Has printing improved your photography skills? It has been a game changer for me

[traderjay]

After years of waiting, I finally jumped back into the photography world with the 5D Mark IV and the Imageprograf Pro 1000. I've used many high to low end DSLRs over the years (1Ds Mark III, Canon Rebel etc.) and have never tied my photography directly to print - in essence I was trigger happy and shooting away without much thought.

Ever since acquiring the printer, and churning out prints from the past, I discovered so many flaws and issues with my photography that warrants a complete reset on my shooting style. Nowadays, I actually pause to think before shooting and wondering if this will look good in print. This small hesitation made a huge improvement in my overall photographic output and I credit it towards the printer.

At the end of the day, nothing beats the experience when viewing your work on print. Not even my perfectly color calibrated NEC PA301W display can match the "feel" of a 17x25 inch printed photo.

[Peter McLennan]

Absolute agreement. It's not a photograph until it's a print.  I, too, learned a ton from printing my images. Beginning back in the days of Tri-X, Dektol and a tiny space in my basement.

[tim wolcott]

If it hasn't then your doing something terribly wrong!  Tim

[langier]

Good printing is the feedback for your good craft. One feeds the other and hopefully for the better!

[Mark D Segal]

After years of waiting, I finally jumped back into the photography world with the 5D Mark IV and the Imageprograf Pro 1000. I've used many high to low end DSLRs over the years (1Ds Mark III, Canon Rebel etc.) and have never tied my photography directly to print - in essence I was trigger happy and shooting away without much thought.

Ever since acquiring the printer, and churning out prints from the past, I discovered so many flaws and issues with my photography that warrants a complete reset on my shooting style. Nowadays, I actually pause to think before shooting and wondering if this will look good in print. This small hesitation made a huge improvement in my overall photographic output and I credit it towards the printer.

At the end of the day, nothing beats the experience when viewing your work on print. Not even my perfectly color calibrated NEC PA301W display can match the "feel" of a 17x25 inch printed photo.

Very much so. What's on paper is the real discipline and the most tangible evidence of quality. The great photography shows are still very heavily oriented to showing photographs on paper mounted onto walls. Creative use of multi-media is of course making a presence, but what's on paper prevails in the world of photographic art for a reason.

[Farmer]

https://youtu.be/bzS62QCbqKQ

[tom b]

No, the vast majority of my "professional" photography has been printed on Xerox DocuPrint 600dpi laser printers. Hey, I wasn't a photographer, but I was an illustrator for distance education. The prints sucked.

On the flip side, how may times has the product you've bought matched the printed image of it?

Just thinking,

[Tony Jay]

It is impossible to shoot with a final print in mind until you have actually experienced the feedback cycle a few times.
This process is highly instructional even if the bulk of what one shoots never gets printed.
Even just understanding the workflow from the basis of colour management is really helpful.

Also, just seeing exactly what detail your camera is actually capturing (assuming a decent technical execution) is mind-blowing when experienced for the first time - the best monitors cannot give one the detail for the image size that a good print can.

Despite the plethora of digital viewing options available ultimately photography needs to be translated into print...

Tony Jay

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Having spent close to fifty years doing B&W photography before the digital era began, I can't even imagine that an image is finished until it exists as a print, preferably matted and framed. Seeing an image on a screen feels to me much like viewing a proof sheet of 35mm negatives. All it gives me is a hint of what a print might be.

My years of darkroom work made the transition to digital much easier than it would have been without it. But the one constant that carried over is that an image isn't finished until it exists as the best print you can make of it.

[traderjay]

It is impossible to shoot with a final print in mind until you have actually experienced the feedback cycle a few times.
This process is highly instructional even if the bulk of what one shoots never gets printed.
Even just understanding the workflow from the basis of colour management is really helpful.

Also, just seeing exactly what detail your camera is actually capturing (assuming a decent technical execution) is mind-blowing when experienced for the first time - the best monitors cannot give one the detail for the image size that a good print can.

Despite the plethora of digital viewing options available ultimately photography needs to be translated into print...

Tony Jay

Indeed - although this might entail wasted ink and paper for this first time (not a big deal with today's high capacity tank), but once mastered you will not need to repeat the trial and error. I still keep all the bad prints caused by poor technical execution in a box and it shows progression in skillset.

With today's printer, even a lowly smart phone picture can be brought to life when printed on a physical medium.

[nirpat89]

Nowadays, I actually pause to think before shooting and wondering if this will look good in print. This small hesitation made a huge improvement in my overall photographic output and I credit it towards the printer.

Ansel Adams called it Previsualization...

I had a similar experience when I when I switched to digital and acquired a pigment printer.  However, one has to be careful and not get bogged down with all the "technical" stuff - color management, printers, inks, papers, and the rest, which can hinder the creative process.  These are necessary skills to produce a good print but can be overwhelming at times. 

[Mark D Segal]

Ansel Adams called it Previsualization...

I had a similar experience when I when I switched to digital and acquired a pigment printer.  However, one has to be careful and not get bogged down with all the "technical" stuff - color management, printers, inks, papers, and the rest, which can hinder the creative process.  These are necessary skills to produce a good print but can be overwhelming at times.

With photography, mastery of the technical prerequisites to delivering your graphic message has always been an essential part of the creative process and that doesn't change whether it's analog or digital.

[patjoja]

After years of waiting, I finally jumped back into the photography world with the 5D Mark IV and the Imageprograf Pro 1000. I've used many high to low end DSLRs over the years (1Ds Mark III, Canon Rebel etc.) and have never tied my photography directly to print - in essence I was trigger happy and shooting away without much thought.

Ever since acquiring the printer, and churning out prints from the past, I discovered so many flaws and issues with my photography that warrants a complete reset on my shooting style. Nowadays, I actually pause to think before shooting and wondering if this will look good in print. This small hesitation made a huge improvement in my overall photographic output and I credit it towards the printer.

At the end of the day, nothing beats the experience when viewing your work on print. Not even my perfectly color calibrated NEC PA301W display can match the "feel" of a 17x25 inch printed photo.

I'll go one step further and say that printing and then selling your work (or not selling it as the case may be) can spur you on to improve your photography.  It becomes very apparent what's good and what's not when you put it out in front of a large group of people.  And they let you know what they think with their pocket book....

Patrick

[JeanMichel]

It is pretty simple: if you do not print it, it does not exist.

The technologies we use today to store our images (hard drives, the 'cloud', etc.) are quite amazing, but are also quite limited. It is unlikely that a grown grand-child will be able to open up a cd, dvd, hard drive, etc and be able to retreive an image made some decades before by a long gone grand-parent. A print, however poorly or well made, will always be easy to retrieve and viewed.

The really excellent advance for print longevity is the ink-jet printer (pigment inks), especially for colour images. I never used colour for my personal work in my film days – I printed on fibre b&w paper and selenium toned those for longevity. I do not consider anything 'archival' if it cannot last as long as the drawings in the caves of Lascaux, but will be happy to just have my prints outlive me. Ink-jet colour prints will outlive me, chromogenic colour prints likely will not.

The ability to produce very small runs of books is also quite amazing. And books only need eyes to be seen, they are technology-obsoleteness-proof.

So, print anything you think may have some value to someone in the future. And print anything you might enjoy looking at today.

[langier]

+1!

[Rand47]

Great topic!  I agree with the premise.  The “print” is the the thing.  An object of art.

I print for clients, and a lot of them are not professional photographers or even what one might call advanced amateurs. One of the things I love about printing for them is to see how surprised they often are when they see their image on paper, as opposed to the display.  And - often the surprise isn’t a “good surprise.”  :-)

I offer “file optimization” sessions w/ clients for exactly this reason.  We look at the file from several viewpoints.  Content / intent, obviously.  Technical parameters.  And we talk a lot about ‘how it will look on paper.’

This very often leads to discussion of elimating distracting elements in the file, that they didn’t notice until we made a proof print.  How to bring “presence” to the image on paper that compensates for reflective versus transmissive viewing - and a lot of other subtleties.  The bottom line in all this is that I end up being as much “teacher” as I am “printer” - and I love that about my little niche business.  People end up being genuinely thrilled to “hold in their hands” their vision for the image.  Pretty wonderful.

Another thing I love about print-making is that it is a never-ending learning process.  The more I learn, the more the finer subtleties matter, the better the prints produced.  It aids in learning to “see what it is that I’m seeing” on the monitor.

Rand

[Rado]

I enjoy making prints but don't have the wall space to display them. The one thing I noticed is that when I struggle with retouching a portrait shot and it doesn't look quite right, making a large-ish (A3) test print almost always leads to "aha! how didn't I see this on the monitor?!?" moments. So I guess it's improving something...

[kers]

I really can't say if printing my photos has changed my photography...
for i have always printed much of what i photographed.

In the wet dark days i made baryte prints that took me 3 hours to complete...
and as soon as i went digital i decided i needed a digital dark room- it became a 44 inch HPZ3100 printer.
Every printable format that goes out of my office is printed first on it as the last check in my developing proces; and always it needs some refining.
I like to control the photography from start to finish and if i send it away for publishing - and it comes out badly i know now for sure the fault is not mine.
So i use the printer first and foremost to be sure that what i do is correct. The screen is not good enough for this.