Do you print, and why ?

[John Bragg]

I love to see my photos in paper form. Darkroom prints are amazing when done well, but these days I print inkjet and it is the next best thing. I have no issues with prints from my scanned negatives. I have a few framed and on my walls at home and in relatives homes. Mainly black and white, but there is the odd colour one. Family portraits are my thing with the odd landscape thrown in. Are you a printer and do you consider it important, and why?

 

[xayraa33]

I still darkroom print B&W photos...that is what I did 45 years ago and still do today, it is the full photography process cycle for me. I don't miss the digital world and I am not fully immersed into it 100%

 

[Bmoze]

I have a darkroom at home and print B&W. I’ve always enjoyed working in the darkroom. Put on some tunes and get lost in image making. Been doing it for 40 years but always learning. For me, the print is the primary goal of my photography. I scan negs and prints to post/share, but viewing images on screen seems ephemeral and less than satisfying. I would love, for example, to have prints of some of the great stuff I see in the Gallery.

I’ve never owned a digitial camera or printer. That said, I used both extensively in my job (now retired) and I know the hardware, software and processes fairly well. Messing with clogged print heads is a hassle I never enjoyed. Been thinking about getting both again, but never quite pull the trigger. The benefit for me, is that I like the precise image editing you can accomplish digitally, and it would be nice to print these images, either via a printer or digital neg/darkroom process.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I print when someone buys one of my photos or when I need one for an exhibit. I don't have the money to print all of my work, or the space to store the prints.

 

[nikon_sam]

I shoot the film, develop the film, then print the film...it's all part of the process...I too started about 45 years ago in high school and have had a darkroom since...I don't print everything I shoot but when I do I love the whole experience...the sounds, the smells, watching the image come through, finding the right exposure then looking at the final print...
Printing teaches you how to expose your image better, it teaches you how develop the film better, it all goes round and round each process helps the one after when you get the process before right...and back again...

 

[maddoc]

I would like to do it again if time and a (make shift) dark room would be available.

 

[kiemchacsu]

I shoot films; get them developed and scanned.
I make family album every year; using digital print.
Results are good; I like shooting film in that hybrid way.

 

[Michael Markey]

I have had a number of prints made and I also have some old stuff from when I had a darkroom back in the `70`s.
Never look at any of them to be frank , more of a back up .

I edited this because I drifted off subject .....

I do have two of my prints on my wall but they were organised for me by Stewart (Sparrow) late of this parish .
He was much more experienced in printing than I was and one was a colour frame .

He used a lab in Yorkshire and his monitor was calibrated to their output.

"Do you want them how I would print them or how you would print them ? "

 

[John Bragg]

I find that paper choice greatly influences the final result and how I feel about it. Same applies whether darkroom or inkjet print. I am amazed how good the Baryta inkjet papers are, and how they emulate darkroom printing. I like one good quality RC paper for everything run of the mill and a good archival Baryta paper for special stuff like portraits of loved ones.

 

[mrtoml]

I am already thinking about the print when I press the shutter. I have a darkroom but I hardly ever use it now. I can get better results using inkjet printers. Some of the matte papers available are really beautiful with pigment inks.

I also sell the odd print and it is cheaper in the long run to print myself than use a lab.

 

[jsrockit]

I only print individual prints when I need to... for an exhibition or to sell / give away. However, I always make books of any photos I think may be usable in the future. It’s just a different way of editing vs. only seeing images on the computer.

 

[twvancamp]

I do! Though not as frequently as I'd like. I enjoy the process when I have time, but even more the images just look so wonderful. My scanner and my scanning skills are both subpar, so printing is the only way to properly see the pictures I'm taking.

 

[Calzone]

I think printing is a part of the process and that printing has made me a better photographer.

John who posted above once said, "The best tool for printing is a trained eye." I think this not only is valid, but also printing helps develop that "trained eye."

I print digitally using Piezography. I kinda mastered K-7 and then was an invited early adopter of Piezography Pro whe I kinda was a "Beta Tester" for over a year before Piezography Pro was publically available. Know that I print big because "big prints don't lie."

I learned that to minimize digital artifact and get the most analog like smoothness that it was best to shoot like a large format photographer and to maximize IQ at time of image capture to minimize post processing. I use Heliopan 2X filters on my Monochrom to get my contrast for printing at image capture.

Ideally my files require minimal tweaking, and I strive to print almost right out of the camera.

BTW with the right image, file, exposure, many of my prints resemble large format.

I also shoot mucho film. The same technics mentioned above I apply to film where I tend to use diluted developers and Diafine to manipulate contrast and to achieve a compensating effect. My negatives have a bit of HDR effect due to the expanded tonality.

It has been decades since I last wet printed in Art School in the 70's, and back then I was a very good printer. My limitations of not having a darkroom did not stop me from shooting mucho film to create an archive of NYC. Again I concentrated on image capture.

Today I signed a contract to buy a home in the Suburbs of NYC. The house has a city sewer connection, and of course I will have a darkroom.

BTW I consider Digital and analog photography separate mediums, and I embrace both rather fully.

So to sum it up: printing has made me a better photographer.

Also understand that as Chris mentioned storing prints and the costs can get really crazy. Earlier this year I shredded about 2 thirty gallon garbage bags of prints. Pretty much nice prints, but ones that didn't reach the high bar as fine art prints that will never be sold. I chose to destroy them rather than have them detract from my prized work.

I learned a lot from my friend John and his process of editing making books. I make/print collections of prints into books that are one-offs. These books are kinda crazy big. 13.3"x 20" image size on 17x24 sheet to make a page.

Slightly off topic: the Epson 7800 I got for $100.00 via Chris at a NYC Meet-Up. This printer is now about 15 years old, and I recently changed the dampers. I call this printer "The Jersey Barrier" because it is kinda big.

Cal

 

[Dogman]

All digital here and I print inkjet, mostly B&W a little color.

Why? It's just the way I've always worked with photography. It was darkroom printing for years and, when I transitioned to digital, it just naturally became habit to print digitally from the files.

I post a bit on another forum where the process is simple enough that I understand it but I've never been satisfied with the way my pictures look when viewed on a screen. I like paper--prints and books.

 

[Calzone]

When I first started printing digitally I took advantage of sales and loaded up the truck as they say. In one year I bought $10K worth of paper and ink.

My first printer an Epson 3880 I kinda killed. It was a workhorse, but not as sturdy as a 7800 or 7880.

I was told by an art dealer/gallerist that if I made one-off large books of my prints that they one day would be worth a lot of money. He advised me to think of this book as an artist's personal journal/object/collection, and that being a one-off made it rare and valuable.

So over 20 years ago I studied bookbinding and was trained by a book-artist. I took these skills and combined them with some of John's thinking to create a statement and create an object.

Know that I own a 27 inch EIZO that I use as my calibrated monitor. I dim it down to 50 Lux and use it in a darkened room to go low contrast, but even under these conditions, I can print more detail that I can't see on the EIZO.

No computer screen can compete with a print.

Also a book, especially a large one has a sculptural effect because it has scale and is an object.

Cal

 

[Rayt]

Printing is part of the process. I want to see the glow from a good b/w negative printed on fiber paper.

 

[chipgreenberg]

I print, or I should say I send my files to lab that does Lambda c prints. My goal used to be a framed print on the wall, which I still do. But I've gotten more comfortable with posting images to Flikr that don't quite make the print and frame cut.

 

[charjohncarter]

I print many photos every year, they are usually sent to friends, family, or pictures of people that work at my haunts. I don't have a darkroom now, and I don't have a printer. I use Costco for most of my prints. They are wet printed from a digital file. These are very nice in color, but when I do B&W as they use color paper something is lost. So if I want a special print I send it to Fromex in Los Angeles or MPIX. They do wet printing from a digital file on True Black and White paper.

From one of my haunts:

TriX HC-110h by John Carter, on Flickr

 

[Godfrey]

I print.

I print because, to me, a photograph isn't finished until it exists as a print. I do my own printing except for the very rare occasions when I want a canvas wrap or a print larger than I can make with my Epson P600.

I also make small, personal photo books, have them printed by Blurb, for the same reason. 🙂

ALL of my printing has been image processing to inkjet since the early 1990s. Archival grade inkjet printing became feasible this way about 2005 with the Epson pigment ink printers ... I'm re-printing a bunch of inkjet work that pre-dates that because of fade and color shift with the older dye ink technology. And I regularly hunt through older work that I have in prints and negatives because many of the darkroom prints I have, both my own and my father's and the photofinisher prints, show degradation from aging.

G

 

[Calzone]

I print many photos every year, they are usually sent to friends, family, or pictures of people that work at my haunts. I don't have a darkroom now, and I don't have a printer. I use Costco for most of my prints. They are wet printed from a digital file. These are very nice in color, but when I do B&W as they use color paper something is lost. So if I want a special print I send it to Fromex in Los Angeles or MPIX. They do wet printing from a digital file on True Black and White paper.

From one of my haunts:

TriX HC-110h by John Carter, on Flickr

Digital Silver Imaging also makes silver prints from digital files.

Their system utilizes a laser, but on large prints, even though a laser is suppose to be collumated, the edges of grain and detail gets soft.

I'm able to better exploit the resolution on digital sensors with Inkjet and especially Piezography. The increase in resolution and the broader tonality becomes mucho evident in large prints.

With the right file that has the tonality, resolution, and detail some prints resemble large format.

A few years back when the SL was being released I went to PhotoPlusExpo here in NYC. Robert Rodriguez, the Canson Arist in Residence, was a kind mentor I got to know over the years. In this particular year I brought a 13x17 print of the old Domino Sugar Refinery I took shot from the Williamsburg Bridge using my Monochrom and a 28 Cron version 1 as a gift to Robert.

Because I'm a jerk as well as a New Yorker I went to the Leica booth with a minty black SL2-MOT, and joked around that since I already owned a nice SL why would I buy another. This was around the initial release of the SL.

Then I dug in and inquired why Leica could not be clever enough to come up with a new name. One Leica rep asked me about my work and I said I'll be right back. I went to the Canson booth and asked Robert Rodriguez if I could borrow the print I just gifted him and returned to the Leica booth.

So the guy I was talking to asked if it was a wet print, and then inquired if it was shot with large format. Then I kinda floored him when I told him it was shot with a Leica Monochrom (only 18MP) and that it was printed using Piezography.

When he asked, "What is Piezography" I explained that an Epson printer is utilized with 7 shades of black, and then a gloss overcoat is applied to get rid of or eliminate bronzing.

This guy's name was Richard Herzog, and when I inquired about why I knew his name is that not only was he a large format shooter, but also somehow affiliated with Phase-One.

I was sent over to some German man who was a big shot and was told to show him that print... I was offered a show in California if I ever got out that way. "You are an important photographer," I was told a year later when I said hello and inquired if he remembered me by this man with a heavy German accent.

Anyways the moral of the story here is the best presentation of my work are prints, and that no computer screen or even a calibrated large monitor like my EIZO reveals all the detail and tonality that is possible.

Anyways it is moments like these that make me print in a fine art way, but basically all I want to do is just impress myself, run with the ball, and truely see how good I can be.

Cal