Learning to Print: Solid Advice

These were both comments to the "Open Mike" post on Sunday about learning how to print. I thought they deserved their own post. Bob recently retired from a career making beautiful high-end studio portraits of dogs (how can you not like that?), and Geoff is a small-town medical doctor in Western New York with a longtime passion for photography and a huge book collection. He has written many (more formal) book reviews for TOP.

Geoff Wittig: "Totally agree with the recommendation above for Jeff Schewe's books. The Digital Negative (second edition) was just published in September 2015, so it's pretty much up to date in terms of current versions of Photoshop/ACR and Lightroom. Schewe's approach to image processing is pretty much style-agnostic, giving you access to all of Photoshop/ACR and Lightroom's tools without dictating what your images should look like. Schewe gets right to the point and doesn't waste your time. The Digital Print dates to 2013, but that's fine because printer technology isn't changing as fast as software versions. It's excellent on how to translate the image on-screen to a physical print that reflects what you're trying to do artistically. The two books together pretty much give you all the information you need in a very approachable format.

"As of seven or eight years ago there were a goodly number of books on the subject. But it's a moving target, and print books are basically a perishable commodity as software versions and printer technology advance. Harald Johnson's Mastering Digital Printing was a good overview, but the latest (second) edition dates to 2004, so it's no longer very useful. Uwe Steinmueller's Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers (third edition) is pretty current as it was published in late 2013, and has some good information, but it's also packed with lots of redundant stuff about specific printer models and the writing style confirms that English is not his first language.

"George DeWolfe's B&W Printing: Creating the Digital Master Print dates to 2009; so it's a bit old, but he is a very skilled printer. Be forewarned that he's a bit dogmatic and is also trying to sell some software tools. Finally, David Taylor's Photographic Digital Printing is current (April 2015), but it's too elementary to recommended, and Rob Sheppard's New Epson Complete Guide to Digital Printing is both too simplified and entirely Epson-based."

Bob Rosinsky: "The best way to learn how to print is to purchase a decent 'budget' inkjet printer [such as the Epson P600  —Ed.]. Avoid printers that use small ink cartridges. Start out using one type of paper—one that is RC and relatively inexpensive—Epson Ultra Premium Luster or similar. At the very least, start with a monitor that is 'okay.' I recommend purchasing a simple device for calibrating the screen. Start out with a photo editing program that allows for 'soft proofing.'

"Spend some time reading about printing. I think The Luminous-Landscape is a great site. I've gotten a lot of useful tips from well-known gurus who are willing to share hard-earned knowledge. The more you read and learn through practice, the more skillful you will become. If all of this sounds intimidating, try hooking up with someone who understands color management and has been printing for awhile. To become facile (meaning you hit it right on the first or second print) requires technical skill and artistic vision.

"Please bear in mind, I am a fastidious printer. I am 57 years old. I've been printing since the age of 14. A lot of the skills I acquired in the darkroom are relevant in the lightroom.

"As for casual printing, it is possible to achieve pretty good results. Like anything, the more you learn the more you'll become aware how much you do not know about what you do not know. It is highly rewarding to 'see' the final print prior to pressing the shutter button. It takes a lot of practice to achieve that."

And there you have it: study and practice.

Mike
(Thanks to Geoff and Bob)

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Comments

[Matt]

Thank you, these are both helpful. I've just recently started printing and have had difficulty getting the kind of results I was expecting. I've spent some time on LuLa trying to figure things out, but it's not quite "clicking" yet.

I suspect my issues are on the monitor calibration side, as I've got different results with my calibration device (Spyder 5) on different occassions. However, I also like Bob's suggestion to just buy some affordable paper an iterate until I find what works. I started out with a more expensive paper and I've been reluctant to "waste" it printing out a lot of test pages.

[Chuck Albertson]

Jeff Schewe's books are both excellent, and I keep them handy as a reference after reading them. But the best use of your time and money is a printing workshop, where you have a decent instructor showing you the basics, some shortcuts, and instant feedback on your printing.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Hear, Hear to the Bob Rosinsky's philosophy! Books and online tutorials can be helpful to get you in the grooves and to overcome basic hurdles. But, similar to photography itself, the only way to learn to print is to print, baby, print!

To that end, you have lessen the financial load of experimentation. Paper and inks have become so expensive. The work print should be a no-brainer. So my version of the "work print" is nearly always a 4x6 print, usually on a semi-gloss or pearl paper. I like Ilford Smooth Pearl for its weight and excellent surface, and its low cost for a box of 100 sheets!

My "work prints"

I use a matte paper to pre-proof work that I know is destined for a matte surface.

I use Lightroom's page labeling feature to print the file name at the bottom of each 4x6 print, making it easier to maintain orderly files of them. I also often make many notes on their backs.

Experimenting with such small, non-precious prints has become essential to my work flows. I often look at these prints for weeks, or even months, before making a final print. They're tacked-up to magnetic wall, they're laying on my desk. They're also excellent for passing among friends to get early impressions.

But most importantly the 4x6 work print is a very good snap-shot of the relative tonalities of a larger print...at a small fraction of the expense. Print / look / nudge /---> repeat.

[Bill Tyler]

One more bit of advice. Look at prints. Look at good prints. See what is possible, and what you like. Then use books or other resources to help you make prints that you like. And practice.

[Vnce]

So, serious question. Why do I want to print? I don't mean why do I want prints, I understand that. I mean why *I* want to print? There are plenty of good printers available, and their prices are, as near as I can tell, on a par with (or sometimes even cheaper) than I can do myself.

Other than loving to fiddle and "do it yourself" (both of which are perfectly valid reasons), are there really any advantages to printing it yourself?

[Alan Carmody]

Mike, Bob Rosinsky suggests a "decent 'budget' printer" and your editorial interjection suggests the Epson P600, which is an eight hundred dollar printer.

While I respect your long experience and authority in these matters, and am aware of your experience with the Epson P600 specifically, is this what Bob truly means by a "'budget' printer?"

Or is he saying that you can profitably learn to print well with a much less expensive printer than that Epson?

[Henry Rogers]

Epson P600 on Amazon UK is hardly budget price compared to what you would pay in the US

[David Dyer-Bennet]

There are professional printers (the people, not the hardware device) like Ctein, who I definitely can't afford (except in special cases like the TOP print sale).

There are places like Costco, which do a perfectly decent job of running a file out their good printers (which are maintained well, at least the times I've used them). However, there's an almost non-existent list of papers available, and none of them are really suitable for serious artistic work (not archival). That's if I remember to tell them "no adjustments", and have prepared the file myself.

What's the intermediate level? My experience back in the day with professional photo labs was that they would do a competent job of exposure and color balance, but nothing else (and half of that work is now handled by color management). They had "custom" services available for 5 times as much that they claimed were a real person printing, but I tended to go into the darkroom myself rather than paying that much -- and I also had a sneaking suspicion that a one-off order from an unknown customer would not get the same attention as a "custom" order from somebody making such orders ever week; maybe that's just paranoia, though. So the question is, what exists, and how do we find it, at the in-between level; not world-class custom printers, but really solidly above what a beginner can do for themselves? How do we find it, and what does it cost?

Personally, I'm at this point good enough that I may well be as good or better than this middle level (I don't believe I'm competitive with the master-printers yet), so the other thing I want is places that will run my file, unmodified, through well-maintained printers larger than I can afford, with a tolerable choice of papers. I know two places that do things like that, at least one of them very expensive already.