Returning to Printmaking - Epson R3000 Maintenance

[Bart Bart]

I hate to do the old fart who's done it all routine but I have, starting with Iris prints in 1990, teaching, printing for a living.

In 2017 I put my one month out of warranty Epson printer on the curb and sold the scanner on Craigslist. I now enjoy looking at beautiful, highly detailed and refined images on a quality LED monitor. Occasionally I will have a custom print made for a collector or the house but no more printed portfolio, no more all-nighters dealing with RIPs and obscure work arounds, obtuse profiling, etc.

I also threw out nearly all my negatives, old portfolios and 99% of my tearsheets... all but a few boxes of fine prints. Once I thought I would get back to editing old work in old age but F-that I want to be making new work and there are already 1000s of photos of the kids. No Left-leaning college or museum is going to collect me and I'd refuse them if they asked.

When I die I don't want my kids trying to decide which of 20,000 prints are the good ones. Each kid has a box of the best photos. Having had to sort out several deceased relative's houses lately sharpened my realism, a 40-60 year old does not want to devote tons of space to your permanent shrine. A couple of boxes for the attic or closet, maybe a nice coffee table photo album to be reflected on when sentimental is plenty to leave your heirs.

Now I make pictures, do some editing, post the favs and get right back to shooting film and digital. It's great not dealing with printing. If I want 4x6 prints I order them online for ten cents like normal people and most of them turn out excellent.

I do think beginners should learn to print but after 40 years it's a stress, expense and waste of time.

 

[Beemermark]

I hate to do the old fart who's done it all routine but I have, starting with Iris prints in 1990, teaching, printing for a living.

In 2017 I put my one month out of warranty Epson printer on the curb and sold the scanner on Craigslist. I now enjoy looking at beautiful, highly detailed and refined images on a quality LED monitor. Occasionally I will have a custom print made for a collector or the house but no more printed portfolio, no more all-nighters dealing with RIPs and obscure work arounds, obtuse profiling, etc.

I also threw out nearly all my negatives, old portfolios and 99% of my tearsheets... all but a few boxes of fine prints. Once I thought I would get back to editing old work in old age but F-that I want to be making new work and there are already 1000s of photos of the kids. No Left-leaning college or museum is going to collect me and I'd refuse them if they asked.

When I die I don't want my kids trying to decide which of 20,000 prints are the good ones. Each kid has a box of the best photos. Having had to sort out several deceased relative's houses lately sharpened my realism, a 40-60 year old does not want to devote tons of space to your permanent shrine. A couple of boxes for the attic or closet, maybe a nice coffee table photo album to be reflected on when sentimental is plenty to leave your heirs.

Now I make pictures, do some editing, post the favs and get right back to shooting film and digital. It's great not dealing with printing. If I want 4x6 prints I order them online for ten cents like normal people and most of them turn out excellent.

I do think beginners should learn to print but after 40 years it's a stress, expense and waste of time.

I can't agree more with Bart's advice (maybe because I'm not so young either). When I bought my 1st scanner years ago I thought I'd scan all those beautiful Kodachrome's, 20 years later I scanned 1 per cent and maybe thrown away 5%. Bought a high end Canon Pro9500 and made maybe 20 11X14 prints. Figure each print must have cost at least $30 in ink and paper. I gave all my enlargers and darkroom equipment away a few years ago. If you have the room and like doing it I think that's great. My current process is to develop in the bathroom, scan as soon as dry, and then throw the negatives away. I wait weeks or longer before I decide if I real like a picture enough to print. Then I send it to Costco and get a 11x14 print. Maybe once a year I decide that I like one of the 11x14 prints so I'll send that out to a better photo-centric print shop and have it printed larger (or maybe smaller).

The rest are on all my computer, backed up 3 ways.

 

[Bill Clark]

Find a good lab to print your photographs.

The lab I used printed with Kodak Endura paper. They have a metallic paper that I like, They primted panos for me when I needed them. Very large prints when I sold them.

If I transmitted an order by 11:00 or so in the morning the prints were at my door next day.

 

[Evergreen States]

If economics drive the decision where you hand over the creative process to someone else, there is no question that a lab can do it cheaper. At the same time, it is also cheaper to simply buy stock photos or even hire a pro than spend what many of us do buying gear and traveling to make our own photos.

Thanks, Bob. I didn't think I would have people recommending against making one's own prints on a photography forum, but I think their reasons are sound. I just don't agree with them. And am not interested in making a case for why I want to print my own work.

 

[Evergreen States]

When I die I don't want my kids trying to decide which of 20,000 prints are the good ones. Each kid has a box of the best photos. Having had to sort out several deceased relative's houses lately sharpened my realism, a 40-60 year old does not want to devote tons of space to your permanent shrine. A couple of boxes for the attic or closet, maybe a nice coffee table photo album to be reflected on when sentimental is plenty to leave your heirs.

I'm in my late 20s and this reality is already on my mind, due to life sneaking up on my family and that of my partner's. We're not having kids, either, so I don't know who's going to have to deal with my stuff when I'm gone. I do wish there was an independent archive for the works of amateur photographers.

 

[Bart Bart]

Sorry if I come off curmudgeonly but I am.

But... I would not be a good digital editor without years of commercial darkroom printing and also thousands of digital scans and prints from all sorts of equipment. When I see newbies, amateurs, RIT students, etc. the vast majority can not achieve a pleasing white point, black point, realistic contrast, and a believable flesh tone. Snow is burnt out, pores are magnified or blasted away, etc. And learning how to deal with all that comes from printing I think. Not to say you can't do it on screen as I've seen video editors whose attention to detail and image quality would put all but the finest printmakers to shame.

Tools and techniques always change but craft and quality never do ;-p Or something pithy like that. Point is you can still learn a lot in the darkroom but it's no longer the only way to do it.

I used to bring an old 13" B&W CRT television set into darkroom class and explain photo printing contrast, brightness, black point by fiddling with the adjustment knobs. That broke through to a lot of people better than verbal or even hands on examples.

 

[Speedy]

eyeball....

 

[Speedy]

lets say maybe someone somehow acquired an entry pro level printer like in this case, made few prints, then didnt use it for a 10 years and now want to use it again for a few prints...thats all, some cleaning maybe a set of inks then to the shelf again, not everybody professional photographer, some of your peoples works are incredible, me an amateur not a pro... also making something yourself is an entry for that thing, then you either enter or not