In Print

Greg Patillo

The Project, Washington DC, 2008

There's nothing comparable to a nice print. Even in the digital age, books and hard copy pictures may never disappear (hopefully). While we spend a lot of time online or staring into tiny ipod screens, there is just no comparison to looking at a well-lit picture on a wall. Anyone can grab a digital camera and fire off ten frames, bracketing for every setting possible, choose a decent capture and post-process with acceptable results. However, real photographic mastery can still only be appreciated when workflow ends on paper. Most pros will likely agree that the greatest challenges still come from dominating color calibration and final output. Lightness values vary greatly from screen, to print, to lighting that falls on it. I once spent weeks on a b/w panorama because of the camera resolution and printer limitations. It was incredibly frustrating. However, I learned volumes about workflow and output with that one image than can be said here (future post in mind!). As within a darkroom, there is just as much work to accomplish in the digital studio if the end state is a photograph. A good printer, quality paper and inks are expensive. But learning the process of output is just as intriguing, frustrating and rewarding as capturing the image. Choosing prints helps narrow your selection of best images. Customers who will pay for a printed photograph demand quality. Those chosen to be hung on your walls at home will reflect a finer selection as well. I have a few that were printed in a home darkroom more than ten years ago. It is the timeless quality printed images provide that cannot be replicated on a monitor. I hope this post will inspire a few readers to consider printing a couple of images. It could very well change how you appreciate photographs. Maybe you'll spend more time in a gallery than surfing Flickr or countless websites. Consider the print.