What "Medium" do you call your Inkjet Prints for sale?

[buckshot]

I think we need to create a word suggesting that our digital prints are graphic representations of photons.  Like maybe "photograph."

Why stop there? Why not call oil paintings, watercolours or paintings in acrylics just 'paintings'. Who cares how they were made?

Of course, I'm joking - and before anyone accuses me of being a luddite, I can assure you I'm not. As the owner of Espon 750/2200/4800 printers I'm happy to reiterate that the technology is truly amazing and the results astonishing. The problem, as this thread highlights, is that there is no established photographic vocabulary to define prints made this way, instead it's being stolen from already established processes. How long before we see inkjet prints described as 'photo gravures' or 'albumen' prints. Crazy? Not really - I've seen a few examples of images marketed as 'digital platinum prints' (i.e prints made on an inkjet printer with similar colouring to platinum prints, not actual Pt/Pd prints made from a digital negative). Who cares if it's wrong, it sounds good and if no one tells the buyer what harm is done? In fact, let's just erase the past, all those old photographic processes simply get in the way, they're an inconvenience. We want to use the terms they coined. It's not fair! Not fair I say! Doh!

Before I go, here's a novel idea to describe an inkjet print made with pigment based ink: inkjet print made with pigmented ink.*

Or how about one with dye ink: inkjet print made with dye ink*

*If you really feel the need to pop the word 'archival' in, just in case the prospective buyer lives to be 250 years old, I suggest after the word 'with'.

[bill t.]

Well I just don't like the way we digitalists have so spinelessly ceded the word "photograph" to The Men Who Stare at Trays.   But I might settle for "intensity modulations on passive substrate" in some circumstances.  But as far as I'm concerned, no label attached to one my Epsonogenic prints is ever going to say anything except "photograph" by way of media description.

[DarkPenguin]

I call mine crap.

[ckimmerle]

Well I just don't like the way we digitalists have so spinelessly ceded the word "photograph" to The Men Who Stare at Trays.

I have a friend who insists on calling his darkroom prints "photography", and my digital prints "pixelography". He doesn't think he means anything by it (separate, but equal, he says), but I think it's his way, if even subconsciously, of relegating digital work to second-class status.

I stopped letting it bother me, though, as it was his hangup, not mine.

FWIW, I go with "Pigment on paper" for my exhibition prints. I'm not trying to imply that these are not inkjet prints, but rather separating my work from the stuff that people can print on their $50 consumer model. It's important to be honest, but we should avoid falling victim to common misconceptions which may devalue our work.

[John R Smith]

Long before digital photography was thought of, or Photoshop was more than a vague notion in the Knoll Brother's minds, there was even then a problem of description for photographic prints. A huge gulf of quality lay between a print produced by the like of Adams and Weston on Agfa Record Rapid or the old Ilford Galerie, and your average consumer print churned out by the local chemist or the mail-order lab on cheap, thin, resin-coat paper. Yet they were all photographic prints. Those of us "staring into trays" knew the difference, but your typical weekend snapper did not, and cared less.

We have exactly the same problem now. The notion of "ink-jet" as a description became pejorative because of its early association with poor-quality dyes and print life measured in months, not years. We still have not managed to shake this perception off, although the best printers with the best pigments on the finest papers can produce work which has the depth, quality and longevity of the best silver prints.

Museums and galleries which are well-informed and passionate about their material do know the difference, and so do the relatively small number of serious buyers of art. We don't have to invent silly new pretentious nomenclature to impress them. On the rear of my prints which I consider fine enough to be bothered mounting for display, I simply annotate with the subject, date, paper make and type, and the inkset (Epson K3 in my case). Those who know about this stuff will appreciate the information, which is all that counts.

John

[buckshot]

Well I just don't like the way we digitalists have so spinelessly ceded the word "photograph" to The Men Who Stare at Trays.   But I might settle for "intensity modulations on passive substrate" in some circumstances.  But as far as I'm concerned, no label attached to one my Epsonogenic prints is ever going to say anything except "photograph" by way of media description.

I don't think anyone is seriously going to doubt that what anyone who uses a digital camera does isn't photography (not I anyway). The OP was about how such images are marketed. Because of ignorance, deliberate hype, or otherwise, people are describing their work using pretty misleading language. Those who know what to look for won't be fooled, but to the casual buyer the waters get muddied very quickly. If two prints were described thus: carbon (pigment) print and carbon (pigment) print, then are they a: both carbon prints made using the contact printing technique deleloped in the mid 19C, or b: inkjet prints made using carbon pigment based inks, or c: one of each. Answers on a postcard please to the usual address.

[John R Smith]

I don't think anyone is seriously going to doubt that what anyone who uses a digital camera does isn't photography (not I anyway).

Those who question this actually do have a point, at least when it concerns the print. As photography is literally "drawing with light" (as others have noted), then yes, a silver print is a photograph in that light is used to make the image on the paper. An ink-jet print is, well, a print like an engraving or a lithograph or a half-tone, but it is not, strictly speaking, a photograph.

John

[artobest]

Those who question this actually do have a point, at least when it concerns the print. As photography is literally "drawing with light" (as others have noted), then yes, a silver print is a photograph in that light is used to make the image on the paper. An ink-jet print is, well, a print like an engraving or a lithograph or a half-tone, but it is not, strictly speaking, a photograph.

John

I have a lot of sympathy for this view, and, as a professional printer, have lately been contemplating removing the word "photographic" from my website and promotional literature. Inkjet prints, it seems to me, are not truly photographic. This is not to deprecate them in any way: they belong to a far older and still noble tradition of printed pictures made with ink.

I don't care for the word digital either, as in 'digital print'. The print may emanate from a digital file, but it is the analogue expression of that file - OK, perhaps not strictly analogue in the sense of being made up of truly continuous data, but then no more digital than, say, aquatint or halftone or any number of other 'stippled' printing techniques.

[bill t.]

OK, it's MANIFESTO TIME!  

Digitally created images are the only true photographs.  That is because only digital photography mimics the operation of the human visual system, whereas chemical image making operates on much different principles.

Photons enter our eyes, and are converted to electrical signals by a matrix array sensor.  The signals are transmitted via neurological wiring to our brains, where the images are heavily processed to create data based representations of what is around us.  Human vision and digital photography walk hand in hand in the Valley of Perception.  I am one with my DSLR, but my old Nikon F is a different species.

End of Manifesto.

And as far what to call our prints goes, that is something only photographers care much about.  We photographers are positively amusing in our tendency to deeply concern ourselves with things that matter not a hoot to our customers, while often ignoring things that do concern them.  People buy my pictures because they like the images, not for the media.  As a kind of backstory, I may tell them it's a photograph that I made with a big inkjet printer and it will last a long time if they keep it away from sunlight and other unusually bright light sources etc.  And collectors don't have to be told, and are welcome to buy or not buy my images as they see fit.

[dgberg]

Amen!

[ognita]

Gave a talk last the other day. A photographer approached me. He is quite happy with my images and wanted to know more. I'm happy.
Went to meet him yesterday. He's very excited to see me. He showed me his personal collections. Very impressive. He's a gallery owner too. We're both happy.
An exhibit is brewing, until we discussed how I print my images - he cringed
His 2 galleries only hosts silver gel and platinum palladium prints. Traditional. I understand. But when he mentioned some things about printing digital - I cringed.

Showed him some of my prints today - just to show him my prints.
He is quite impressed... but still.
He is proposing to have my images be printed traditional. His printman has a way to convert it to a neg.

Not so happy anymore.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I have a lot of sympathy for this view, and, as a professional printer, have lately been contemplating removing the word "photographic" from my website and promotional literature. Inkjet prints, it seems to me, are not truly photographic. This is not to deprecate them in any way: they belong to a far older and still noble tradition of printed pictures made with ink.

I don't care for the word digital either, as in 'digital print'. The print may emanate from a digital file, but it is the analogue expression of that file - OK, perhaps not strictly analogue in the sense of being made up of truly continuous data, but then no more digital than, say, aquatint or halftone or any number of other 'stippled' printing techniques.

So how about "This is an analogue expression of a digital file, expressed using an electro-mechanical device that employs inks containing pigments and other substances (but no traces of peanuts) placed on the surface of a sheet of ... [Here you throw in a description of whatever 'paper' or 'canvas' you are using]. The digital file was initially produced with the aid of another electro-mechanical device incorporating both a 'lens' (please see Wikipedia for a definition of lens) and a light-gathering medium (a.k.a. sensor or film)."

Short, elegant, informative, suitably snobby-sounding.    


-Eric

P.S. Personally, I'm warming up to the idea of "pig on paper", as it is such a visually evocative phrase.

[JeffKohn]

Those who question this actually do have a point, at least when it concerns the print. As photography is literally "drawing with light" (as others have noted), then yes, a silver print is a photograph in that light is used to make the image on the paper. An ink-jet print is, well, a print like an engraving or a lithograph or a half-tone, but it is not, strictly speaking, a photograph.

Who says drawing/recording with light refers only to the final output? I think using this definition (silver print) as the only valid one for the terms photograph or photography is far too narrow. This definition rules out the images in photo books (no matter how finely printed), as well as projected slides; and what about Cibachromes and dye-transfer prints, which are both dye-based? I think most people would consider these photographs, regardless of the exact technology used in the final output. And one could also argue the absurd, that such a definition includes completely digital, made-up images as long as the final output is a lightjet print.

Now if you want to get more specific and define the term "photographic print" in such a way that it only applies when the output medium is light-sensitive, there may be some validity to that argument (although I still think it's debatable). But I've had discussions with some who say shooting digital isn't photography at all, and should use some new made-up terms such as pixelography, and that's just silly.

[JeffKohn]

As to the original question, I think make some valid points have been made about using the term "Pigment Print" given its history, so I think "Archival Pigment Inkjet Print" or maybe just "Pigment Inkjet Print" sound fine.

[Colorwave]

. . . expressed using an electro-mechanical device that employs inks containing pigments and other substances (but no traces of peanuts)

Shrewd marketing.  This should appeal to those with anaphylaxis concerns, although I'd have a hard time proving that the inks were manufactured in a plant that didn't also process nuts.  I don't encourage mastication or licking of prints, but you can never be too safe.

I also find the comment, Eric, about your description being "short, elegant, informative, suitably snobby-sounding" spot on.  What more could we ask for?

As for those with concerns about the confusion with the term "Pigment Print" and it's historic usage in Eastern Europe, the demographic of those who collect the works of Josef Sudek and myself have a small enough overlap that I'm willing to take the chance on a small degree of ambiguity.

[Paul Stalker]

This thread started on April Fools' day...right?
Stand tall, straight, proud and say it...pigjet.

[howseth]

I will say it (but slouching in a torn seat): Pigjet.

Howard

[Colorwave]

Stand tall, straight, proud and say it...pigjet.

How the course of history might have been altered if Jack Duganne had opted for the term pigjet instead of giclee . . .

Say pigjet often enough and it begins to not sound any funnier than the French slang word for ejaculate.

[artobest]

So how about "This is an analogue expression of a digital file, expressed using an electro-mechanical device that employs inks containing pigments and other substances (but no traces of peanuts) placed on the surface of a sheet of ... [Here you throw in a description of whatever 'paper' or 'canvas' you are using]. The digital file was initially produced with the aid of another electro-mechanical device incorporating both a 'lens' (please see Wikipedia for a definition of lens) and a light-gathering medium (a.k.a. sensor or film)."

Short, elegant, informative, suitably snobby-sounding.  

You can laugh, and the discussion may get pretentious at times, but there are very real misconceptions about, and resistance to, inkjet printing out there, and some of that surely has to do with bullshit labelling and marketing. "Giclee" means nothing, curatorially speaking, so some kind of meaningful term has to be arrived at.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

You can laugh, and the discussion may get pretentious at times, but there are very real misconceptions about, and resistance to, inkjet printing out there, and some of that surely has to do with bullshit labelling and marketing. "Giclee" means nothing, curatorially speaking, so some kind of meaningful term has to be arrived at.

That's why (when I'm not joking) I lean towards something like "pigment on paper." (I don't currently print on canvas, plastic, or metal.) "Pigment inkjet on paper"  might be useful to encourage one's audience to get used to the idea that inkjet prints are respectable. I tend to avoid the word "archival" because there still seems to be serious disagreement as to what it really means (Is any paper with optical brighteners truly "archival?", etc.)


With prints from a digital printer, I do think it is important to distinguish between "dye" and "pigment" inks, as most pigment inks have a much longer life than do most dye inks.

That's my 2 cents.

-Eric