A few things to be aware of when printing or generating other photorealistic images:

When you print the 3d plot, data is first sent to the photorealistic renderer. The rendering process can take quite a while. Nothing will appear in the print queue until rendering is complete.

If you are using surface maps or axis labels, printing a second image before the 1st one has finished can corrupt the surface maps in the 1st image. Wait until the 1st page has printed before starting another print job.

The same warning holds for photorealistic TIFF's and RIB files. Do not generate more than one at a time or surface maps may be corrupted. 

When printing the default rendering resolution is 72dpi. This is not sufficent to make the text on the axes or contour lines look clean and crisp. When printing final copies, set the rendering resolution to 200dpi. This will, unfortunately, increase rendering time by about a factor of 8, but the result is well worth the delay (you can set the resolution even higher if you're willing to wait).