Why We Should Still Print as Photographers

Moon-lith

Let's talk about print as this is something I get myself into a lot more recently starting up a print store with exclusive collections. I have never felt that I have miss out so much of the photography process until now and I am guilty for not doing it earlier. In today’s digital world dominated by screens, I noticed that a big part of the photography process is slowly fading away—specifically the print side of things. We spend so much time chasing for the latest tech, shooting, editing, and curating, but the entire final stage of the pipeline — from proofing a print to holding a large physical copy in our hands — is something many photographers no longer get to experience, including myself. And to be frank that is where a lot of learning and process fine tuning actually happens.

One of the things that I noticed right away was my misconception on colours. I have always thought as long as I have my monitor calibrated, I am good to go. But when I started experimenting with different types of photo paper, I began to have a deeper understanding on how different types of photo paper can have different types of limitation—dmax value and colour gamut tolerance. Depending on what you print on, this may end up really affecting the end colour rendition results. Though on the other hand, if you play by its advantage, you can really get some pleasing prints out of it. For example, a fine art paper usually renders black and white images better due to the deeper shades of shadow but will not do so well with highly saturated image.

If you go through these print process enough, you will soon realise the importance of having prints as the end of your imaging pipeline. This is mainly because prints are much more consistent and have less variables to manage since they are primarily viewed on reflected light and if you manage the viewing condition well, you can control how the images are perceived. Meanwhile monitors are predominantly backlighting and can be easily subject to multiple variation (monitor brightness, gamma shift, colour accuracy, and even colour space tolerance) that are hard to control. And it is only through printing you will start to completely understand how the choice of photo display shifts certain tones, how shadow behave, and why some colours do not look as pleasing as in your monitor.

Also with all the high resolution cameras available these day, there is simply no way you can display all of the captured information in a single frame in a digital medium. Take the Apple's Pro Display XDR 32" 6k monitor as an extreme example. With full screen viewing, you are effectively only capable of viewing only 6016x3384 pixels (20.4 million pixels) at 218 pixels per inch which is still far lesser than what a 30mp camera gives you. This is worse with square or vertical frames viewed on a horizontal screen as you are going to be using much lesser screen real estate whereby any prints larger than 16" is going to out-resolve the monitor. Its even easier with a smaller screen that has lower resolution.

Most importantly resolution has almost nothing to do with image sharpness. Simply put, the digital pixels will always be there, but that does not translate into sharp image and what really matters is pixel quality. Example: you can have a 100mp image but if the subject in it is blurry due to sloppy camera shake, I can assure you that it will not look pleasing when printed big, even though a 100mp file could get you printed up to 100" on the long edge in 300ppi without any issue. You can also have a 100mp file but if you are not printing it, I would say most of the time you will also be barely using the resolutions that you have, especially when the images are displayed in small thumbnails screens, worse if uploaded to social media. Therefore, until you print, you will never fully understand what resolution really means, simply because you’ve never pushed those pixels to their physical limits.

If you can, take time to work with your print guy — whoever that may be — to elevate your work. If possible, choose someone close to you, and most importantly someone who knows their craft, and cares enough to spot issues you might miss. A good printer is like a quiet collaborator who helps you refine your vision. As I honestly think if you are not printing your work enough, you are really missing out on a huge part of the craft. More importantly, it means losing a lot of fun in discovering photography if you do not print as photographers.

For those who are interested in curated fine art style prints, you may visit my print store. You can also write to me if you wish to request any custom prints from my site.