Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: bwana on March 19, 2012, 07:56:52 pm
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I am old to enough to remember when a photograph was a piece of paper. ONLY. This was a high resolution display device that far exceeded what the capture devices could provide. Sure there were transparencies, scans and projectors and large format media. But these were not how most of the world experienced photographs. The printed image was the market that drove the development of the SLR and a company spent its resources on the camera as it was the major tool. Its flaws were documented on hard copy. And its successes were celebrated in Time, Life, Look, etc.
But now we are flowing into a new medium, the digital image. Even before it has left the sensor that captured it, it is really only a sample of the light that landed on the sensor. A subset of the photons travelling through the lens are sorted into luminance boxes the way mail is sorted into addresses. The image is then blasted through myriad display devices - from tablets to televisions to phones. All with their own display shortcomings. The image is degraded more. A great one from Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, or whoever, is no longer seen only in a fine art book or a large poster where much care has been devoted to its reproduction. Pixelated, color compressed and washed out copies pass for the original in front of many new eyes that really don't know what the original really is. Even on this website and others (DPR), people post images and discuss them. I often wonder what is lost when someone with an uncalibrated TN monitor reads the discussion and cant tell what is being discussed. Even those with properly calibrated monitors with an expanded gamut cant approach the detail and impact of a good print.
Instead, I see more and more ways to 'enhance' an image. I have seen crazy psychedelic image bastardization apps on a phone and complex digital image processing on a powerful pc. The emphasis seems more and more to processing an image and too often to add any random emotion the that crosses someone's mind. Sure, some companies have developed amazing software- Adobe's next version of photoshop will detect motion blur and remove it. In camera hdr and other technologies like fuji's exr sensor seem to be just the beginning of what can be accomplished with multiple exposures in camera. But why isnt there the same fervor to improve quality. If my audience cant see my work on anything better than 1080p display devices, why bother to capture more than 6 megapixels? (and I do not want more room to crop)
I wish there were a format for the 'smart photograph'. A file that knows what it is being displayed on and corrects itself for the most faithful reproduction to the original. We already have this for web pages- digital signatures and certificates serve to validate that one is viewing an unmolested original.
Many of you here have a much greater breadth and depth of experience than I. Perhaps I am missing the boat but would enjoy hearing how some of you see photography evolving as it affects the print. As this high resolution display device disappears, will high resolution capture devices go the way of the steam engine?
I post this in the printers forum because I dont know where else would be more appropriate.
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Print is dead...
... just does not know it yet. Just like film, newspapers, books, CDs, etc. It will be the domain of the few, esoteric, collectors, rich, eccentric, nostalgic...
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Not sure that I agree with Slobodan here.
There is certainly a shift occurring that is not complete.
However, this is similar to the claim that television would kill the cinema - it hasn't yet and I doubt it will.
I do not see digital display as killing the print.
My $0.02 worth
Tony Jay
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Print is dead...
... just does not know it yet. Just like film, newspapers, books, CDs, etc. It will be the domain of the few, esoteric, collectors, rich, eccentric, nostalgic...
Wow!...just as painting was after the invention of photography.
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Funny, bwana, that you posted that, as I was contemplating starting a thread with the same question.
I was in a furniture store the other day and noticed they are using flat-TVs to display images of their collections, kind of slide show. Then it hit me: how long before the price of a TV equates the price of framing a print? At this point, printing and framing a 24x36 print would cost between $200 and $300, give or take. The same dimension TV is 43" diagonally and they are currently already close to that, i.e., around $400-$500. Wait for a deal, and you just might get it for the price of framing a single print.
Add to the equation that, for the purpose of displaying photos only, the TV may be stripped of all other features, kind of a giant photo frame, and you can see how close the prices will converge.
And that is all in comparison to ONE framed print. A TV can display gazillion of them. Imagine the problem most people have with large prints on their walls: they do not have enough walls! Let alone the effect of getting used to seeing the same print day in, day out, to the point of becoming oblivious to it.
Add to the equation that most photographs look better on screen than in print (contrast ratio, reflecting vs. emitting light, etc.).
Finally, here comes Retina display, to address the most common argument in favor of print: resolution. Retina display already matches and surpasses ppi of most prints.
Most of todays gazillion photographs, dare I say 99.9 % of it, will never, ever be printed. People are already content with showing it on Flickr, Facebook or emailing it, watching it on their phones, computers and iPads.
And that is all happening already today. For tomorrow, no wonder I feel the print is dead, for all but the selected few.
EDIT: Shall I add that Kodak was betting its future on printing... we know the outcome.
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Fortunately people aren't all the same. I had a discussion with a family member the other day who told me that his wife educated him to appreciate Art. He started going to museums and really learned to enjoy the power of the composition, and just as important, the medium.
Do you think he'll be happy with a digital version, or will he more likely purchase a print of some kind? To me the answer is obvious. Some people enjoy swirls of paint, or the look and touch of a Fine Art paper.
Not to worry.
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... Some people enjoy swirls of paint, or the look and touch of a Fine Art paper...
I never said there won't be "some people".
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Interesting. My printing department, both fine art inkjet and photo paper based is up over 200% from last year.
While I'll agree the low end printing business has dramatically declined, until there are some much more viable options to display work around a home or office printing will be around. Even inkjet still hasn't been able to supplant silver halide .. you would think by now this would have happened. While it has diminished it is still very strong - manly because it is still far more economical. WHCC is still growing, and they haven't had to give up their private jets. I think Epson's business is doing pretty good as well.
so perhaps in the long term the comment is correct, but maybe only in a more generic assumption kind of way ... the statement could really be applied universally because "everything is dead and just doesn't know it".
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Print is dead...
Nope...but what we have seen is the explosion of digital media. Between the web and media devices, many, many more images are seen on a screen than in a print hanging on a wall–and that's fine. It's cool that displays can show more images...but that's not a death knell for print, it's just an explosion of a different medium.
I went to the Annenberg Space for Photography (http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/) last year. They use display screens in an interesting presentation particularly for electron medium (meaning stuff that starts life in digital). They are currently showing The Digital Darkroom (haven't seen that show) pretty interesting stuff (also interesting to note Jerry Uelsmann is in it as is his wife Maggie Taylor–interesting because Jerry don't do digital and all of Maggie's is).
I see these knee jerk reactions all the time. Some people think that because one media is exploding, other media must die. Wrong. I see it as a win/win not win/lose situation. The more the variety of medium that photos can be seen on, the better it is for photography.
Fine art photography and prints aren't dead...in fact, photography as a collectable art is increasing despite the economy. Yes, top prices for top photographers are a bit stagnant...largely because before the recession the prices could have been pushed too high (be dealers).
Craftsmanship for any and all medium you may wish to use still requires a lot of work. And, no, print ain't dead, it's just sleeping.
:~)
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I went into an Apple store the other day and noticed that they no longer use printed cards showing the specs of the various Applevices, they are now using IPads, obviously lots of benefits to that. I believe the low end of printing (4x6 & 5x7) is on its last leg, people use their phones, tablets, ipods, etc. to show off their photos. It's nice having flat panels throughout the house making image swapping very easy. However, there will always be some demand for a print......
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No I think it is raising print standards.....and no I don't think the print is dead or ever will be. It is a little over shadowed by all the new ways to present our work. But still when I show a customer some of work they are usually pleased and impressed. But when I pull out a really good print of the same photo.......their jaw usually drops and they pull out their wallet .........that will never change. Nothing impresses the eye more that a high quality print on really good paper. What I see less of at shows is really low quality chainstore prints and that is a good thing.....
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It's cool that displays can show more images...but that's not a death knell for print, it's just an explosion of a different medium.
Yes! ...and the incredible explosion of photographic images everywhere you look is right up there in importance with George Eastman's little invention. Millions of people around the globe print billions of photographs every day in their homes, mostly with the same quality as they got in a week or two at the drug store's photo lab. Or, they display them instantly electronically. The more people who know at least something about photography (or any craft/art/skill), the more they appreciate truly fine work... and buy it for themselves.
As I watch the people who come into the art gallery where oils, pastels and watercolors hang, along with my photographs, I always know who are the photographers. The people standing 10 feet from the wall are looking at oils, pastels and watercolors. The people standing 10 inches from the wall are looking at photographs. When I overhear them talking about f stops, shutter speeds and focal lengths used to get the shot, there's a pretty good chance that they'll buy the print.
There is nothing like a beautifully printed, matted and framed print... and there is nothing like looking at the same image on a perfectly calibrated top-of-the line display. Both are wonderful... and quite different from each other. Maybe the new displays being developed will some day be able to mimic a print and hang on your wall, instead of looking like an electronic device. If or when that happens, I will say goodbye to my printer and paper.
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Usually old technology reaches its peak in quality when it is challenged by new technology.
So far the growth in picture taking seems to compensate the % decline in pictures printed. Do not count the minilab market numbers, the market changed.
Collectors, musea, photographers in the art category face a new challenge on copyrights when image data will be distributed instead of prints. It has to be seen whether they will embrace that market. Displays with several images included have been sold by artists for over a decade. Ger van Elk for example.
http://www.m-bochum.de/artist_image.php?aid=4 He still sells prints.
For one reason or another a lightbox + transparent print on the wall never really replaced the reflective print. While there are advantages like a wider dynamic range and a larger gamut. Thin light boxes are possible. Could be the same reason why we prefer reading E-paper above other displays for reading. The energy consumption of a light reflecting picture on the wall can only be equalled by E-paper, Electro wetting, etc, displays. Image quality aspects like gamut, resolution, texture are still not equal to prints in that type of displays.
met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst
Shareware too:
330+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
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If printing is supposedly in decline then the statistics from this Forum do not support the argument.
This, the printing section, has 6,921 topics (the most of any section) and 61,130 posts (soon to be 61,131 ;)), which puts it in second place in terms of activity on LL.
What has completely changed, not declined, is the family snapshotter's media. No longer is it the pack of 6x4s from Jessops, but pass the i-phone around instead. As for the rest, the people who shot slide film rarely printed anyhow, and those who enjoyed working away in the darkroom still print. For new photographers the choice has never been wider.
John
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There is a lot of convergence taking place. I went to the Apple store yesterday to take a look at the new iPad. Photos displayed on it REALLY look like high gloss prints... like Cibachromes. I know we will quickly get used to this level of display performance but it made my heart race.
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WOW!
And us digital artists are just pondering this now? ;-)
Bill Gates founded what is now called Corbis, back in 1989. Rumor was that he wanted to decorate his new house with flat panel displays on the wall and was looking for digital reproductions of art. Read this from Wikipedia on Corbis--
"Founding
Corbis is privately owned by Bill Gates, who founded the company in 1989 under the name Interactive Home Systems (a name currently held by an unrelated, slightly older company based in Concord, Massachusetts). One major reason for starting the company was Gates's belief that people would someday decorate their homes with a revolving display of digital artwork using digital frames.[3] The company's name was changed to Continuum Productions in 1994 and to Corbis Corporation a year later. "Corbis" is Latin for "wicker basket", which at the time referred to the company's emerging view of itself as a receptacle or storehouse for visual media."
I prefer to think of fine art photographs as prints. It's not a photograph until it becomes a print, in my book. All these digital images we have floating around in the "cloud", or on hard drives, or other fragile digital media are just "0"s and "1"s and will be lost forever when something crashes. The print has a much better probability of surviving in the next hundred years.
It would be interesting to overhear conversations on the subject 100 years in the future, ". . .didn't those folk back then believe in preserving their digital images. . ."
Yes, our media today is much better, longer lasting. But unless we print the image, what's the likely hood that the photograph will survive?
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Thank you all for replying in an enlightening and reassuring manner. I really appreciate the lack of metropolitan incivility that sometimes escapes the confines of an upset photographer. But I wonder what the impact is on our perception of quality and how it drives our choices. I would never think of lugging an 8x10 view camera to Zermatt to capture what Ansel might have tried in Europe-although I did dream of doing that when I was younger. But my point is that the bewildering diversity of display devices has brought to awareness the question 'is it good enough for how it will be seen'. When you made a print, sure you had to deal with the viewing conditions, but that did not really change the way you printed the image, let alone influence your decision on the camera you used to capture the image. You always tried to get the best quality in camera and show the best example as a slide. Having multiple camera bodies dangling from your neck with with backs handy was a common sight.
But now we showcase the work on digital displays, tablets and pcs. Even MILCs with APS-C sensors far exceed what that display medium requires. And in fact, many of our interactions are on the net. I guess it's not so much the 'declining prevalence of the print' but rather the tsunami of digital imagery that has overwhelmed sensibility. The fundamental data type that stores our imagery is flawed.
We store pixels with data points attached. But this is the same problem that typesetters had in the early days of pcs. Enlarging a font resulted in a pixelated mess and unless you had font installed on your pc, good luck reading without getting a headache. We evolved to vector representation of text that is infinitely scalable and looks good no matter what display you read it on. So my question can be flipped on its head but is then rather technical. Instead of asking 'is our technology making us stupider, blinder, coarser' - I'd rather ask 'can a vector representation of an image format help preserve our perceptions and standards'?
For the sake of clarity, consider the following brief, too simple and uninformed example. Digital certificates like verisign would have to be stored and made by a trusted agency-perhaps like LuLa and Google? So when I display an image, the image calls home and gets a certificate. The image checks what it is being displayed on and corrects itself to give the right colors. The other problem is how would you transform a set of finite pixels into a set of mathematical equations - it might not be as hard as would be imagined, but it would involve adding interpolated information to an image. This already is done in many imaging apps.
My point is that no one has asked the question - is it worth preserving quality, making the effort to communicate quality. How each of you perceive quality is unique and not easily communicated. But you know it when you see it. And you know crap when you see it too. Too often though it's easier to call something crap and prove it-because flaws can always be seen. But when quality is limited by the display medium, how do you point it out? How do you tell others that something is good when they can't see it?
I am sure many of you have thought about this stuff and even talked about it with clients or at shows,galleries,etc. If there are real technical reasons that a solution is not possible, I would like to hear them. Another way to 'maintain quality' is to have some sort of technical standard bar-although this is very subjective and not codifiable. For example, I would like to see a hi-res downloadable photograph reviewed by multiple respected photographers independently. I would pay to download a hi-res landscape that has been commented by the photographer who made it describing his/her considerations in the exposure/pp choices. And then to read a few pages from a photo mag editor, a commercial photographer, etc who talk about the technical areas of the photograph and how their exposure/pp choices would differ. Maybe this already exists somewhere here or elsewhere.
Maybe there are other ways to 'preserve our perception of quality', if you even feel it is worth it. I would like to know.
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When you made a print, sure you had to deal with the viewing conditions, but that did not really change the way you printed the image, let alone influence your decision on the camera you used to capture the image.
Maybe not for you but it sure did for me....when I put together print shows at agencies and galleries, I decided what images to use and how to print them based on the size of the print and the venue.
Look, if all you want to do is show a photo on an iPhone, the iPhone 4 is a pretty good camera. Why do you suppose Nikon is releasing the D800 36MP DSLR if they didn't think people wanted more resolution?
If anything, to your thread title, I think standards are being raised...the public is becoming more sophisticated and more demanding. Anybody enjoy watching LO DEF TV channels these days? They suck...3 million iPad HDs in three days? People must like the display (ok, and the other cool stuff).
Naw, no reason to think standards are getting lowered. No evidence...
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... Gates's belief that people would someday decorate their homes with a revolving display of digital artwork using digital frames...
I am glad Bill and I are on the same page!
Ooops... scratch that! I should have said "on the same display" ;)
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If printing is supposedly in decline then the statistics from this Forum do not support the argument.
This, the printing section, has 6,921 topics (the most of any section) and 61,130 posts (soon to be 61,131 ;)), which puts it in second place in terms of activity on LL...
But, but... John... if you take out ZoranC-related posts, the forum activity drops precipitously. Remove all other "my print is too dark" posts and the forum activity fades into... well, darkness ;D
Besides, using your yardstick (i.e., forum activity) would mean that medium format is the most prevalent today. Or that stamper and I are the most influential photographers of our times (judging by our forum activity) ;D
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Besides, using your yardstick (i.e., forum activity) would mean that medium format is the most prevalent today. Or that stamper and I are the most influential photographers of our times (judging by our forum activity) ;D
Slobodan, I knew you were going to spot the flaw in my argument . . . curses ;)
John
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While I'll agree the low end printing business has dramatically declined...
And also maybe consolidated around fewer, larger businesses that provide economies of scale. My 83 year old mother lives on the other side of the world and dislikes digital displays, so I like to send her prints - mostly of her great-grandchildren, but also the odd landscape to remind her what the "bottom" end of the world is like. I do this by uploading to one of a number of UK sites, choosing from a long list of size and quality options, and paying what seems to me a very reasonable price, (especially taking into account the frequent discounts, coupons etc, and the current strength of the Australian dollar). She gets the prints in the post next day or the day after.
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I think it will be a very long time, if ever, before electronic displays can equal a printed image:
1. The resolution of electronic displays is terrible when compared with the resolution of a print on nearly any sort of good paper. Apple has just narrowed the gap with its Retina display. I don't know when displays of that type will be large and economical, but it's bound to happen eventually.
2. Surface gloss is fixed in an electronic display but varies according to the paper used for each individual print.
3. When you get right down to it the surface of a print is three dimensional. Papers come textured in various ways and to various extents, and those textures have varying effects depending on the angle at which the print is viewed, ambient lighting, etc.. Electronic displays so far are only flat and smooth.
4. Electronic displays generally emit light and printed images reflect light. Kindle’s black & white display comes to mind as an exception. This is like the difference between prints and slides in the old days, and it’s practically impossible to simulate a reflective display with a transmissive one. Reflective color displays are probably possible, but whether there's enough demand to make them a reality remains to be seen.
Photographers and print makers are concerned about all this stuff because things like paper white point, texture, and gloss all affect the printed image in subtle ways and they want it to be "just right". Unfortunately I think that the market for prints will not support subtleties so none of the above matters. A large portion of the buying public is fairly to completely oblivious to the subtleties of a print. For many the advantages and "cool factor" of having an electronic gadget on the wall, on which they can change the image to suit their mood, would outweigh any of these deficiencies. For that reason alone I think printed images will become obsolete for most people sooner than one might think. On the other hand I think it will take a long time for printed images to vanish because some people (read "not the masses") will continue to want them. An analogy would be people who still make, and people who still collect, silver gelatin prints.
How depressing!
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I've looked at lots of things I shot on film and printed at 8x10 in the darkroom and decided that if I had seen the pixel level detail back then that I can see now, I would have chucked the negative.
Maybe it's just me, but using 100% pixel views of my digital images on monitors has made me even more conscious of critical focus and camera shake/mirror slap.
My standards were forced upwards, not down.
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Print for the general public is pretty much dying off. Most people don't bother getting there own pictures printed unless it is something really special to them. However for people who want pictures of there families or art for the house the print is far from gone and I don't expect it to go away anytime soon...unless someone makes something with 0 glare, good color reproduction and battery capable that will last a very long time soon.
A few years ago those little digital picture frames were very popular. Many people bought them and ended up trashing them because they look like crap and are a pita. A print is simple to hang anywhere and decorate with. I know my wife would never allow one of those tacky digital frames in our house.
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Hi,
Yes, that is my impression, too.
Best regards
Erik
Maybe it's just me, but using 100% pixel views of my digital images on monitors has made me even more conscious of critical focus and camera shake/mirror slap.
My standards were forced upwards, not down.
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Hi,
Yes and no, IMHO. Display technology is pretty much driven by motion picture technology. Home theatre is driving the technology, in my view. In moving media we are stuck at 1920x1080 and displays are not getting better than that, right now. We may have 4K and even 8K around the corner, but I guess it is much about media. As long as we don't have 4K media we are going to see less of 4K presentation.
On the other hand, I would say that resolution is virtually free. Making large panels is costly but the pixels themselves are quite cheap. We may have new technologies around the corner that make large flat panels attractive. In my view screens are attractive for presentation, but less for decoration and let's not forget they consume electric power. I have 11 prints on the wall of my living room, with panels using 100W each that would consume about 1.1 kW electricity and produce as much heat. Well, the heat is nice in the winter.
And yes, I love prints.
Best regards
Erik
I think it will be a very long time, if ever, before electronic displays can equal a printed image:
1. The resolution of electronic displays is terrible when compared with the resolution of a print on nearly any sort of good paper. Apple has just narrowed the gap with its Retina display. I don't know when displays of that type will be large and economical, but it's bound to happen eventually.
2. Surface gloss is fixed in an electronic display but varies according to the paper used for each individual print.
3. When you get right down to it the surface of a print is three dimensional. Papers come textured in various ways and to various extents, and those textures have varying effects depending on the angle at which the print is viewed, ambient lighting, etc.. Electronic displays so far are only flat and smooth.
4. Electronic displays generally emit light and printed images reflect light. Kindle’s black & white display comes to mind as an exception. This is like the difference between prints and slides in the old days, and it’s practically impossible to simulate a reflective display with a transmissive one. Reflective color displays are probably possible, but whether there's enough demand to make them a reality remains to be seen.
Photographers and print makers are concerned about all this stuff because things like paper white point, texture, and gloss all affect the printed image in subtle ways and they want it to be "just right". Unfortunately I think that the market for prints will not support subtleties so none of the above matters. A large portion of the buying public is fairly to completely oblivious to the subtleties of a print. For many the advantages and "cool factor" of having an electronic gadget on the wall, on which they can change the image to suit their mood, would outweigh any of these deficiencies. For that reason alone I think printed images will become obsolete for most people sooner than one might think. On the other hand I think it will take a long time for printed images to vanish because some people (read "not the masses") will continue to want them. An analogy would be people who still make, and people who still collect, silver gelatin prints.
How depressing!
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Yes and no, IMHO. Display technology is pretty much driven by motion picture technology.
Actually, not the movies, it's all about TVs...when digital projection came to local movie theaters, they were dragged kicking and screaming to HD (it costs a lot to put in 2K cinema projectors).
The real deciding line has been HD cable and 730/1080 LCD TVs.
Once you've seen HD, it's really, REALLY hard to go back to SD...(standard Def).
iPad HD is a move in the right direction, but it's still a tiny display (albeit at high resolution).
Yes, "new media" is exploding...no print is not dead.
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A great sage once said: It's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. Nevertheless, it is possible to observe trends, and one trend that is quite obvious is that digital technology has resulted in most casual photographers abandoning prints almost entirely in favor of cell phone in internet displays. At the same time, digital technology has made super high quality printing readily accesible to more serious photographers who still derive pleasure from creating and viewing fine prints. No doubt, some of the latter group will eventually drift towards electronic displays, especially as the latter get progressively better. So, I see a future in which both modes of display coexist, but with prints attracting a ever-shrinking audience. I have yet to see the newest iPad display, but if it is as good as advertised, I may revise my opinion about the staying power of prints.
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Interesting blog over at TOP pointing out that photographic printing in general is on the rise, in fact it's a growth industry.
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html
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I've looked at lots of things I shot on film and printed at 8x10 in the darkroom and decided that if I had seen the pixel level detail back then that I can see now, I would have chucked the negative.
Maybe it's just me, but using 100% pixel views of my digital images on monitors has made me even more conscious of critical focus and camera shake/mirror slap.
My standards were forced upwards, not down.
+1
I am heartened by the new iPad's increased resolution. I have been worried that the pointless excursion into 3D TVs would distract from higher resolution displays that could really bring high-resolution digital work alive.
When I first started doing very large panoramic prints, I debated about whether to even display them on the web. When you take something meant for a 2'x5' display (print) and shrink it down to 2" x 5" it loses something...a lot of something. It is a different medium. Different compositions work small as opposed to large. Different subjects work small as opposed to large.
I tend to agree that for common everyday family photos, quality has stagnated, but consumption has skyrocketed with facebook and flickr and stuff. Things are changing...not all for better or all for worse...just changing.
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Interesting blog over at TOP pointing out that photographic printing in general is on the rise, in fact it's a growth industry.
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html
The missing part in that post is some supporting evidence, other than Ctain's casual observation. I am not saying it is not true, just that I would like to see some evidence. And one more general observation: everything grows right until it starts declining.
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... And one more general observation: everything grows right until it starts declining.
Not all curves are bell curves with one increase and one decrease. Sometimes things go through more than one cycle of growth and contraction. If this were the case, we would have declared tablets dead after Microsoft's original failed push into the space.
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Interesting blog over at TOP pointing out that photographic printing in general is on the rise, in fact it's a growth industry.
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html
I just saw that piece by Ctein. So, it turns out that the entire premise of this thread is based on a false assumption, i.e. that the prevalence of printing is declining.
Rob
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I just saw that piece by Ctein. So, it turns out that the entire premise of this thread is based on a false assumption, i.e. that the prevalence of printing is declining.
Rob
Again, only if you take Ctain's unsupported by evidence, casual observations as factual.
EDIT: Ctain states: "... products like calendars, greeting and personal note cards (those are really big growth items)...". You can throw in coffee cups and mouse pads, but these are not the products this thread is talking about: high quality, meticulously prepared, fine-art, pigment-on-paper prints that cost $200 - $300 to print and frame. Those "big growth" items are mostly offset prints, rather low in quality compared to the type of prints we are talking about.
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The missing part in that post is some supporting evidence, other than Ctain's casual observation. I am not saying it is not true, just that I would like to see some evidence. And one more general observation: everything grows right until it starts declining.
well, as I mentioned, my printing services from my store are up 200%, both fine art inkjet as well as silver halide based. Sort of anecdotal yes, but I know a few others seeing some good growth as well.
This could be explained somewhat by market fragmentation, as I know a little bit of this is coming from a large lab here in town and some of our hardware customers have found we offer equal quality and prices, and we're more convenient. We have others that have been using Costco and Sam's club and have found about the same thing- we're not much more but deliver more consistent and higher quality output. But that certainly isn't big enough to explain all of the growth - we see it as the fastest growing segment of the 5 major lines (equipment, printing, framing, education, travel).
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This thread is probably based on quite a few false assumptions. Photographs even in the 1860's were being composited to tell a story, and in the 1890's folks were complaining about excessive retouching. The end of good photography was in sight.
The advent of digital printing, and the democratisation of photography in general, has seen a renaissance in printing. The ability to use an inkjet printer to make negatives for contact printing has meant a revival of antique processes. Inkjet prints now last longer than ever before and it is no accident that they command prices unheard of in the past. The low cost of colour printers compared to a darkroom setup has meant people with even modest means can make high quality prints at home.
Looking at the number of exhibitions, and photos sales through the web, I see no evidence anywhere that prints are in decline. Quite the opposite. It's just the traditional outlets and businesses have gone and a new world is upon us.
Edit: it was the democratisation of image editing and printing I was thinking of. I guess Kodak took care of bring photography in general to us all
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Print is dead...
... just does not know it yet. Just like film, newspapers, books, CDs, etc. It will be the domain of the few, esoteric, collectors, rich, eccentric, nostalgic...
Hey! I'm all of those, well, except for the rich part....