There’s one thing I’ll say about this photography lark… er… actually there’s more than one thing I’ll say about it. Quite a few things in fact. Most of which aren’t very complimentary; or serious; or both. Or either. Some of which I’ve already said, and no doubt will repeat at various indeterminate points in the future. And others (lots of others) that still remain to be said. Heh heh [chortling madly as I relish the thought of all the lunatic posts yet to be written]
Anyway, where was I?
Ah yes… there’s one thing I’ll say about this photography lark… I keep on finding myself doing things that I would never have thought likely. Which, at my time of life, is a tad unsettling.
The most recent incarnation of this phenomenon arrived in the post this morning.
Prints no less. Prints of photographs! Of my photographs! Well, two of them anyway.
Now it was never my intention that any of my pics should appear in any medium other than on the Web.
Sure, the odd one or two have occasionally surfaced in print (various newspapers, magazines, periodicals etc) but that wasn’t really of my doing. Much more a case of my having been approached etc.
As far as I’ve been concerned, everything I’ve done has been intended exclusively for Web usage. That was my intention at the outset, and it hasn’t changed since. Um. Well, not really. Not very much. Not yet. Not so’s you’d notice. Though who can tell what the future may hold?
Consequently I’d never thought much about anything to do with the printing of pics, nor had any inclination so to do.
Shooting off at a bit of a tangent here for a minute (all will be revealed in due course!), one of the things that has been a thorn in my side for quite some time now is how pics are rendered differently (principally colour-wise) depending upon one’s monitor settings.
I say thorn in my side but it’d probably be more accurate to describe it as a source of deep-rooted agonising, plus frequent gnashings of teeth and hair-pulling… if I had any of either.
Not entirely unrelated concerns also introduced to me the wonderful and mysterious world of the colour calibration of monitors.
Out of the kindness of his heart a mate donated a gizmo with which I can calibrate (and maintain consistent colour balance on) the machine I principally use for processing pics and thus for a while my mind was at rest, my soul at peace. Oh happy, comfortable, ignorant days.
But not for long.
Doubts began to creep in. Little niggles. Uncertainties. Encouraged by this bloody stupid habit I have of using numerous different machines. All of which, inevitably, render colours and stuff slightly differently.
An annoyance that served to remind me of that other major thorn in my side… how other folk viewing my pics have their monitors adjusted.
A huge imponderable. One over which I have absolutely no control whatsoever. But if they have the colour balance of their monitors adjusted in the same way that lots of folk appear to have the colour balance on their television screens adjusted then I cringe. Really deeply cringe.
In which case, of one thing I’m utterly certain (or my paranoia is)… they’ll be seeing my pics completely differently to how I see them. Or how I mean them to be seen. And they won’t even realise it. And I won’t know what the hell they’re seeing. Damn!
(The converse is of course that I’m seeing their pics differently too. Heh heh. Serves ‘em bloody right!)
And let’s not even get into how different browsers reproduce colours differently!
Well, I’ve recently become conscious of yet another facet of this particular issue.
Thanks in large part to the recent acquisition of that there Lumix camera.
Which doesn’t seem to handle noise very well. Particularly with night shots. Of which I seem to have done quite a few recently. Cos I’m strange like that.
Such strangeness not being totally unrelated to the discovery that black and white pics have a certain… ah… appeal, and that black and white seems to lend itself quite readily to night shots.
Now despite training myself to regard this noise issue as a feature rather than a flaw (hell, it gives pics character. Ahem) I remain uncomfortably conscious of it. Moreso as I’ve discovered that… guess what… its more noticeable on some machines than others!
Specifically, there’s two machines I principally use for pic-related stuff (although I’ve been known to occasionally press others into service as well, inconsistent bugger that I am).
There’s the Acer (which is the colour-calibrated beastie) and there’s the Sony (which isn’t). And the latter seems to possess a somewhat brighter display than the former. This despite numerous adjustments on my part in an attempt to achieve some semblance of similarity.
One rather irritating side-effect of this brightness inconsistency (or maybe its the gamma? Never could get my head around the difference) is that the Sony tends to render pics in a manner that makes them appear somewhat over-exposed. And one consequence of that appears to be to make the noise artifacts (particularly in the pics from the Lumix) much more noticeable.
Hmm.
So (cos I always seem to trample the same old ground over and over again) I begin to wonder which of my two principal machines is rendering the pics closest to how they are in themselves sorta thing. (If a bunch of digits can ever be said to exist as a discrete entity “in itself”!)
Which is when I have my really bright idea. Well, I thought it was really bright, at the time. Now, I’m not so sure.
“What if I get some prints done of some pics?” sez I to myself. “Then I might get some idea of how the pics actually are, and how they compare to when they’re displayed on a computer screen”.
Must confess that wasn’t the only reason for going down this route, but it certainly seemed a sensible one to supplement the other one; about which I have no intention of saying anything at all. Hmm. A sensible reason, at the time.
And that’s what arrived in the post this morning. The prints.
Well, one good thing to come out of this little exercise is confirmation (of a sort) that the colour calibrated monitor appears to be rendering the pics more accurately in terms of brightness than is the Sony.
I already knew that of course… just that I needed convincing.
But unfortunately a whole new can of worms has now opened up before me… colour management in photo printing!
Oh bloody bloody hell!
Another good thing that’s come out of the exercise though is… wait for it…
A little while ago I happened to mention that the quality of the pics from the Lumix (in terms of detail resolution etc) wasn’t really up to much and likely of no use for anything other than on the Web. Which of course isn’t a problem for me.
But I really did think they’d look crap if printed.
Well, I was wrong! One of these ‘ere prints I’ve received is a 12″x8″ off the Lumix… and its fine!
Oh… and by the way… its started snowing again!
P.S.: The foregoing pics aren’t the ones I had printed. I just included them to brighten up the post a bit. Or perhaps “darken it” would be more accurate. And cos I’d taken them in the middle of penning this post and thought they deserved a bit more than just languishing unmolested on Flickr.
No, the ones I had printed were a couple picked from my Flickr “Favourites” set.
Just the issue I’ve been wrestling with for a while and which has stopped me from printing any pics (those that I had tried printing looked truly awful).
However, today seems to have come with an abundance of ‘toits’ and I’ve finally had a go at printing the shots out for the pictures for the pub … on proper photo paper … they look great .
I’m guessing you’re talking about printing them yourself. I’d not gone for that option basically because the printer I have sort of… er… doesn’t work! Didn’t have any form of manual adjustments for oolour control either and I s’pose you’d probably need something like that for photo printing. And I imagine a photo printer that can produce reasonable quality is quite pricey. No doubt I’ll be looking at that option somewhere down the road though. Maybe.
So I opted for one of these online photo printing services. Not entirely satisfied with the results but that may be down to the options I initially selected. I’ve now uploaded another couple of test shots after having tweaked things a bit and am almost eagerly waiting to see what, if any, differences are achieved.
This is a whole new ballgame really, isn’t it?
Btw, best of luck with your pub stuff. Let me know how you get on with the project.
Yup, printed them at home using my Epson Stylus D68 Photo Edition on Kodak Ultra Premium photo paper (280gsm).
Part of what’s been stopping me from printing them until now was the poor results I’d had on Epson glossy papers – distinctly muddy images which were very disappointing. I’m seriously impressed with the results on the Kodak stuff though – colour rendition is excellent, very bright and sharp, almost 3D like on a couple of the images which is really pleasing.
T’other half is just putting the finishing touches to the frames and then I’m delivering them to the pub – I’m excited and nervous (bloomin’ great kid I am really).
Heh heh. Aren’t we all? Kids that is.
I’m sure it’ll all be fine and you’ll get lots of good feedback… and maybe some dosh as well!
Yeah, I don’t like photos on glossy paper either. Much prefer the matt finish. And if the pics are being framed behind glass there’s no point to glossy anyway.
Does the Epson have any form of manual control of colours (either mechanical or software-based)?
Of course, colour profile matching is a breeze with the software you’re using…if you select a printer (either one for your home or an online service) that allows for varying colour profiles.
I’ve been fairly displeased with one of my two picture printers when it comes to colour rendering. My HP C7280 doesn’t allow me to turn off its built-in colour management so I have to use theirs. And I don’t think theirs is right. No doubt it’s RGB, but what ICC profile is a mystery and it certainly isn’t the one I use in Lightroom or on my iMac.
That said, the less expensive 6×4-inch only Epson PictureMate I have actually gets colour pretty spot-on; at least as good as my local camera shop’s printer. The only difference being that the shop’s printed images are a tad sharper in details.
I’m inclined to persuade my wife to let me purchase a proper home printer as I enjoy printing my pictures for display about the house or for sharing with folks. I’m very partial to the Canon PIXMA Pro9000Mk II, especially since it will allow me to turn off the built-in colour management and let Lr or Elements control colour. This should result in even a better math between what I see on my monitor and what spits out of the printer.
Hmm. Well, that Canon one sounds like the sort of thing to have. But anything with “Pro” in the name suggests its likely to be pricey. Nevertheless, that’s definitely the sort of feature I’d be looking for… also hopefully one that could handle 12×8 prints, although that’d be a secondary requirement.
Pricey? Yeah. USD450. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for. I seem to recall it uses 8-ink cartridges and prints up to 13×19-inches.
I was a big fan of the Epson R1900 for a long time, but the more I read about the clogging print heads issue the less excited I remained about the model.
Then I came across this Canon model and have read nothing but positive reviews.
I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that I can find a way to acquire it this year.
450 dollars? By my reckoning and at today’s rates that’s about 280 quid… which isn’t too bad all things considered. Eight ink cartridges though? Bloody hell. And that’s generally where the real long-term expense is.
Well, I won’t kick the idea totally out of touch but I think I’ll stick with the online printing for the mo’.
Epson makes great photo printers! I don’t like to use glossy photo paper, I prefer matte. I’m not that great at framing my pics so my aunt has said she’d teach me how. I am so lucky to have photographers in my family! ha ha
There’s a shot or two (of mine) I am thinking about having printed onto canvas. I’ve got a couple of bare walls in my house.
Yeah, I don’t go for glossy either.
Bare walls? Hmm. ‘cept mine aren’t bare… they’ve all got cracks in! But canvas prints to hang on them? Now that’s an idea. Darren and I were looking at some photos printed onto canvas (quite large) the other day and they did look quite attractive.
Everywhere I go online at the moment, everyone is talking about monitor calibration! Which is AWESOME cos I have finally decided I really need to get a second monitor as I dont have enuf realestate screenwise now and its limiting my editing effectiveness.
So I have decided to buy one of these http://www.viewsonic.com/products/desktop-monitors/lcd/pro-series/vp2365wb.htm – according to some tech articles I got pointed to online, the IPS monitors are the best for image editing – and this model has just been released and is kinda affordable
I dont even want to *think* about printing – I have a photog friend from my club and he has done the calibrated monitor thing *and* got a really high end fancy printer for doing his own prints – and they are professional quality and awesome. But you have to have the funds to do so……
Yeah, funds are always the problem. Practically all my thinking about photokit seems to start with the words “If only I had sufficient…”
Monitor calibration and all things colour-related… I tell ya, I find it a real headache. All down to seeing the same pic on different screens and realising just how much scope for differences in rendering there is. Which then poses the question “Ah, but which is the correct version?”.
Having finally settled that in my mind, I then get totally paranoid about how other people may be seeing it, working on the assumption that most folk aren’t as hung up on how their monitors are adjusted as I seem to be. And so it goes, in a seemingly never-ending cycle.
Throughout all this photography caper I think its the one thing that really really bugs me. Dammit!
Stupid, I know. But its a damn persuasive argument for shooting eveything in black and white!
Having read your monitor calibration posts over time I came to the conclusion that if you are only posting them on the web then it’s a useless process. It doesn’t matter how they look on your screen (other than to you) because everyone else’s monitor is set differently.
However, if you’re printing for yourself or customers/friends/etc. then it makes immense sense to calibrate.
You’re absolutely right of course. But that doesn’t stop me fretting about it endlessly!
Before going Mac I used a 19-inch Viewsonic monitor and loved it. Still do. It has been a great monitor.
Well, I’m not complaining about the screens on either the Acer or the Sony. They both reproduce colours and graphics and stuff very nicely… but differently! (Which is more than can be said for the Samsung incidentally. Even though I’ve now, finally, got the colour balance, contrast etc about right it still sucks display-wise!)
Its not so much about how nicely they do things, but how accurate the colour rendition is.
The answer of course would be to calibrate the Sony as well. But I deliberately haven’t done that… just so that I can get at least some idea of the sort and degree and type of variation that others are likely to be seeing. For its almost a given that most folk won’t have their monitors colour calibrated.
Yep…it’s a given.