Is there a point in making prints anymore?

nikon_sam said:
Is there a point in making prints...???

It would have been pretty silly of me to give my wife two empty picture frames for Mother's Day...
The prints of our two college age kids made all the difference...
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The opposite question should be: Is there a point in NOT making prints? Prints are all over our walls, tables, desks, etc.:)
 
Back to the OP... I know a lot of professional photographers who make a living selling PRINTS!!! Hotels don't buy digital frames and crap to hang on the walls. Most people I know have prints all over their house. Most offices I go into have prints all over....so, the original question is a bit odd IMO.:angel:
 
What is better - dog or cat? It depends whether you need a guard or your home suffers from mice. They both are different cases. Same with prints and files.
 
GSNfan said:
With tablet PCs, e-readers, smart phones, ipads, other pads, OLD displays, e-paper and finally HD monitors/TV with very high dynamic range, is there any point in making prints any more?

Once a print was the only way to see a photograph the way it was intended to look like, and projectors for slides, now you can look at a photo even in the back of the camera in the LCD, and then your computer monitor and so is everyone else and in all digital display devices.

Why make prints, especially if you're not shooting for money and especially when no one is asking to see your prints?
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Find me a computer monitor/TV etc that has more than a couple of megapixels (ish) resolution. As a small ranting "aside", why do people obsess over whether (say) 12Mp is enough when they view on a computer screen at a couple of MP? What a waste! A good size print always beats that and is a lot easier to pass around than a computer...
 
wolves3012 said:
Find me a computer monitor/TV etc that has more than a couple of megapixels (ish) resolution. As a small ranting "aside", why do people obsess over whether (say) 12Mp is enough when they view on a computer screen at a couple of MP? What a waste! A good size print always beats that and is a lot easier to pass around than a computer...
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Very, very few people will pay for a "good size print", or ever have. That's for pros, artists, and serious amateurs. We all love sharing our photos. Digital images on the web beat everything in terms of visibility and ease of use. The measurable differences between a big print and a digital display just don't matter to most people. My prints, very few and far between, end up in a drawer. The stuff I put online gets seen.

In any case, displays will improve. Print quality very likely won't.
 
Maybe I'm working my way backward in technology but I enjoy having prints around. I try and make a few 8x10 c-prints per week with the occasional 16x20 to have around. A photograph should be something tangible; even if they are kept in a box rather than hung on a wall. The computer screen doesn't come close to looking as good as a well made darkroom print. Since most people's monitors aren't calibrated everyone views the photo differently. A print guarantees that the viewer sees the photo the way it was meant to be.
 
GSNfan said:
Who really takes family photos any more when video is a lot more fun and watching it again even more so?
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In 2006 about 98 million digital cameras were sold in the US. I'm thinking its some of those folks. Every family gathering I attend, without exception, has someone taking photos. Still photos. And then they print them. Go figure.
 
wgerrard said:
Very, very few people will pay for a "good size print", or ever have. That's for pros, artists, and serious amateurs. We all love sharing our photos. Digital images on the web beat everything in terms of visibility and ease of use. The measurable differences between a big print and a digital display just don't matter to most people. My prints, very few and far between, end up in a drawer. The stuff I put online gets seen.

In any case, displays will improve. Print quality very likely won't.
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I can't argue with the first bit, very valid points. However, as for displays improving, they really haven't improved to any significant degree for a long time. I'm reading and posting this using an eleven year-old monitor (CRT) which still beats new (LCD) ones for resolution. There are higher resolution LCD monitors nowadays but they're hideously expensive and that isn't changing very quickly.
 
Having just done some larger prints of my work, hearing people ooh and ash over prints of that size has convinced me.
 
zauhar said:
Hey, my first package of print paper just arrived in the mail. Don't tell me the party's over when I just got here. ;-(

I haven't even mixed the chemicals yet.

From my point of view, there is a different mojo in doing things with a physical medium as opposed to digital. No matter how "good" digital stuff gets, it is still virtual, not real.

Randy
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I just made my first prints last Saturday night (more like Sunday morning).

What a blast! Unfortunately, I only made about five before the enlarger bulb gave out, but one of those turned out nice. I am excited to make more once the new bulb arrives - I am already lining up the frames.

I already can see that making good prints will take a lot of effort. But that's part of the attraction of film, isn't it? Likewise, getting a good picture with a film RF takes some effort and concentration - sort of requires a piece of you.

Not that I don't see the value of a scanner - that is after all my only request for my upcoming birthday. ;-)

Randy
 
Franko said:
Ansel Adams said it best, "the print is the performance." It's tactile, something you can hold in your hand, not "vapor ware", a connection to something or someone that meant enough to photograph and to invest either the time, effort or money to make permanent.
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I'm sure he said that before photography was done on computers. There is no telling what he would have done with digital.
 
I thought the whole point was to have a print. All else is just a (more or less virtual) "image."

Well.....except for a light projection onto a luminous screen in a darkened room, but then that requires a transparency. That is acceptable too. :)
 
The whole point to me is to make a photo... everything else is just format and presentation choices in which no one thing is better than the other (outside of opinion that is).
 
I prefer prints to digital displays, especially when I get to make own, but this is probably because I'm an IT professional and work at a computer 90% of my day, even at home. :rolleyes:
 
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