JulesJ
Veteran Member
Excellent point Don and missed by most here advocating against prints.
Jules
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Why print?
- Thread starter Kmccarthy
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JulesJ
Veteran Member
That's just the first step. Whilst one can get away with murder in printing colour, printing b&w is another story. I have been digitally printing b&w for some years now, and am still improving. It is an art that takes a lot of experience and skill.
Jules
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JulesJ
Veteran Member
I collect printed images and have paid hundreds of pound for beautiful, signed (all) b&w prints from some of my favourite photographers. I have never, and don't suppose I ever will, buy a digital image. They are two a penny.
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JulesJ
Veteran Member
That's because you haven't yet developed the "slide show" mentality when it comes to pictures. People don't take a single picture of little Bobby's birthday or the Thanksgiving get-together or Uncle Bill and Aunt Peg's anniversary or their recent holiday trip to the petrified forest; they take a series of pictures, and it takes the series of pictures to adequately show the people, the place, or the event that took place. You don't think a single image can stand on its own, do you?!
jonrobertp
Veteran Member
Digital...very short life span...soon lost, forgotten, and tech changes and one cannot see them anymore. Prints...no such problems.
Digital is merely preview of prints...and not accurate at that.
Digital is merely preview of prints...and not accurate at that.
Probably because your mom isn't on fb, lol
VadymA
Veteran Member
No matter which technology or format will emerge in the future, there will be converters for the legacy formats just like today analog is converted to digital. Nothing will be lost.
There is no problem for digital either. So it's a tie.
Only temporary. Larger resolution displays are on the horizon and it is just a matter of a few years until we can view the entire 12-16 megapixel images without downsampling.
VadymA
Veteran Member
I think 99% of the posters misunderstood the OP's question. I think the OP was more interested to know whether a 4x6 or 5x7 print superior to a display on iPad3 or HD screen and by how much. Yes there might be other reasons to print but if we just focus on comparing small prints of hundreds of family snaps printed in bunch vs their display on a modern computer screen, will we see a significant difference in quality?
Sure if we print large it is much better then a 2MP HD screen (at least until 16MP screens become standard). And sure there are many other reasons to print; commercial, decorative, sentimental, demographical, jut to name a few.
But the OP was asking about technical reasons of comparing "digital" family album created by an amateur and displayed on a tablet or computer screen versus "analog" family albums created by the same amateur which is usually compiled of hundreds of 4x6 prints made on a consumer-grade printer. Is there a big visual difference in IQ between the two to justify printing?
To OP, please correct me if my interpretation of your question is totally wrong. I am in the same boat with you as an amateur making hundreds of family pictures and would be interested to know the answer to my version of the questions (hope you do to). I would like to make some prints to display on the wall and the only thing that holds me back is lack of time to learn about quality printing and framing. We live far away from my parents and share photos electronically. They don't mind at all. Plus, I make video collages with a mix of photos, video, text, and music that takes the whole experience of viewing to the new level not possible with prints. Even I prefer to watch them again and again instead of just flipping though the pages. This is something not possible with prints at all which I find valuable.
MaxTux
Forum Enthusiast
Yes, I also believe that was the gist of the original question. If so, here's a suggestion:
Once a month spend an hour or two and select about a hundred or so of the best and most interesting images prom the period. Process (crop, adjust contrast/brightness, downsize to a web-viewing resolution) and compose an HTML "album" using Irfanview or a similar program. Invent a "standard", time dependent way to name such directories (for instance, 2012_05, 2012_06...) Upload the complete directory (consisting of .html and .jpg files) to private area of a cloud repository that provides for serving of web-pages, then send the e-mail with a link - the only way to access the material - to all members of the selected group.
This will avoid burdening their disks with your image files just as much as burdening them with the need to store and organize shoe-boxes overflowing with 4x6-es from various sources. What is most important, it will make it quick, easy and simple for every member of the group to enjoy and share their moments together, even years after the images and the web-pages were created. It's also quite easy to burn such collections of images onto RO media (CD's DVD's). I suggest a CD/DVD with nothing but .html and .jpg files on it will be usable much longer into the future than some posts above suggest, certainly longer than it will take for the prints to fade. The ability to easily retain and copy complete, viewable "digital albums" even by "computer amateurs" is what makes this a better alternative than Flicek, Facekook or similar. And when (it's not if , its when ) the cloud provider goes belly-up, you simply move the whole time-organized, "viewable" collection from the master copy on your hard drive to a new web-space service.
The difference in photographic quality of a machine-print 4x6 (or 10x15 cm in metric) and a 1600x1200 (or similar size) digital file viewed on any modern 20" monitor can be argued both ways, but will be so small as to be insignificant considering the purpose.
MaxTux
Mark Smith145430
Veteran Member
Trusting but factually incorrect, read the paper technological Quicksand
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/cyber/overview.php
Educate yourself or lose your work!
I thought we were talking about today? or possibly 10 years time?
Until new technology exceeds that we can't say or see what will be the methodology in the future.
Time will tell, but current displays can't do that, all displays are slightly different, open an image on 10 different monitors chances are they look different–printing is the only technology where you can present you work and be sure other will see it in that form.
You online images can be viewed on pretty much anything from internet TV to cameraphone.
Mark Smith145430
Veteran Member
I think you need to re-read the OP.
Nothing about limiting the discussion to 4x6 amateur prints I can see! I guess you'd just like to apply you 'spin' to the discussion in order to validate your own opinions.
JulesJ
Veteran Member
Yes. Look at Cartier Bresson's many individual shots not in a series for proof.
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JulesJ
Veteran Member
JulesJ
Veteran Member
One could take that view, but I believe thes that think a screen image is as good or better than a great print need educating. They have never experienced the enjoyment of a great picture, well printed and framed on their wall. We currently ave about one hundred b&w framed prints hanging in our house/studio. Mostly our own plus others we have collected of our favourite photographers. I walk past and enjoy these e dry day. I also have fifty thousand pictures on my computer which I do not enjoy every day. It's easy to see the winners.
Jules
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Julesarnia on twitter
Yes, I do believe that a single image can stand on its own -- don't
Uncle Peg and Aunt Bill usually choose one picture from the party
to hang on the wall or carry in their wallet?
As for not having a "slide show mentality" -- you are correct.
"...it takes the series of pictures to adequately show the people, place..."
Hmmm, isn't that what video is for? And on this I think we can agree:
A proper video recording with sound will always convey the 'scene' better than any still image. It just took photography 150 years for such a capacity to work its way into the general population.
hjulenissen
Veteran Member
1. Imagine a large picture-frame type lcd hung on a wall. No wires, no user-interface. It has storage for one single image file, and is always on. Do I respect my pictures any less if I use such technology instead of prints? Does it run counter to the aim of photography? of course not, making such a general claim would be silly. At the technology level, there will be some differences that some will find significant:
a)LCD is transmissive, paper is reflective. This leads to a significantly different feel, dependency on ambient lighting etc. A reflective (e-book) display would perhaps be more "paper-like", but I am aware of no suitable products
b)LCDs will have significantly better contrast than paper (lcd may be 1000:1, while paper may be 50:1). This means more realistic reproduction of large DR scenes (prints will have to have more tonemapping/dodging/burning in order to bring out the details)
c)Unless you are using "retina" type lcds, the lcd will have lower resolution than most prints. Comparing ppi and dpi for very different tech is difficult, and is of little irrelevance as absolute limits. We need to know the image size, target viewing distance and medium resolution so as to compare to the minimum perceivable angular resolution of 20/20 vision. VGA resolution may be plenty if the image is shown as a stamp-size at 70cm distance.
2. Most lcd displays are not used like a static printed image hanging on the wall. They are used more like a large library of printed images, where single images can be easily searched, tagged, etc. I see this as a big advantage, but I see how "print fundamentalists" might disagree. I have ripped all of my CDs to my computer and enjoy my music more as a result. Many younger people just stream their music from the net, while many older people hang on to their vinyl with nice cover art. Each generation have their tools, but the content is what matter.
-h
a)LCD is transmissive, paper is reflective. This leads to a significantly different feel, dependency on ambient lighting etc. A reflective (e-book) display would perhaps be more "paper-like", but I am aware of no suitable products
b)LCDs will have significantly better contrast than paper (lcd may be 1000:1, while paper may be 50:1). This means more realistic reproduction of large DR scenes (prints will have to have more tonemapping/dodging/burning in order to bring out the details)
c)Unless you are using "retina" type lcds, the lcd will have lower resolution than most prints. Comparing ppi and dpi for very different tech is difficult, and is of little irrelevance as absolute limits. We need to know the image size, target viewing distance and medium resolution so as to compare to the minimum perceivable angular resolution of 20/20 vision. VGA resolution may be plenty if the image is shown as a stamp-size at 70cm distance.
2. Most lcd displays are not used like a static printed image hanging on the wall. They are used more like a large library of printed images, where single images can be easily searched, tagged, etc. I see this as a big advantage, but I see how "print fundamentalists" might disagree. I have ripped all of my CDs to my computer and enjoy my music more as a result. Many younger people just stream their music from the net, while many older people hang on to their vinyl with nice cover art. Each generation have their tools, but the content is what matter.
-h
John Smith 2011
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There is nothing like a high end enlargement (16x24, 20x24 or larger) and of course it's salable at a decent mark-up.
VadymA
Veteran Member
Wow, seriously? You base your argument on an article from 2003? Hmm, sad.
Thanks, any other links to studies from the Stone Ages?
And again, we are not talking about Art Work in this thread; just family snaps. Is it really worth printing hundreds and hundreds of pictures strictly for private use? I have six fat albums and four shoe boxes filled with family prints. Nobody opened them for years. How much more I would have if I didn't stop printing in 2006?
I thought so too until I saw your link...
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