Photography Question for you all

valleyrider

valleyrider

New member
Seeing so many photos that are always posted of fantastic looking cars or food or whatever else you may choose to post leads me to believe that a few of you here enjoy photography possibly as a hobby.

My question for you photography hobbyists or professionals out there; How many of you still physically print out an image?

I don't mean just printing an image on a basic color printer but a dedicated photo printer on archival paper or make in image in a darkroom.

Looking at all the photos I take, I don't actually print out many photos at all.

I love spending time in a darkroom when I can but I have not had the opportunity to do so in a while.

I find I only print photos I would consider worthy of showing and even then, I have an affinity for black and white.
 
Another question;

Are any of you into alternative photo processes?

They take a bit of time to create compared to a digital print but they have a very unique look that you simply do not see very often today.
 
Todd Helme said:
I have over 15000 photos on my hard drive and have printed maybe 10 in the last two years...
Click to expand...

This is a shame. Being a photographer for >45 years, I'm all about the print. If your hard drive should crash and there's no backup, what then? Are you paying for all that cloud storage for backup - most can't afford it or worse, don't think it's necessary.

One of the great things all this digital technology has given us are photo books - where you can upload your pictures and control the layout & page composition. What you get back is a coffee table book for your pictures. Many sources make this service available and after trying several, I've found AdoramaPix to be a great company for manufacturing lay flat books-where the spine opens completely and there is not "gutter" running down the center. So you can create panorama shots that are seamless within the album.

Some old school things shouldn't change - imho this is one!
 
I make it a habit to make a photo book after every outing I take my camera. I don't always take my bulky DSLR but when I do I make it count. I usually only take it when my wife and I take our nieces and nephews to an amusement park or even to a local fair. They love seeing the pictures in a book and I personally feel it's much better than swiping through hundreds of pics on a smart phone or even on a computer monitor.
 
dc52nv said:
I make it a habit to make a photo book after every outing I take my camera. I don't always take my bulky DSLR but when I do I make it count. I usually only take it when my wife and I take our nieces and nephews to an amusement park or even to a local fair. They love seeing the pictures in a book and I personally feel it's much better than swiping through hundreds of pics on a smart phone or even on a computer monitor.
Click to expand...

The book idea is a great way to print and share photos!

Now that film has dramatically decreased in popularity hardly anyone has actual printed images anymore.

Every now and then I'll turn off the rear display on the camera and force myself to slow down, set up a proper shot, and not rely on the preview screen to show me whether I had a decent image or not. Helps to revert my thinking back to the 35mm and 4x5 days for a few photo sessions in order to not lose older way of thinking about my image before capturing it.

Far too often I'll capture over 1,000 images and only like 50 of them and be willing to print maybe 5 of those on a good day with my digital camera. But when I slow down and think like its a film camera where every shot needs to count that goes up to about 1 in 30 being print worthy for a show.
 
There is a difference between museum quality/portfolio worthy prints and family photographs that capture the moment. The images that go into the book have far greater value than the right composition or the perfect lighting. Each have their place - but go back and look and your childhood photographs. You'll notice that not many are Pulitzer Prize winning but no less valuable. These pictures are priceless.
 
I think about that all the time anymore. I used to take pictures of my cars all the time, go to Target and pay to get the pics developed, even usually pay for double prints so I'd have extras of any 'cool' shots.

Nowadays, I shoot hundreds of pics, quickly browse them, pick the few I like and share them online/facebook, but otherwise, they go on a CD/DVD probably to never be viewed again.

My wife and I have taken the time to print and put some photo albums together of our nice vacations, but other than that, not really. I've got hundreds of pics from SEMA the last several years. Always thought I'd like to go through them and make an album, but I never have any spare time.

I know digital photography has changed the way I take pics nowadays. Back in the days of 'film', I'd shoot however many pics were on my 'roll' and be done. It would force me to make sure I had what I felt would be a good shot so as to not waste any film.

Nowadays I point and click taking way more images than I ever did, only because they're "free" and I might decide I like a slightly different angle on one from another. But in the end, all I have are way more pics than I need, all of which will rarely see the shiny side of any archival paper.
 
I post most I take up to my webpage, so if someone likes what they see they can order it, the site prints it and sends it to them directly. The last time I paid to have print done was 1 1/2 years ago when I took a family pic. Its framed and on the mantel. I took over 800 pictures on our trip to Hawaii and have printed absolutely 0.
 
addysdaddy said:
Online Photo Books, Prints, Calendar, Digital Photo Printing Services - AdoramaPix

Great quality for individual prints & "lay flat" books. Reasonably priced and very fast turnaround. Highly recommended.
Click to expand...

+1 on adorama

I've used them for some basic prints before and might be ordering a photobook soon now that this thread got me thinking about it.

For most daily prints I use Costco, if I want a little higher quality prints or I shoot a roll of film I use a local photography store that offers printing services.

For special photos mainly in B&W I have a printer at home I use that I can run that fancy papers through.
 
Costco is ok, better for 4x6 than the larger print sizes. Adorama if you can wait the extra day or two is much better. Again, I've tested many labs and found Adorama superior for both quality and price. They also allow TIF file uploads (60 mgs) and since I would Photoshop many images, this format afforded much better results.

Again, I want to suggest to YNOT and others to take an "event" and turn it into a small book. They also have some great examples on their website so you can get some ideas on what can be done. They run sales all the time so upload your photos, use their software (free, creative & easy to use) to create a book and don't "publish" until the sale starts. Generally this works though sometimes for clients I would have to create the book asap. Sorta like Autopia Sales if you know what I mean. No offense intended Todd.
 
And let me share my storage regiment for maintaining your files on the computer. I store things by date and then by event. For example on my photo hard drive, I would have 2014-2Q and then individual folders for each event. Under each event the sub-folders would be RAW, Retouched, Web since I create much smaller files for posting but want to maintain the integrity of my original RAW/negative files. Here's how it would look in Explorer. You probably won't need the same three sub-folders but hopefully you get the idea.

2014-2Q
Detailing Pix
RAW
Retouched
Web

Addys Bday
RAW
Retouched
Web
 
addysdaddy said:
And let me share my storage regiment for maintaining your files on the computer. I store things by date and then by event. For example on my photo hard drive, I would have 2014-2Q and then individual folders for each event. Under each event the sub-folders would be RAW, Retouched, Web since I create much smaller files for posting but want to maintain the integrity of my original RAW/negative files. Here's how it would look in Explorer. You probably won't need the same three sub-folders but hopefully you get the idea.

2014-2Q
Detailing Pix
RAW
Retouched
Web

Addys Bday
RAW
Retouched
Web
Click to expand...

Do you use Lightroom for the initial import, filing, and edits? Or Bridge? assuming you use an Adobe product for import - (based on your use of Photoshop).

I like your idea of event photo books, I think I'm going to start doing that.
 
Hardly print photos these days. DSLR's have changed the way I print and save pictures. Out of 100 pictures (of my daughter), there are maybe two or three pictures I would print. I don't delete the other 97 pictures either. I store them on an iMac, then back up to an external storage (NAS). The external storage gets backed up to another external USB drive and an additional one backed up external drive monthly that gets stored into a fireproof safe.

When I do want to print a bunch of photos (like vacation pics), I edit them to adjust exposure and clean up blemishes. I then send them to Shutterfly or Costco for prints. The come out very well.

I used to print them on my HP Photosmart printer with excellent results, but getting them wet with water really kills the pictures.
 
valleyrider said:
Do you use Lightroom for the initial import, filing, and edits? Or Bridge? assuming you use an Adobe product for import - (based on your use of Photoshop).

I like your idea of event photo books, I think I'm going to start doing that.
Click to expand...

I only use Photoshop and therefore Bridge but I create all my folders inside of Windows Explorer and do my import prior to booting Photoshop-transfer seems faster to me. Lightroom is fine if that's what your using though if you didn't have a program, I would recommend Photoshop Elements over Lightroom because the latter has a mind of it's own as to where it wants you to store things.
 
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