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Why print?

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This very discussion could be asked of artists who paint or draw. What is the end result that is the most gratifying and the reason one is compelled to paint, draw or photograph? What about the sense of accomplishment having your work accepted, displayed, and perhaps sold by a gallery or other venue? It has been said that Ansel Adams would probably have embraced digital capture had he been with us today, but I hardly think he would relegate his best work to primarily digital display.
 
W T Jensen said:
This very discussion could be asked of artists who paint or draw. What is the end result that is the most gratifying and the reason one is compelled to paint, draw or photograph? What about the sense of accomplishment having your work accepted, displayed, and perhaps sold by a gallery or other venue? It has been said that Ansel Adams would probably have embraced digital capture had he been with us today, but I hardly think he would relegate his best work to primarily digital display.
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As I mentioned, my original question was mainly technical. I just wanted to understand if there were technical reasons why prints were better than monitors for evaluating photographs. It seems like higher resolution of printers is one good reason.

However, I think this discussion has turned into something more interesting, which seems to be more philosophical in nature. Like many things, I guess prints vs digital just boils down to taste and the intended application. I can certainly appreciate a large, high quality print of a perfectly composed and exposed photograph, framed and displayed in a well-lit museum or room. However, that kind of treatment is typically reserved for very special photographs and is not practical for the vast majority of pictures that are taken.

In my opinion, being able to quickly access and view my favorite pictures on the iPad3's retina display, under variable lighting conditions, is a pretty great alternative for 99.9% of my pictures. I'm not a professional or an artist. I simply take pictures to preserve great memories, and digital works for me!

However, I have to admit that all this passinate discussion about printing has got me thinking about buying a new printer!
 
tend to surprise you with what he would and would not do. He was working with Polaroids, after all. He was not finished experimenting.
--
tex_andrews

"Photography is the product of complete alienation" Marcel Proust

"I would like to see photography make people despise painting until something else will make photography unbearable." Marcel Duchamp
 
Give me a 12 X 18" monitor at 300 PPI that cost $4 and I'll start hanging them on my wall instead of my print.

Bill Gates supposedly has this, changes the pictures according to his guests taste. He can probably afford it, I can't, so I hang print.

If you want to share photos on your iPhone, fine, but don't be proud of the color, resolution, and dynamic range. It's a limited artistic expression. Like play dough versus stone.

It surprises me the number of people who are satisfied with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tier quality. Aren't they proud of their photos? I guess they haven't been a first class photo gallery and see large format prints.
 
Along with the myth that all real photographers make prints is the even more silly one, popular here, that more detail, more pixels, means more quality. It is natural on a site that is primarily about equipment that such a myth should be in the background of many comments, because there is more interest here in equipment than in art, but such silliness can't just stand unnoted.

Printing is a nice sometimes. It does not define the real. Pixels are essential but, the more perfect pixel level representation does not define the art.
 
--The object of a photography is to produce an image. Until recently prints were just about the only way to do it. Not true any more.

Although digital displays are convenient and more cost effective prints have their place and most likely will never be displaced.

Printing is a science and the average amateur does not do it well. It difficult to compete with professional printers such as Adoramapix and others for IQ or cost.

I enjoy having pictures on the wall in my home and office but this represents only a very small portion of the images I have on display. I think many photographers do likewise.

joer56
http://www.pbase.com/joer
 
You may be right in that a large displayed print may have more value associated with it in terms of selling it. I doubt if people would accept their wedding photos just for viewing on their cell phone, and if they did they'd probably pay far less too as there is nothing to really tangible to put their hands on which makes it seem more valuable.

For me, I have yet to be impressed with someone showing me their tablet or cell phone photos, and less so when done in less than ideal situations like the desert sunlight where it is almost impossible to view any digital photo at all on any device. That sort of quality isn't there yet. It's much like equating slide film to print film: Slides (movies too) were meant to be shown electrically somehow, and prints were something from the darkroom and usually far more technical talent was needed to produce it. Even judging camera club's slide shows we used large 20-30 foot screens that were far more impressive than looking at them in a small viewer. Detail just isn't there, much as looking at the large "The Blue Boy" painting in person vs. a small image in a book or online.

Looking at some masters of the past, I wonder how Ansel Adam's prints would have been accepted on a tablet, Flickr, or even Youtube? He may have had a hard time doing it and making money from it in this electronic era. All of his technical work in the darkroom would also most likely be dismissed which might devalue his work even more. After all, anyone with a digital camera in their cell photo is a weekend photographer now, even if it is horrid crap in Instagram (which seems to be the new medium, albeit low quality in the utmost.).

I suspect the music people are in the same boat with their music. Much of it is freely traded (Okay. Piracy.) so many make more money by doing concerts. I have some CD's which are personally signed by the artists in their "Meet and Greets." Can't do that with a MP3 download, nor a book and an author either. Plus, I can often do a better rip off a CD than the downloaded MP3 off Amazon which sometimes is very poor and even a lousy sounding 96kbs or badly edited for downloading (Starts/Stops abruptly.). Really!

Mack
 
to their environment and lighting.
That's a good thing.
Any projecting device like a screen has a strangely static delivery
(that doesn't change in the afternoon light !).

I find it strange that some here feel they are in some way
superior to each other.
They are two different mediums, as disparate as clay and oils.

My big screen often wanders about my collection,
rebirthing old memories and mistakes, they come, they go
sometimes you even react to them.
But on the opposite wall is a 1000*750 el cheapo, canvas memory
that changes all day long and as such is a "live" entity
somehow hard wired direct to your emotions.
Right subject ? For sure.
But organic and tactile rather than transient and ethereal.

Both for me, but if you love it, print it.

--

 
wb2trf said:
Along with the myth that all real photographers make prints is the even more silly one, popular here, that more detail, more pixels, means more quality... but such silliness can't just stand unnoted.
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That takes the prize for the silliest comment on this thread so far.

One of the criteria used to define lens and sensor performance is how much detail they can resolve, and that is one factor that contributes to image quality Often , maybe usually, you don't need all that detail and the 2MP or so resolution that a screen will give you does full justice to an image. Sometimes you do, if the photo is of a highly detailed subject - in which case screen resolution just won't do the image justice, and more pixels means precisely more quality. Try comparing A3 prints of a highly detailed landscape taken with a 16MP DSLR with a good lens on it, then the same image downsampled to 2MP (typical screen resolution), and see if you think the 'quality' is the same.

Like you said: such silliness can't stand unnoted.

--
Mike
http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/mikeward
 
Mainly for

1. Longevity, future proofing.

and

2. Making it possible to give images to non-technical relatives.
 
In about a hundred years, when one's ancestors come across your belongings in a box marked "My Life Through the Camera Lens", they'll have a heck of a time plugging the carefully stored disks and drives into their current nano-particle-beam plasma flexi-drive computer. Those with printed photo albums will have their images live on for generations to come. The drives and disks will probably just go into the trash (or recycling) as being old stuff that's not compatable with current technology. How far off base am I? I'd like my images to exist for generations, and I don't have enough faith in electronic media for permanent storage. Call me a Luddite, I guess.
 
Some quick rebuttals to some technically naive answers above:
Les Berkley said:
Les Berkley said:
Prints are archival
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Wrong - try again. Fuji Crystal archive prints I sold about 14 years ago, displayed under museum glass and nowhere near direct window light have already degraded well beyond 25%. I've already had to remake prints for former clients printed on so called 'archival' RA-4 paper barely more than 10 years old. At least the ones I made in my own commercial lab I ran through a stabilizer, and are faring a bit better. I'm praying the metal prints I'm selling now are good for 25 years, but right now I really only trust pigment. A Cibachrome made 30years ago likely still has the same blown highlights and garish colors it did 30 years ago.

Digital scans I made on my drum 14 years ago of those same files look just as good, and holy crap, they open just fine on Windows 7 as they did on NT 3.51. Who'd of thought. No idea where the negs went.
Les Berkley said:
Les Berkley said:
No one will be able to read your digital files 50 years from now
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Pretty arrogant assuming that somebody 50years from now will actually care about your photographic work. But even if they do, online electronic piracy and storage is becoming so prevelant it's likely impossible, save for the earth falling into the sun that you'll ever be able to totally delete digital content from the web. Equally arrogant to assume that your digital files are so precious they need bank vault storage while movie studios can't delete their pirated movies from the web. A bit is a bit, and digital storage is an issue between keyboard and chair, not technology. Movie vaults are full of rotting films awaiting digital transfer because there's no budget to digitize them. Claiming a digital file is less archival than a chemical print based on 1970's computer horror stories (or bad web site management) is too stupid to quantify.
Les Berkley said:
Les Berkley said:
Making a print makes it art / Instagrams are crap.
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Chemical paper sales (RA-4) are down. Online printing volume is down (ask the labs). Ink-jet is not making up the difference. Matting and framing is a royal pain, expensive, and the price I have to sell a 'fine-art' mounted and framed image for is daunting. Biggest reason I switched to metal - no matting and framing costs. If people would rather share images via Facebook than be told by a bunch of photo snobs what is and isn't art god bless em'. Video was/is/will be the superior medium anyways and we don't have discussions about dead cinematographers making up standards.
 
Scott Eaton said:
Wrong - try again. Fuji Crystal archive prints I sold about 14 years ago, displayed under museum glass and nowhere near direct window light have already degraded well beyond 25%.
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You probably had poor processing.
Scott Eaton said:
I've already had to remake prints for former clients printed on so called 'archival' RA-4 paper barely more than 10 years old. At least the ones I made in my own commercial lab I ran through a stabilizer, and are faring a bit better.
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Well that's it your problem right there, RA4 must have a stabiliser (it in the standards), you can't use water–possibly you're confusing it with EP2?
Scott Eaton said:
I'm praying the metal prints I'm selling now are good for 25 years, but right now I really only trust pigment. A Cibachrome made 30years ago likely still has the same blown highlights and garish colors it did 30 years ago.
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Mine look great but I'm a pro, something you'vre never been (even though you pretend)
Scott Eaton said:
Digital scans I made on my drum 14 years ago of those same files look just as good, and holy crap, they open just fine on Windows 7 as they did on NT 3.51. Who'd of thought. No idea where the negs went.
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So you're looking after the scans but can't be ar5ed to look after the negs–wow what a pro!
Scott Eaton said:
Equally arrogant to assume that your digital files are so precious they need bank vault storage while movie studios can't delete their pirated movies from the web. A bit is a bit, and digital storage is an issue between keyboard and chair, not technology.
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A studio produced master reels of a film are high quality your pirated Div X movie is not.
Scott Eaton said:
Movie vaults are full of rotting films awaiting digital transfer because there's no budget to digitize them.
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They're not rotting–the rot is what you're full of.

The reason we don't archive them digitally is it's not worth the effort-look at the wizard of OZ–new copies are fine.
Scott Eaton said:
Claiming a digital file is less archival than a chemical print based on 1970's computer horror stories (or bad web site management) is too stupid to quantify.
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Well it goes like this digital files need constant management and moving to new formats, if you do that you're fine, film needs to be kept at a constant humidity and temp and they'll be fine.

If you fail to migrate your digital-too bad–I have a load of Jazz disks that can't be read from a friend, a big problem.

If you don't store your films correctly they fade, chances are digital tech will help them at least look OK in the future.
Scott Eaton said:
Chemical paper sales (RA-4) are down. Online printing volume is down (ask the labs). Ink-jet is not making up the difference. Matting and framing is a royal pain, expensive, and the price I have to sell a 'fine-art' mounted and framed image for is daunting.
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Sales of things aren't a metric for quality or value. As you've never sold a fine art print in your life you couldn't understand how perceived value in a medium can be a positive thing for a vendor.

Biggest reason I switched to metal - no matting and framing costs. If people would rather share images via Facebook than be told by a bunch of photo snobs what is and isn't art god bless em'.

horse for courses sharing via web is fine selling a jpg for $1000 is harder both have a place.
Scott Eaton said:
Video was/is/will be the superior medium anyways and we don't have discussions about dead cinematographers making up standards.
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Huh? superior medium? what tosh Scott its a DIFFERENT medium and yes we do have lots of discussions about past masters and their standards in video/film making a subject you know even less of than photography.
Go back to the day job at the cats home...
 
Kmccarthy said:
Why do some photographers make such a big deal about printing? They usually seem to imply that the only way to truly evaluate IQ is by printing (and they are usually a bit snobby about it).
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They make a "big deal" about printing because it is a "big deal" to "them". In reality, it is simple and anyone of reasonable competence can do it, provided they have a good printer. The snobby attitude you are detecting is intellectual competitiveness, which runs rampantly in all technical professions or hobbies. This behavior can be witnessed all over dpreview's forums.
Kmccarthy said:
Is this just because they are used to the film days or is there a real technical reason? Granted I don't have a super high end printer, but I think the colors and IQ of my digital pictures look better on my monitor.
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I think most normal people print only those photos that they regard as special, and worthy of the expense, time and labor to frame. The work can then be displayed for all to see in a more permanent sense, like a sculpture or a painting. When you print a beautiful photograph, it becomes heirloom art.

I print only those photos I deem worthy of displaying as art, and also of the important people in my life (family and friends) - I want them to be seen by all without prompting. The rest remain digital, and serve as a visual record of events, people, places, etc.

If you know someone that prints all their photos, then that person is probably a bit nutty.
 
Kmccarthy said:
Kmccarthy said:
I'm not suggesting you print 1000s of photos, though I will, but are most of the 1000s of photos really worth keeping? In 5 years will you look back at all the photos you kept and wonder why you kept them? Food for thought.
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I agree that this is a problem, but it's not unique to digital. I have hundreds of old photgraphs in envelops and boxes that I never look at because it takes too much effort. Today I have all my digital pictures in Lightroom. I delete the bad ones, rate and tag the best ones and just keep the rest.
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Just why are you "keeping the rest"? If it isn't heart warming, good, funny, or telling a good story, not enough to get rated high, why keep it to take up hard drive and catalog space?

And 100s of prints is hardly anything when you likely take 100s of photos at a family party.
 
wb2trf said:
Apparently on dpr people who make prints feel authorized to make emphatic statements to the rest of us, while we cheerfully enjoy our preferences oblivious to their claims of authority. Here's a sample from this thread:
wb2trf said:
the aim of 'photography' is to produce a 'photograph', i.e., a print
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This poster thinks they can tell the rest of us what the aim of photography is!
wb2trf said:
It comes down to respecting an image
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This poster thinks he can sustain a claim, by implication, that we lack respect for our work.
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You are very misinterpreting. I never said anything about not respecting "work" (by that you mean your photographs - call artwork artwork and photographs photographs). If you only see that very good, sweet photo of you and nana twice a year as you look through old photos, it doesn't get into your brain that often therefore you won't feel for that image as much as if you see it a few times a day as you go upstairs. One of 10 photos on your walls you see in some manner daily or 1 of 25,000 photos you would be lucky to see twice a year.
wb2trf said:
wb2trf said:
A photograph needs to be printed ... to be properly appreciated. It's as simple as that.
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This poster thinks he can declaim on "proper appreciation" apparently for everyone.

Note that there are no assertions from people who almost only look at photos on monitors that imply they are somehow authorized to make such declarations of superiority for others.

I have nothing against printing by others. Although my own preferences are with electronic presentation I won't say that any view entitles one to speak from on high.

In fact believing that photos need to be printed is part of a creed here at dpr that, if you assert it, grants you faux status to adopt this authoritative tone. I say this emperor has no clothes. I laugh at such claims of authority while I enjoy the technology change.
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Kmccarthy said:
Why do some photographers make such a big deal about printing? They usually seem to imply that the only way to truly evaluate IQ is by printing (and they are usually a bit snobby about it). Is this just because they are used to the film days or is there a real technical reason? Granted I don't have a super high end printer, but I think the colors and IQ of my digital pictures look better on my monitor.
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After a while of having loads of digital images on your computer you may ask yourself what you are doing all this for.

When I take photos of people I like to give them prints of those photos.

Last chrismass I made a photo book of 70 photos of our kids, for the family, it went down well.

Prints are tactile, you can share them.

Mark
 
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