18 Monday Mar 2013
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Nothing Interesting – just a 7 hour drive and a little accident by someone else in the group on the way there when some of the group stupidly went for a bit of a dip in the lake! Aside from that little incident we (all eventually) got to the campsite in Yosemite Park in one piece.
Must remember to use the special bear proof bins and keep all food locked away and not in our tent!
07 Thursday Mar 2013
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If there’s one thing everyone can agree upon when it comes to photo paper it’s that there are an almost endless number of brands and varieties available. But don’t be intimidated. Generally speaking—there are some exceptions, and I’ll take note of a few—the most important thing to consider is surface type of the paper and the look you’re trying to realize. In the broadest sense, you’re looking at papers that range from glossy to matte, in the traditional parlance of photo papers, with a number of intermediate options.
Glossy papers provide a punchy, colorful (typically the highest gamut paper style available) look and, due to their ability to render high contrast images, work well for black & white printing as well. The papers themselves tend to be quite durable, and are available in a number of comparable offshoots as well, including semi-gloss. Almost every paper manufacturer—from name brands to knockoffs—produces glossy, semi-gloss and luster options and some produce an even larger number of incremental varieties. The vast, vast majority of photo quality inkjet printers can handle these types of paper.
The principal downside to glossy papers is that they tend to be highly reflective, though this can be mitigated if the print is to be framed and placed under glass (i.e. by choosing a non-reflective glass).
It should be noted that one of the distinguishing aspects of this kind of paper is that the ink doesn’t penetrate the paper; it sits on top of the shiny surface. So, while the paper itself is highly durable, the print can be susceptible to scratching from careless handling. Also, with some inksets (Epson is a particularly good example of this), there can be what is known as “outgassing” with these papers, though this problem has been mitigated with newer inkset releases.
Some glossy-style papers have a bit of a naturally cool (i.e. bluish) appearance and this will impact the way a print is rendered, though this can be countermanded by softproofing using your image editing program of choice.
Matte papers are more or less the counterpoint to glossy options and occupy the other end of the conventional inkjet paper spectrum. Matte papers have more of a textured, subdued appearance; they contain a narrower color gamut than glossy paper selections and render prints with less color and contrast. This can work very well for certain types of images, but if you’re looking for punchiness or contrast, this probably isn’t the best option.
On the other hand, matte papers have few if any problems with reflectivity of light and tend to be color neutral. Matte papers are also typically heavier stock than glossy.
There are other options. Watercolor paper is an interim choice, closer to the matte end of the continuum, with a fine art paper texture. Luster paper is also an interim selection, but closer to the glossy end of the spectrum and is an excellent compromise—a shiny surface with far less of the reflective downside of glossy paper.
Many sellers offer a variety paper pack for a small sum, including five or more different types of paper which will allow you to experiment with a number of options to see which work best with different types of images.
While not strictly speaking paper, canvas is another, very different, choice of medium. Extremely heavy and typically used for “wrapping” around a wooden frame, canvas offers a distinct alternative to conventional papers. Printing on canvas naturally reduces sharpness since the material itself is comparatively flexible, but this does allow for an increase in the possible reproduction size of the image. Not all types of images work particularly well with canvas; highly detailed images, for instance, are ordinarily not a good choice.
It’s also worth remembering that canvas is an extremely thick, heavy medium and many printers can’t handle it well. If you choose to print on canvas, be sure to check your manual to see if your printer is capable of printing on this medium.
Next: Printer Profiles
Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.
21 Thursday Feb 2013
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As I mentioned in the introduction to this series, I’m going to cover full-size (13” and wider) photo quality printers in this installment, but not in the form of a buyer’s guide. There are plenty of these already available (your search engine of choice is your friend), and I frankly don’t have enough experience with a variety of different printer models to produce one. But I’ve been doing my own printing for about ten years now and feel comfortable enough with a few of the basic issues surrounding self-printing to offer some (hopefully) useful basic information. (If you’re interested in a printer that only produces small prints—4×6 inches, for example—this probably won’t be of much value to you. It should be noted, however, that essentially all full-size printers are capable of producing small prints as well.)
I don’t consider this the final word in printing, by any means. This piece is intended as an entree into the world of printers, to provide you with a few key concepts to keep in mind when considering a purchase.
The basic ink option when selecting a photo quality printer is between a model with a dye-based inkset and a pigment-based inkset. There was a time not that many years ago when this was a critically important choice. Dye-based printers were, all things considered, less expensive than their pigment-based counterparts, and contained a wider color gamut, but produced prints that were rated much less robust when it came to archival quality. Today, most of the differences between the two types of inksets have disappeared.
Pigment-based inksets still tend to dominate professional level printers, but it’s largely a legacy issue at this point. Some people claim that they can detect a clear (preferable) difference with pigment-based black & white prints, but I must confess that I don’t see it myself. And this comes from someone who uses—and has always used—a pigment-based printer.
Essentially, I don’t see the inkset itself as a significant factor in printer choice. At this point, I use a pigment-based printer because of the unit’s other features, not the pigment-based inks per se.
The major companies that produce photo quality printers—Epson, Canon, HP—are constantly upgrading their inks and refresh their basic inksets every few years.
If you anticipate doing a high volume of printing, you may ultimately want to look into third party inks and/or external ink-delivery systems, but these matters are beyond the scope of this piece.
This is a big, big deal when it comes to printer selection. Unless you’re going to print borderless (which I don’t recommend, by the way), you can figure the largest possible non-panoramic print that you can produce on the short side of the print by subtracting one inch from the printer’s carriage width. For instance, with a 13” wide printer you can print up to 12” on the short side of the print (from the point of view of a conventional 3:2 ratio image from most digital cameras); that would mean a standard sized print of 12×18 inches.
You have to consider how large you want to be able to print without engaging an outside print service. If you want to be able to print your own 16×24” prints, you’re not going to be able to go with a 13” wide printer.
A 13” wide printer is considered the largest “tabletop” printer size. As you go wider—17 inches is the next step up—the price increases, and significantly. So does the footprint of the printer and the weight. By the time you move past 17 inches in width (24” is the next step up), you’re looking at a price tag well into the thousands of dollars (US) and a dedicated printer stand.
But if the downsides (price, size) of larger carriage printers are clear, one key benefit isn’t so obvious—ink cartridge savings. 13” wide printers are relatively inexpensive, but the per unit ink cost of these tabletop printers is considerable. If you print with any regularity, you’ll burn through the small cartridges that feed a 13 inch printer with numbing frequency. By moving up one rung on the ladder—to a 17” wide printer—you have access to ink cartridges that are roughly four times the capacity at only about twice the cost. That equates to a 50% per unit ink savings. This provides a huge potential cost savings going forward. As you move farther up the ladder you have access to even more savings in per unit ink costs. Now, that shouldn’t be the only factor in your decision, of course. (If it were, you’d be buying the largest printer available.) But it could well be a tie-breaker; if you’re on the fence about two different printer sizes, it could make sense to go up to the higher size to save money down the road.
Some printers accept rolls of papers as well as sheets; some only accept sheets. If you want to print panoramas, you really need a printer that accepts rolls. (It’s possible to feed rolls of paper into a sheet feeder, but it’s quite difficult to get it right.) Even if you don’t want to print panoramas, you’ll find that roll paper is, per unit, much cheaper than sheets, but rolls can be a bit more difficult to work with—dealing with the paper cutter and taking the time and trouble to uncurl the paper after the print has been produced. Some of the printers that don’t accept rolls are cheaper than comparable units that do, but a machine that allows for both rolls and sheets obviously retains the most flexibility.
If you rarely, if ever, print more than one image at a time, this isn’t a big deal, but if you ever do any batch printing, it’s a very, very big deal and, of course, the more you print the more important it is. Print speed can vary dramatically from model to model; generally speaking (and this will come as no surprise I’m sure), more expensive printers are faster than less expensive ones—sometimes by a factor of two or more. Do your due diligence and take note of the comparative print speeds of the models in question.
Next: Paper Choices
Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.
07 Thursday Feb 2013
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I’ve had several requests recently to cover a topic that I’ve scarcely touched upon during the more-than-a-year that I’ve been guest blogging here at 1001 Scribbles: printing. And so I shall. This will be a multi-part series—though I’m not certain how many parts there will be just yet—due to the vast number of topics there are related to printing. Before it’s said and done, I’ll discuss:
In this introductory piece, however, I want to go beyond the logistical aspects of printing to briefly consider the notion of whether the print itself is on the way to extinction.
Those of you who go back to the film era will remember what a task it was to obtain a decent size print. If you were shooting color print film, by definition you were receiving plenty of small prints, but to obtain a large print—or, even worse, any print at all if you were shooting slide film—was a royal pain. (If you shot black & white the potential to produce your own prints was there, but that meant having access to a darkroom and a considerable amount of equipment.)
With color film, the work had to be farmed out to a lab and…maybe they’d do a good job and maybe they wouldn’t. You had essentially no control over the matter and I saw some truly dreadful prints made, particularly using what is known as E-6 processing (a common method for producing prints from transparency film).
Before I moved to digital capture, however, the era of the digital darkroom had matured to the point where it was possible to produce high resolution scans of transparencies or negatives on a desktop unit and optimize the resulting digital files using a computer and image editing software. From there, you could produce your own inkjet prints using a dedicated photo printer. At the time, it seemed like a dream and to this day—more than 10 years later—I can recall what it was like to see a print of one of my images roll off the printer. It’s difficult to express how satisfying an experience that was.
But today, it’s worth considering whether the idea of a framed print, hanging on the wall, is headed for the dustbin of history.
In today’s world, where digital images are both native and ubiquitous and the means to share them with others easy to use and access, an entire generation is emerging that largely regards—at least somewhat understandably—photographic prints as a quaint anachronism. Why go to the considerable trouble and expense of producing a print when you can share your imagery with just about anyone who cares to see it via social media or e-mail?
It’s a fair question, and I’m not sure that I have a particularly satisfactory answer—not a tangible one, anyway.
Perhaps it’s a product of my experience, but when I’m producing images in the field it is with the understanding that I’m attempting to generate a digital file that will stand up to the considerable quality rigors implicit in a large print. For me, that’s the desired end game for my images. Again, perhaps it’s nothing more than a function of how I cut my teeth, but for me there’s something indescribably marvelous about producing prints of my images, matting and framing them and hanging them on the wall.
But we may well be heading towards a time when alternative ways of image viewing—digital picture frames or viewing devices perhaps (something well beyond what’s currently available)—may be the photographic end game. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if prints become a true rarity in the next few decades. Time will tell.
In the meantime, we’ll give printing its due and perhaps a few of you reading this will find pleasure in seizing control and producing prints of your own treasured images.
Next: Printers
Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.
24 Thursday Jan 2013
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If you own a digital camera capable of shooting in RAW mode it’s worth considering whether you should use it at all…some of the time…or all of the time. The decision should be made on the basis of a number of factors and it should go without saying that it’s helpful if you understand the advantages and disadvantages of choosing RAW or JPEG when taking pictures. Well, perhaps it should go without saying, but it won’t, precisely because I’ve been amazed to discover how many photographers have made the decision for what can only be described as dubious reasons.
For a good, comprehensible technical explanation of the RAW file format, I direct you here. For our purposes, you can think of a RAW file as the functional equivalent of a film negative. It’s a format, proprietary to each camera maker, that amounts to an unprocessed original image. To be used, the RAW file must be transformed to a non-proprietary format, which is what compatible RAW conversion software allows you to do. You are, as a practical matter, developing your digital negative when performing the RAW conversion process.
If you shoot in JPEG mode, the camera is essentially developing the digital negative for you, based on pre-established, (frequently) customizable settings. How much control you have over the in-camera settings varies from model to model, but the point is that the choices—whatever they are—have to be made before image capture. With RAW mode, you can make your development decisions after taking the picture, and the amount of control you have over this process is vast.
When I’m out in the field, I shoot in RAW mode exclusively. Literally every image I have posted as an accompaniment to my entries on this blog (and my own) are derived from RAW captures. But keep in mind my circumstances:
First, I’m shooting with the intention of preserving the option of creating large prints from each image I produce. I will use images in other forms from time to time—Web posting, slideshows and the like—but that’s not my primary consideration. The point is that I’m valuing image quality over and above a lot of other factors—time, convenience, file size, etc.—that are important issues that may (completely legitimately) rank more highly for others.
Second, my subject matter is made up of mostly cooperative elements—things that don’t move all that much. As a result, I’m very seldom concerned about filling the camera’s buffer. If you’re into candid or action photography of any kind, you may find yourself valuing these factors and may want to consider whether RAW is your best choice.
On the rare occasions when I’m snapshooting, I use my wife’s point-and-shoot and am perfectly happy to have the convenience to capture JPEGs.
The bottom line is, I’ve made my format choices based on a careful calculation of my own priorities. The only thing about my approach that I urge you to follow is the “careful calculation of your priorities” part. Your considerations may be the same as mine, but they may very well differ. That’s perfectly okay; the key is to make a reasoned choice based on an understanding of the file format options available to you and how well they fit with your proclivities.
Thursday Tips is written by Kerry Mark Leibowitz, a guest blogger on 1001 Scribbles, and appears every other Thursday. To read more of his thoughts on photography, please visit his blog: Lightscapes Nature Photography.
