Reconvic wrote:
My wife and I are wanting to print some of our bird photos. It could end up that we are printing numerous copies of one capture. I've searched the annals concerning this but can only find outdated topics. If we were to peddle our wares what grade/type of paper and size and what other land mines should we be aware of. Quality is a priority.
Could you recommend either a printer/establishment....Thank you, Vic
Put your boots on... It's gonna get deep!
Here's the skinny on printing your own:
Use a monitor MADE FOR photography and the graphic arts. BenQ makes some reasonably priced units ($400 for a 24" at B&H). NEC, SONY, EIZO, and others make them, too. Just don't buy a gaming monitor. They are too bright and contrasty, and NOT optimized for photography.
Whether you print your own, or use a lab, calibrate and custom profile your monitor, if "quality is a priority." Use a calibration kit from X-Rite or Datacolor:
https://www.xrite.com/categories/calibration-profilinghttps://www.datacolor.com/photography-design/Calibrate monthly. If anyone so much as touches the monitor controls after you calibrate, create a profile, and activate it, then calibrate and profile the monitor again!
Start with these calibration aims:
> Gamma 2.2
> White Point 0.5 candelas per square meter
> Black Point 105 candelas per square meter (80 to 120 is a reasonable range. If your prints come out dark, LOWER this value. If they're too light, RAISE this value.)
> Color Temperature 6500°K, or as the software with your calibrator recommends.
Evaluate color in a neutral environment: a gray background on your computer desktop, gray background in your software, gray table, gray walls, no windows, 5000K 60-watt equivalent CFL bounced off the ceiling above/behind your monitor. No direct light should glare off of the monitor.
Illuminate test prints in a light box with controlled 5000K lighting from a 93 CRI CFL source. The brightness at the surface of the print should be EV 10 at ISO 100, as measured off a gray card or with an incident meter.
Learn to install and use your printer profile or lab profile as a PROOFING profile in your software. This allows your monitor to simulate the specific printer/ink/paper or photo lab conditions in use.
As for printing... Here are the main reasons to print your own.
> Immediacy
> Privacy/Copyright/Trust issues
> Control of ALL the Variables
> Choice of papers, canvas, art board...
> Print longevity is up to 5X that of conventional silver halide photo papers.
> You want that maximum archival permanence.
> You want the widest possible color gamut, available only from high-end inkjet printers.
> You master color management.
> You print often, but in moderate quantities.
Notice I didn't mention COST? You won't save money by printing your own! But if you put in the effort to get good at it, your prints will stand out as superlative.
After carefully calibrating your monitor and installing printer/paper/ink profiles, download a test image (or use one that came with your calibration kit). Activate the correct profile for the test paper, and send an UNALTERED copy of it to the printer to test your system. Evaluate the prints in your light box, against the original image, displayed on your monitor WITH THE PROOFING PROFILE ENABLED. You should see a close match. If you see a brightness difference, lower the monitor white point and recalibrate/re-profile the monitor. If the color is SIGNIFICANTLY different, be sure you are not DOUBLE profiling. Use color management in the printer driver or in your software, BUT NOT BOTH. Sometimes it takes a while to choose the right combination of settings. RECORD THEM.
As for paper choices, Canon and Epson both offer their own lines of papers that work quite well in their own printers. Third parties (Red River, Moab, Hahnemuhle, Harmon Galerie, Magic...) also offer great choices. Your success or failure mostly depends on your ability to apply proper ICC color management techniques:
> Calibrate and Profile your monitor.
> Download and install the paper manufacturer's generic profiles for your SPECIFIC printer/ink/paper combination.
> Perform final image adjustments with the printer profile enabled as a proofing profile.
> Activate the printer/ink/paper profile in either the software you print from, OR in the printer driver, but not both places.
Note that color management is effective, but not perfect. Printers use SUBTRACTIVE color processes with cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and other ink colors REMOVING light shining off of a paper surface. Your monitor is ADDITIVE, using red, green, and blue light to simulate all colors of the rainbow. That we can make a print look somewhat like a monitor is remarkable.
Every device has a different ICC color gamut. A color gamut is the range of color saturation that device (monitor, or printer) can reproduce. So expect SOME loss of certain colors between the monitor and the print. Expect SOME other colors to shift.
Know also that SOME colors cannot be recorded by a digital camera (or film) the way our eyes see them. The camera is sensitive to certain colors we cannot see. The energy from those frequencies, and the energy from the colors we can see, combine to create the color that the camera actually records.
As for labs...
Using a lab requires a human relationship. Sure, you can use someone's ROES (Remote Order Entry System), but it's still best to talk to your lab initially, to understand their needs, and so they can answer your questions and expectations.
Get their profiles. If they offer different papers, get a profile for each paper/printer combination. Install them into your system and use them as proofing profiles during final image adjustment.
After carefully calibrating your monitor and installing their profiles, download a test image (or use one that came with your calibration kit) and send an UNALTERED copy of it to the lab to test on the papers you want to use. Evaluate the prints in your light box, against the original image, displayed on your monitor WITH THE PROOFING PROFILE ENABLED. You should see a close match. If you see a brightness difference, lower the monitor white point and recalibrate/re-profile the monitor. If the color is SIGNIFICANTLY different, have a conversation with the lab to make sure you are both in sync.
Reasons to use a lab:
> You don't want the expense of owning a printer and using expensive inks and papers.
> You print infrequently, or in large batches.
> You don't really need 200 year dark storage longevity, or 100 year displayed-under-glass longevity (20 to 40 years is the expected life of a chromogenic silver halide print).
> You don't want to incur the labor time and cost of printing your own.
> You WANT a lower total cost to print.
> You don't need privacy, and you're not worried about trust and copyright issues.
> You don't want to concern yourself with the technical details of printing.
Look for a professional color lab in your area. There are many who have been in business for decades. Miller's and MPIX are the same company. H&H, Bay Photo, White House Custom Color, Nations Photo, United Promotions, Nash Editions, Full Color, and oh my gosh, probably 100 other good ones are out there. Google Professional Color Photo Labs and find the ones near you. Talk to them.
I hope all this helps. I spent decades in a color lab, in many roles, so I know enough to be dangerous.