Reconvic Loc: clermont Fl

Thanks Tim...certainly a lot to think about!

Reconvic Loc: clermont Fl

Thank you mas!

Reconvic Loc: clermont Fl

Thanks, definitely want to add the white space to some of out photos.

scubadoc Loc: Sarasota, FL

One of the biggest advantages of using a custom print shop is the wide variety of paper types they offer, which is not really feasible at home. Depending on the look you are trying to achieve, different papers will give dramatically differing results.

Metis407 Loc: Canada

Try Red River paper. Very good selection and very helpful.

Reconvic Loc: clermont Fl

Thanks scubadoc, for bird photographs can you suggest some paper types?

Reconvic Loc: clermont Fl

Larry, can you suggest some paper types?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

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-profiling
https://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.

Photographer Jim Loc: Rio Vista, CA

If you are printing for a sales inventory, as the OP said he was considering, the volume spreads the cost of the printer out until the cost contribution of the printer per print becomes negligible. As Gene pointed out, most people printing for sales will move to a larger format printer which use large ink tanks, so cost per ml of ink is way less than most people’s home printers. If you prefer high end papers, they can be purchased for home printing at prices that are far more economical than what most labs charge for prints using that same paper. ( example: I can print a 20x24 print on Hahnemühle baryta paper with pigment inks for about $14. The same print at a good lab like BayPhoto would be $72).

scubadoc Loc: Sarasota, FL

Choice of paper is so dependent on the look you are trying to achieve. Here is a Wiki, describing the “top 10”. https://wiki.ezvid.com/best-photo-papers. My favorite, and most expensive, is Hahnemuhle Photo Rag.
As mentioned by others, having a relationship with a custom print lab in your area will still likely give you the best results, unless you have the time, money, and talent to DIY and achieve the quality you will get from a custom shop. If I have an image that I want to display on my or someone else’s wall, I will edit the photo to the best of my ability, save it as a TIFF, put it on a thumb drive, take it to the lab , and discuss with the printer the look I want to achieve. He may do some additional editing to color grade, open up shadows if necessary, remove sensor spots that I may have missed. A quality 16x20 print may cost me $35-$75, depending on paper choice and amount of editing done. Expensive, yes, but worth it if you want exhibition qualaity results.

Reconvic Loc: clermont Fl

Boots?....COMBAT boots, spit shined! Thank you very much and yes I want QUALITY prints, so the calibrated monitor is a priority. TIME is another priority! My wife and I are either traveling and/or photographing.

Reconvic Loc: clermont Fl

18 vs 72 ? WOW!

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

The key to any business, and that's what you are proposing, is payback on investment and profit at the end of the day.
Until you get a huge volume of work and big income you don't want to do your own printing for sale items. You can do some marketing flyers and sample photos on an everyday 3in1 printer but for items to sell get the pros to print them for you.

jedcardio

I use a Canon Pro 100 and print mostly 19x13 prints with excellent results. I use inks from T surplus which are much cheaper than Canon and I see no difference. Red River is a good paper source. You can get a sampler pack which contains most if not all of their papers and you can decide which you like.

Reconvic Loc: clermont Fl

Thanks scubadoc!