Prints vs Monitors, Round 2

[Steve M.]

Someone here (Frank?) recently had a good thread going on prints vs monitors. I agreed on the thread that a monitor, being back lit, would give excellent results, but the problem is that everyone's monitor displays differently, so that could be an issue.

Recently I had an experience that showed that a print in the hand is worth two on the monitor, if you will. At a new-to-me coffee house I struck up a conversation w/ the owner over the camera I always have w/ me. I told her that I was a B&W film photographer, and while it wasn't my thing to do commercial stuff, I would be happy to do something for her at a nominal fee (especially since she offered to show my work). She mentioned that she wanted some post cards w/ a coffee cup on them. Seems that tourists would often come in, and they wanted something to send back home or to keep as a souvenir.

I told her fine, I'll do the image part and you can use someone else for the logo/photoshopping part. After several tries (low light, a 1.4 lens and Rodinal are not ideal for this type of thing), I used my old gold standard, a Nikon camera w/ a Leica R 90 Elmarit and Tri-X. All I have at home is large fiber darkroom paper, so I scanned some negs and sent them to Snapfish for some full frame 8x10's, and had them sent to the coffee house. Snapfish being Snapfish they never arrived, so I sent the owner some jpg's of the shots. She was not very enthusiastic when I saw her afterwards, and I figured, well, she doesn't like them. No accounting for taste and all that. Then I got an email from her a few days later that said the prints finally came and they were great and she loved them. Go figure. So I think having a medium size print in your hand is different than a flickering image on a monitor, at least in this type of instance. Here's 2 shots. The first is one of the few that worked w/ the Canon FD 50 1.4 and Rodinal (note the grain in the cup handle), the second one is the Leica lens and D76. Both are Tri-X, and everything was handheld in low light at 1/30. Sorry, I can't show you the prints:{

By the by, the prints from Snapfish look nothing like these scans, and the one big darkroom print I made for myself on fiber paper looks nothing like the Snapfish prints.

 

[Sparrow]

My stuff on the web will look the same to anyone with the sense to use one of these

... my prints, sadly will look quite different depending on the ambient lighting, don't ya just love colour management 😀

PS oh, and my prints look like my screen (almost) cos I do all the calibration

 

[defconfunk]

My stuff on the web will look the same to anyone with the sense to use one of these

Only to a point, each monitor has gamut & contrast limitations. A full gamut IPS may not look too different from a cheaper IPS if both are calibrated, but you throw in an old TFT (many only displayed 6 bits per channel and had very inconsistent back lighting) and you'll see the difference regardless of calibration.

Steve, that's a pretty cool idea, doing post cards for local stores.

 

[Sparrow]

Only to a point, each monitor has gamut & contrast limitations. A full gamut IPS may not look too different from a cheaper IPS if both are calibrated, but you throw in an old TFT (many only displayed 6 bits per channel and had very inconsistent back lighting) and you'll see the difference regardless of calibration.

Steve, that's a pretty cool idea, doing post cards for local stores.

... I was simplifying, I'm sure we could debate Rood, Munsell, colour perception and peoples propensity to upgrade ad infinitum

 

[Ansel]

Yes, digital monitors are a completely different aesthetic to prints, which is why you have to take the entire image chain into account when assessing the final work.

 

[redisburning]

I mean I've heard people defend awful album mastering with "but it sounded good in my car". Seriously.

Good mastering is good mastering whether people spend their 300 dollars on Beats or AKGs, and it's the same with monitors. It's part of the territory.

With photos, pictures on monitors are not worse simply because people are imbeciles with regards to picking out a decent one.

 

[dasuess]

I am in the process (endless it seems) of scanning my B+W negatives with an Epson V600 flatbed scanner. Viewed on my Mac Thunderbolt display the scanned TIFF's are so-so, and some actually look crappy even after working them over in Aperture.

However, printed out using Advanced B+W mode on my Epson R3000 they look wonderful.

Yes... a print in the hand is worth two on the monitor.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

To OP. I didn't find those two pictures of coffee mugs to be fascinating on the screen, too much details for postcards, IMO.
But prints sometimes are very different in terms of making it nice and simple.

I am in the process (endless it seems) of scanning my B+W negatives with an Epson V600 flatbed scanner. Viewed on my Mac Thunderbolt display the scanned TIFF's are so-so, and some actually look crappy even after working them over in Aperture.

However, printed out using Advanced B+W mode on my Epson R3000 they look wonderful.

Yes... a print in the hand is worth two on the monitor.

My V500 gives too much of something I don't need. Printing it from the scan seems to "filter" some "artifacts". Wet prints are still the best to me.
Last week I even tried to scan wet print to be able to see it at the monitor 🙂

 

[Frank Petronio]

I saw in the first thread that most people made the "all monitors are different" compliant while overlooking that vast differences in how and where people view prints. Not to mention the overwhelming percentage of poorly made prints out there.

Sure, when I started designing web sites in 1995 and most Windows users were primarily doing text-based applications then you would see some horrific monitor adjustments between users. But with the modern internet being so photo-centric, most people have adjusted and by virtue of seeing millions of images on their screens they've gotten to the point that what looks good on your monitor is going to look good on 99% of everyones' monitor. Definitely not exact enough for color matching or critical work but skies are blue and grass is green... and even in less than optimal viewing conditions - like our phones outdoors - our brains make adjustments internally so we fool ourselves into seeing photos "correctly".

So I don't buy the whole "every monitor is different" scenario. They certainly aren't different enough to matter for casual viewing. And if any medium is deficient, it is the print, in which the artist has no expectation that the viewer will see in even mediocre, much less optimal conditions.

As far as what looks good on screen also looking good in print, it depends on a lot of factors. In the olden days back in the early 90s you had to over sharpen and make the images crunchy for some output devices. Nowadays if you're going to print on soft uncoated watercolor papers you'd want extra contrast and crunch to keep the image intact. And so on.... Obviously you want to prepare images for their intended medium, so if you make adjustments and compensations in order to make a fine print then you should do likewise to make a fine screen image.

That was lost in the original thread as stalwarts couldn't see past their print-based prejudice.

 

[Ranchu]

Seems a lot of word game gymnastics to make make a generally small point, that screens may be better sometimes, depending. No big deal really, but you want to say people are 'prejudiced' against screens. Maybe just relax, Francis.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Maybe just relax, Francis.

Agreed. Some nice Camomile tea helps. :angel:

 

[Frank Petronio]

Aww thanks for your concern fellas

 

[Roger Hicks]

I mean I've heard people defend awful album mastering with "but it sounded good in my car". Seriously.

Good mastering is good mastering whether people spend their 300 dollars on Beats or AKGs, and it's the same with monitors. It's part of the territory.

With photos, pictures on monitors are not worse simply because people are imbeciles with regards to picking out a decent one.

Or imbeciles enough not to have a darkroom, if you want to throw pointless insults about.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Ronald M]

I am afraid you need/must study up on color management, apply to a quality monitor, learn to use it, then find a quality lab that maintains color exactly.

Eizo Color Edge. Must be Color Edge. Advanced Imaging .com, Apply the profile provided, soft proof, and presto the prints come back just as you sent them.
Use the economy prints, they are cheaper and they just print what you send, no corrections. If it is wrong, it is your fault. It will take an order or two until you learn. These are real photo paper prints, not ink.

 

[thegman]

I mean I've heard people defend awful album mastering with "but it sounded good in my car". Seriously.

Good mastering is good mastering whether people spend their 300 dollars on Beats or AKGs, and it's the same with monitors. It's part of the territory.

With photos, pictures on monitors are not worse simply because people are imbeciles with regards to picking out a decent one.

But I think most people listening to music don't care about mastering, most won't know what it is. All that matters to them is that they like how it sounds, and heaven forbid, that might be in their car.

If you're showing photos on a screen, you can probably assume that screen will be an iPad or similar, smudged with fingerprints and glaring sunlight into the users face.

99.999% of users are not going to calibrate their screen, own a 'good' one, or go to any great length to change the ambient light in the room.

Similar problems apply to prints, but at least I suppose the print is not a 'moving part', so all you need to do is adjust ambient light, if indeed it bothers you at all.

 

[arseniii]

Prints are important part of the creative process. Adds whole more levels of freedom to the workflow: size, paper style, framing e.t.c. If screen would generaly be considered better presentation all museums and art galleries will go broke.

 

[redisburning]

Or imbeciles enough not to have a darkroom, if you want to throw pointless insults about.

Cheers,

R.

I don't think it's pointless.

And feel free. I personally own the requisite equipment to make prints optically and still choose to do my "work" on a computer. whether the output is my ****ty flickr photostream or printed images.

The bottom line is I do not have any sympathy for people who can't be bothered to at least try to do something well.