink coverage by lightening the image - not with the Brightness command, but in a way that affects the output.

In Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements:

1. Choose Image > Adjustments > Levels (in Elements, Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels).

2. On the Output Levels slider, move the left marker from 0 to 12 and the right marker from 255 down to 250.

3. Click OK.

These adjustments will reduce the amount of ink the printer uses to represent 100 percent of a color and add a little definition to pure-white areas of an image. Your prints will look cleaner, and over time, you'll save ink too.