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Printing, et al
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Hi,
I wonder what people’s thoughts/ experiences/ feedback on printing their images has been.
Do you print/ how often do you print/ where do you have your prints done/ have your habits changed/ how big do you print/ colour?/ b&w?/ best printing methods/ etc.
All opinions, thoughts and feedback welcome.
(Incidentally, reason I’m starting this conversation is that I don’t print, and want to start. Regularly if possible, and typically anywhere from 6×4’s to 12×8’s and sometimes maybe larger, so any recommendations/ feedback on printers/ printing services welcome).
Thanks in advance, and don’t be afraid to chime in :)
hi,
i have done quite a bit of printing both digital and traditional. im presuming in this case you are talking digital…
over the last 3 years ive had the luxury of being able to print my own work on an epson 7990 using a variety of papers from relatively inexpensive oyster paper up to A2, digital hahnemuhle (photo rag and fine art matte A2) and fabriano 5 which is traditionally a printmaking paper (lithography etc) but is sized so can be put through a machine as is.
there is nothing like it to be honest. it is very rewarding to view images in their physical form. mostly i would print things quite small to see what they’re like (e.g. 6×4 – 12×8) and then print the good ones much bigger – up to A1. there’s nothing like large scale!
there is then of course the practicality and cost of all this though. a subsidised college environment is one thing. in the real world its not so easy. ink costs a fortune, as do good quality papers and the fabriano has to be bought in bulk. All prints, no matter what kind, begin with the paper you use. it controls the final result almost more than any other factor – the absorbency, base tone, weight, surface texture, all should be taken into consideration.
if you want to try printing yourself perhaps your local (depending on where you live) printmakers might have a good digital machine? that will require becoming a member but this would bring access to other printmaking techniques also. photo etching is an interesting photographic technique and silkscreen can be rewarding also. otherwise your probably best using a pro lab…
Definitely agree with Isabella, there is nothing like having a physical print to stand back and admire. It can also change your perception of the photo. Theres been several occasions where I’ve printed a photo I liked on screen and would change my mind when I see it printed.
In the last year or two, I’ve been getting photos that I’m happy with printed 12×8 and mounting them on black or white mounting board. The mount can really add to the print also. Have a nice stack of prints now that I flick through every now and then.
I use Photobox.ie for printing. Never had any problems with them.
Thanks for the feedback & food for thought, Isabella & Niall.
Everything ends up on a computer screen right now what I shoot and have shot, so would like to rectify that, and also get into the habit of making prints. Investing a lot in the production of prints right now is beyond me, and would rather dip my toe into the water first, and get into the habit of having small prints like 6×4’s & 7×5’s made regularly, with larger prints like 12×8’s and beyond for images I really like.
More than likely I’ll go with a print service, be it online or local, at least to start. Photobox and Snapfish are the ones that jump out, so perhaps if anyone has any further experience with either or any other services, that would be great. Both probably good for small colour prints, but would be curious about what their b&w prints would be like.
Isabella – you’re right, I am mainly talking of printing from digital files here, be they files from digital cameras, or digital scans from analogue originals.
Anyway, these are just my own immediate thoughts, please chime in with any other printing related thoughts :)
Hi Damien,
I have used an EPSON R240 A4 printer for many years now.
It uses 4 inks.
The printer itself was inexpensive. I can’t remember exactly but less than €100.
The ink, as seems to be the case with with most inkjet printers, is not cheap.
I have only used Epson ink and paper.It prints really nice colour.
The B&W prints are not great. I tend to add a bit of tone and it seems to produce a better print.I print from Photoshop Elements 8.
I have enjoyed being able to make prints and use it for most of our camera club competitions.
There are some brilliant printers available with multiple inks that are capable of printing
stunning colour and B&W photographs.It is possible, without spending a large amount of money, to get an inexpensive A4 inkjet
printer that can produce excellent results.
It is also a good deal of fun printing your own stuff and seeing the results.All the best,
John.
Hi John,
Printing yourself can be quite enjoyable I imagine. I’ve thought about it many times over the years, especially with some of the machines out there with multiple black/ grey cartridges, and think it will be definitely something I consider in the future again.
Right now, I think I shall try to walk, or even crawl, before I run, lol, and with an appreciation for the costs and skills involved in printing, will look at options where I can send all my smaller prints somewhere to be done, and perhaps somewhere better for larger prints.
Right now my passion for photography is a bit of an ember I need to nurture, and am focussing on just shooting as opposed to getting too mired up in anything too technical that may blow out the spark :)
Just to throw it out there, for those of you who print at home with digital printers, where do you find the happy medium in terms of printing costs.
I often hear home printing is more cost effective for larger prints, but places like Snapfish seem pretty good pricewise for colour prints, with something like 20c for a 7×5 and 90c for a 12×8. Obviously shipping costs go on top of those, but just curious how you find home printing compares cost-wise, or is it more a labour of love ?
I can see where Isabella is coming from, and that you can do things yourself you could not get done commercially, and push the boat out for individual prints, although in these cases I would probably personally tend to look at a good printer like Steve Crozier here, to take care of those individual, larger prints, suspecting a dedicated printer would know far more about printing than I ever could, to wring the best quality from my images.
What say the home printers ? :)
Also, I hear that if you are getting anything printed from those printing booths you see all around, I believe the booth tends to apply some sort of auto corrections to your image regardless of what options you choose at the booth yourself, which is obviously not so desirable.
Has anyone had any experience with this, I wonder ? I’d only heard of this from discussions online, where some go as far to strip all metadata from their images before having them printed in this way, the suspicion being that such auto corrections (regardless of whether you choose them) tend be auto applied on the basis of data from your camera metadata (model, etc).
Any thoughts ?
hi damien,
i did buy a home printer at one point, capable of printing up to super a3, however i found that the quality compared to whats produced the epson7990 (a professional quality machine with archival pigment ink) was really not as good. looks great until you hold them side by side.
if, like me, you cant afford the 5000 or so required for one of them i would stick with a lab.
i never use the booths, they’re terrible.
make friends with your local pharmacy lab or other such small facility. do be aware also that your screen calibration may not match what it looks like on paper – laptops tend to be extremely bright and contrasty so that when you edit and print it comes out really dark. office monitors tend to be similar but not quite as extreme.Yes, Isabella, I can see where you are coming from. Just in terms of getting affordable ink costs, it seems you are being pushed towards very expensive printers with big ink cartridges, like the Epson 4990 or its current iteration, and it all starts to look pretty expensive, especially when factoring in paper and ink costs. And of course, that is before considering printing skills. All in all, not a small investment of time or money, and something that’s made me shy away from printing in the past.
Re: the booths never tried them, and kinda assumed given their ever presence that all places use them, although seems like I’m wrong on that count. I know also what you mean with regard to calibration, although I tend to be a non-heavy handed photo editor, usually applying a standard enough colour template to all my digital raw files from the same cameras and cropping as I see fit, so regardless of my monitor, perhaps there won’t be too many surprises in store for me (I hope, lol).
I think though, if going to the effort of calibration, I would prefer doing so if I was also soft-proofing my images, with the printing profile of where I was having the images printed. Perhaps food for thought for the future, and probably a reason to upgrade my old version of lightroom to avail of the new soft proofing functionality in it, lol :)
Hi Damien,
I have an Epson R2400 (newer model is the 2800) which I print the occasional (not enough) b+w image on including photos scanned from negatives and I love it. Yes its more expensive to print yourself but I do like the fact that I can get instant feedback/proofing as to the level of sharpening applied or shadow detail ec… In the past, I found that I’d have to get something reprinted because it didn’t come back as I had expected. Not the print providers fault as such, more my own processing issues.
I do need to print more holiday snaps etc as I never print those. Need to get my act together and send them off :)
Hi Mark,
The 2400 is a great printer from all accounts, and remember thinking of that model in particular many years ago, when looking for things to buy, lol. My fear is I would not print enough to justify the outlay on a printer, so am keen to dip my toe into printing my digital images, and if I find myself printing a decent quantity, may look at investing in a printer down the line.
Any thoughts on what the costs are of printing when doing doing it yourself, like would a 12×8/ 8×10 be in the ballpark of €2/ €3, or what do you find yourself ? :)
Just thought I would share my experience with getting photos printed using sites such as snapfish, foto.com and photobox.
I would normally use snapfish or foto.com for large prints such as 30″ x 20″ for sports action photos and find the prints very good. For the smaller sizes, not many can compete with their prices. I used to find the colour and brightness of the image would be altered when receiving the some of the photos, but it seems it was more my monitor. I had just a normal 19 inch LCD. Recently I switched to a Dell IPS monitor and without changing any calibration settings the on screen images are much closer to the printed ones.
I recently used photobox to print an acrylic poster, really happy with the way that one turned out. Got it on a discount, they are quite expensive for it but the quality is good.
I also use blurb to make photo books. These are hard bound with full colour printing on the cover, I tried to get one made instead of making a photo album of a trip. My latest book if anyone is interest http://www.blurb.com/books/4560245-canada-2013″ onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
Murchu wrote:
Also, I hear that if you are getting anything printed from those printing booths you see all around, I believe the booth tends to apply some sort of auto corrections to your image regardless of what options you choose at the booth yourself, which is obviously not so desirable.
Has anyone had any experience with this, I wonder ?
I remember back in my early film days, if you used colour filters to create an effect, the printers used to remove the effect, unless you told them not to. Likewise, digital photo booths use automatic settings which can ruin an otherwise good shot. I recently had a nice sunrise shot printed, which had lovely orange hues in the original. The printed version not only removed the orange, but actually managed to print it blue. It ended up looking like it was shot at night. I returned to the shop to complain & was told that was how the machine works. I got it printed elsewhere (another booth) and it printed it as it was supposed to be without altering the colours, even though I didn’t mention how it was supposed to look. I’ve also had B&W shots printed with colour casts from these booths.
dejoshea wrote:
Just thought I would share my experience with getting photos printed using sites such as snapfish, foto.com and photobox.
I would normally use snapfish or foto.com for large prints such as 30″ x 20″ for sports action photos and find the prints very good. For the smaller sizes, not many can compete with their prices. I used to find the colour and brightness of the image would be altered when receiving the some of the photos, but it seems it was more my monitor. I had just a normal 19 inch LCD. Recently I switched to a Dell IPS monitor and without changing any calibration settings the on screen images are much closer to the printed ones.
I recently used photobox to print an acrylic poster, really happy with the way that one turned out. Got it on a discount, they are quite expensive for it but the quality is good.
I also use blurb to make photo books. These are hard bound with full colour printing on the cover, I tried to get one made instead of making a photo album of a trip. My latest book if anyone is interest http://www.blurb.com/books/4560245-canada-2013″ onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks for your feedback. I’m strongly leaning towards photobox, for their prices and their their variety of print sizes and particularly aspect ratios they offer. I’d like to find somewhere local or Irish, but many of the offerings I see would tie me to glossy prints in fixed sizes. The quality of b&w from these vendors seems to be an unknown, and wonder if anyone has any feedback on having b&w done ? I assume the colour prints will be fine.
Blurb and having my own small books printed is always something that appealed. I can’t see your book at the above link though..
miki g wrote:
I remember back in my early film days, if you used colour filters to create an effect, the printers used to remove the effect, unless you told them not to. Likewise, digital photo booths use automatic settings which can ruin an otherwise good shot. I recently had a nice sunrise shot printed, which had lovely orange hues in the original. The printed version not only removed the orange, but actually managed to print it blue. It ended up looking like it was shot at night. I returned to the shop to complain & was told that was how the machine works. I got it printed elsewhere (another booth) and it printed it as it was supposed to be without altering the colours, even though I didn’t mention how it was supposed to look. I’ve also had B&W shots printed with colour casts from these booths.
Yes, this is what I’m concerned about if I get prints made this way. From what I can see, there are some places that have booths and everything needs to be uploaded through the booths, and others that have booths but you can also supply images directly to staff at the counter and one would think bypass the booths. Apparently, the booths are configured to apply some sort of auto settings to your images, whether you select the auto settings or not as an option. I’ve heard mention that stripping the metadata from your images may circumvent this auto correction, as the booth may depend on camera info in the image metadata to base it’s auto-correction algorithms on.
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