Thread: First prints ...

I've seen it discussed, but prints are the end product for so few people using digital cameras that once the answer becomes apparent - that 10 or 12 is quite sufficient, and for web purposes 5 is probably overkill - the conversation moves on quickly.
The camera itself and something called "image quality" become the end rather than the image.

But to be honest this feels like we're going well off tangent for this thread. It's a subject that deserves one of it's own

Originally Posted by HeatherTheVet

I also found that the same print in 2 different sizes came back in 2 different shades. It was B/W so easy to spot, one has a green cast to it. Very odd.

Remember that unless you use a specialist printer, all your photos are printed using a colour process. Odd tints will happen from time to time but they should pick that up in their qc checks really. Might be worth a brief moan to them to see if they'll reprint it for you?

Originally Posted by pdh

Remember that unless you use a specialist printer, all your photos are printed using a colour process. Odd tints will happen from time to time

The same is sadly true of modern ink jet printers, my old Epson 790 (which I ruined attempting to use third party inks) was capable of being set to black ink only and 2880 dpi, producing excellent black and white prints which, when I showed them to Adrian Davies, probably back in 2005/6 prompted him to ask me if I'd used Lyson inks. My modern Epson R800 insists on using all the colours to make a greyscale print, and does a poor job of it. For black and white I've found that I can set my Epson D88 to print black ink only, but it needs to be set to matte paper, it won't do it on glossy, nor does it give any indication of the dpi, although with best photo selected it's presumably as high as it will go, whatever that is. I've read that the Epson R2880 does a very good job of printing black and white and has specialist settings built into it's software. However that's an A3 printer and over £500, paradoxically it's inks cost much less than those used by the R800, although they are of a different formulation.

Barrie

Over the next week or so I'm going to have a try at printing some digital images on acetate and then contacting them in the darkroom ... however, as I have only a little HP1000 deskjet (used mostly for writing snotty letters to my landlords), it'll be interesting to see what the results are like ... probably better for my more abstract stuff

Originally Posted by pdh

I've always liked how you present your images Barrie, and have been meaning to ask you (for about two years!) how many pixels wide you make that border ... I know how to do it (at a push I can just about drive Gimp) but I so wish there was an option to finish an image with a border in LR ...

Hi
There are a bunch of different plugins or separate cheap apps that can add borders. But if you want a simple way to put a border in LR, go to the print module, and choose the option for a border, and then print to jpeg. This is what you would use if you we're sending the photo off to a print service. You can then post the jpeg online etc.

Thanks Pelao, I'd managed to work that out as well after I fixed it up with ImageMagick

Though so far as I can see there is much less control over the way the "print jpeg" is generated than through the full Export process. It doesn't preserve keywords (which get turned into tags when uploading to Flickr. ) and other metadata, for instance.

This site is full of information about printing of images, both colour and black and white

UK Commercial photography - Northlight Images

I would suggest scrolling down to the bottom of the home page and looking at the various sections under "Index pages with links to all Keith's articles, reviews and information"

Barrie

I print. I used to print in a wet darkroom, now in my home office with my Canon 9500. I used to share printed images with other photographers. Little get togethers, snacks, coffee and lots of photo talk. I soon realized the quality of my home prints were just a bit superior to the bog custom Costco, Walmart and Mpix.

Just like the wet darkroom, where I went through thousands of 8x10's as a neophyte learning the craft of photography. I had a similar learning curve with digital printing, but with the compter guiding my eye and hand there is much less waste.

I love printing and do not print enough. I find that printing ... holding an 8x10 or 13x19 completes the photographic experience and cycle for me. (And it makes for a very special one-of-a-kind gift, especially if you self-matte and frame.) It just seems seeing a print with the light reflecting off the surface, is more powerful and realistic than seeing an image as a light source (I do admit that a monitor viewed image does project a je ne sais quoi, but like a movie, it doesn't seem real.)

My point is that similar to image capturing, self-printing will take a bit of time and effort to master, the the trade-off (at least for me) is a completion and closure of the photographic experience.

Additionally, I print via a Desk Top Publishing program. And as I crop according to what I feel is a best display of the image, the DTP program allows for complete border manipulation. Typically, I use multiple borders on the same print. From the inside out I have the images, then a quarter inch black border, a thin one-eighth inch white border, then another black border making up any cropping differences in image to edge of paper. So I make extensive use of wide and thin borders to fill in the edge gaps of ... say ... a square print. This is usually done with custom mattes.

Gary

Originally Posted by pdh

Thanks Pelao, I'd managed to work that out as well after I fixed it up with ImageMagick

Though so far as I can see there is much less control over the way the "print jpeg" is generated than through the full Export process. It doesn't preserve keywords (which get turned into tags when uploading to Flickr. ) and other metadata, for instance.

Yeah, I think the keywords are specific to LR. For the metadata there are choices in the export dialogue, but as I don't use Flickr I am not sure how they are carried through - although they do work for a jpeg posted elsewhere.

I think keywords are IPTC extensions for image data and aren't specific to LR, although LR certainly uses them of course