My Suggestion to you Digital Nuts - PRINT!

zackiedawg

zackiedawg

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Staff member
Yeah yeah...I'm slow on the take here. ; Obviously, there's a printing forum, and some folks here are already making threads about their printing processes. ; But I am sure there are others out there like me - who embraced the digital age in cameras, learning more about photography and becoming better all around, taking many more photos, and much more artistically...yet probably printing a tiny fraction of what you did when you used film. ; Or not at all. ; It's to those folks I am talking: ; Print!

I have been into digital photography since 1997, but more seriously since 2003 when I got a manually controllable prosumer camera. ; Along the way, I've had a few dozen larger prints made (at a print store) to hang at home and in my office. ; I made some for friends or family. ; I've sold some prints at work, usually ordering prints of sold shots on demand. ; And every so often, I print one or two at home for personal consumption or for fun.

But what I don't do very often...almost never...is just order up some 4x6 or 5x7 printsm just to stick in an album or share with friends. ; I'm so used to showing my photos on slideshows on nice LCD monitors...always figuring those nice big screens and large sizes were better than looking at small photographs.

A rare opportunity arose when I recently ordered a lens, and received a promotional free print coupon. ; I had used Shutterfly long ago for a few prints, and they seemed respectable enough, plus I still had the old password, so I decided just for fun to go ahead and make those free prints. ; Why not? ; After all, they're free! ; I was given 2 8x10s, 5 5x7s, and 75 4x6s. ; With the 2 8x10s, I chose some wildlife shots I liked and hadn't gotten around to printing - I wanted to get those up at my office as those have sold well. ; For the 5x7s, I decided to make some nice prints from some family trips to give to family - figuring they might appreciate the little gift. ; The dilemma arose when I tried to figure out what to print for the 75 4x6 photos.

It struck me that I actually don't have any prints from Disney World taken with a digital camera...my only Disney photos on paper are from the 70s and 80s. ; Wow...that would be fun picking 75 random Disney shots over the past 5-6 years, and seeing how they come out in print! ; So I picked my assortment and shot up the order. ; They arrived today...and my jaw dropped on the ground! ; OK, I'm not tooting my own horn here...this isn't an ego trip on how brilliant I am. ; I think I'd have been floored with anyone's digital Disney pics. ; It was just that I hadn't seen prints in this size of almost anything for 5 years, let alone of Disney, which I used to shoot in slides. ; Moreover, I had never seen digital photos in prints this size - with the incredible noise control at higher ISOs, the slow shutter smoothness, the post-processed tweaks and saturation, the way unsharp masking crisped up the details. ; And just the color, the detail, the pop! ; I've looked through the shots a hundred times today...and I can't believe how different (and nice) they look in good old 4x6 glossy, like the old days.

So for those of you who haven't, didn't, or won't...I'd strongly encourage you to grab some favorite shots, or a bunch of vacation shots...and rattle off some prints! ; Not just the big, glamorous, professional mega-prints for wall hanging...but the good old, handheld, 4x6 type shots (I prefer glossy for these) to just enjoy with friends, make albums, scrapbook with, spill coffee on...whatever. ; It really makes you appreciate some shots all over again, in a whole new light.
 
I will second that Justin. ; We still print most of our pictures to scrapbook. ; It's a lot of fun to go back and look through those old vacation pics.
 
I am one of those guilty people that don't print enough. ; :-[ I guess I hadn't really thought about it much, But your story here has inspired me to think about this whole thing & get busy printing.
 
I am also guilty of not doing this enough. ; CVS seems to always offer free prints around here. ; While they may not be the highest quality, at least it would be something tangible!
 
Nope, not me. ; I've printed out shots on 4x6 before and didn't really care for it. ; Oh sure, it's easier to show to people, and I admit the old timey feel of showing off your vacation snaps on hard copy is kind of fun.

But let's just face it. ; Images look better on a monitor. ; The best print process in the world can't match the image quality you get on a monitor. ; If nothing else, the fact that it's backlit and is actually emitting light rather than just reflecting it gives it an inescapable edge.

I don't deny the value of a photo album... but at the same time with the switch to digital I take so many more pictures that I'd find it hard to figure out what to enshrine forever in a book. ; I no longer have a handful of shots that adequate encapsulate an event.

On the other hand I'm still very positive on large prints. ; I've done one very large print at my local costco, just for the novelty of it, and have done a bunch of 8x10s for my local zoo's annual photography contest. ; I turn in one a year, but typically print at least 4 or so so I have a few choices to see how they look on paper.

Actually I wish there was an adequate way to put prints on T-shirts. ; From what I've heard the usual method used at places like cafepress results in none too bright colors that fade over time.

If I could I'd have a whole menagerie of shirts with my favorite animal shots on them.
 
I agree for the most part with Dan. ; That's actually why I hadn't printed any smaller shots in so long. ; I'm used to printing 8x10 and some 16x24 or larger for sale or framing and display, but not the little ones.

The fun aspect is definitely a factor...it was just fun to see, look through, and share those little glossies. ; Another factor was that I shared my photos much more than I ever had when they were on the computer. ; Getting friends to sit down and go through yet another 300+ shot slideshow of Disney, for the 4th time this year, was just not working. ; And I can commiserate with them, but on the other hand there were some very cool shots I was proud of and wanted to share that they would never see. ; Printing those 75 favorites allowed me to share highlights from many trips, and especially share those photos I really wanted them to see. ; I've had about a dozen people go through the pics in the past 5 days, where maybe 3 have seen them on the computer (send e-mails off to friends or relatives to look through galleries online, and I'll bet the farm they're looking at thumbnails and clicking a few so they can give you the obligatory 'nice photos' comment and be done with it!).

Heck, at the cheap price of the prints, you can throw them away when you've shown them a bit. ; You've got the originals, and can always see them in monitor glory, backlit and glowing, any time you want. ; The prints for me were just a fun way to share my photos with friends and relatives who might not ever get in front of a computer monitor and appreciate the details and composition!
 
I see where this discussion is going.. less about the relative performance of different display mechanisms but more about the nature of hard versus soft copy. ; Some people still want a physical newspaper to read while others are happy reading on a Kindle.

I remember futurist thought from the early 80s often predicted a sort of email where the message was delivered electronically, either simple text or scanned printing, but then printed out on the other end to be viewed on paper anyway. ; I think it was just assumed that people would prefer a letter they could hold in their hands. ; I'm sure some still do.

Once again, I still find myself favoring soft copy. ; If any of you have seen the movie Hackers (you can't take it seriously, but it's a fun movie), I'm with the lead bad guy character who, upon being handed a printout, responded "ewww, hard copy" as if he'd just been handed something dead and decaying. ; The printed word still has a place for me, in particular for reference material like instruction manuals. ; The fact that a book can never run out of battery power is not lost on me either. ; The newer Ebook systems interest me greatly, the "electronic paper" displays are very interesting, but in the end it's often easier and faster to flip through an actual book.

Don't take me too seriously, I get the point, but my response is that the applications cited can still be filled electronically. ; Got an Iphone or a decent windows mobile powered device? ; Put your pics there. ; I can load shots onto my phone (windows powered, no Ifruit for me thank you very much) and browse them by flicking my finger against the screen to go from page to page. ; I can pass my phone around instead of a pile of 4x6s.

Mind you.. my screen is kind of small, it's 640x480 which is decent resolution but it's small enough that those with poor near vision have to squint. ; The Iphone's bigger screen is an advantage even if it's actually lower resolution, it still looks crisp and you can make out the detail easier.

And of course if someone drops a stack of 4x6s it's no real drama, they probably won't even be damaged. ; But a dropped smartphone is a bit more serious.

And yet I've never done this. ; I'll have to give it a try and see what other people think about that as a way to share pictures.
 
I am sort of in the middle of your two modes...I am intrigued by e-ink book systems like the Kindle and Reader, love e-mail (I haven't sent a letter by postal service in a decade or more), and definitely am an electronics geek. ; Yet at the same time, I'm one of those you mention who does love to sit in the morning with my coffee and read a crackly, noisy, big, unfurled newspaper, and curl up on a comfy chair with a book for a few hours' reading.

I think that's probably where I stand on the photo issue too - right in the middle. ; Clearly I've been more electronic based when it comes to photos, for pretty much my entire digital photo-taking life. ; For me, this was fun to take a little dip in retro waters and make some small prints...and as with grabbing a paper book, picking up a solid old wired handset of a landline phone, reading the Wall Street Journal at my office kitchen table, putting roller-ball pen tip to paper and feeling the ball roll out the ink into the paper fibers, and manually shifting a car...it was something unnecessary and outmoded yet satisfying and fun. ; I've got the cellphone, the modern bombproof watch, the super-techno car that can drive itself, the advanced P&S and DSLR, the high end computer and slimline laptop, the flat-screen HD TV, and all that jazz...and love them all. ; But I also still enjoy rowing through the grinding gears and heavy clutch and non-power-assisted steering of a classic car, or marvelling at the super-complication mechanical high end watches. ; For me, those 4x6s are a link to a past still worth remembering, yet not getting stuck in. ; I've learned to have an appreciation for both the old and the new. ; There's still something satisfying I can't explain about snapping photos every rare once in a while with my 30+ year old Pentax SLR...despite the fact that digital can do so much more, so much better, and so much faster.

As for the iPhone/smartphone idea...I can't do that one. ; One of my odd remaining 'old fogey'isms is cellphones. ; I accepted the concept of a cellphone, and have had them since they required a battery pack attached to them the size of a cinder block. ; But I started to get a little standoff-ish with the features on cellphones, drawing the line somewhere back with e-mail. ; I have decided to be the ornery old grampa who wants his cellphone to ring when someone calls, pick it up and be able to talk to them, be able to press a combination of buttons to call them, and have a way to hang up. ; Other than that - I don't want it on my cellphone. ; No movies, no e-mail, no internet, no texting, no tweeting, no MP3s, no cameras, no video games, no apps, no GPS, no compass, no radio. ; I cannot defend my position, or for the life of me explain why, since I love every one of those advanced gadgets and features on their own or in other devices...I just don't want them on my phone. ; So I'll have to show people my shots on my computer, on the camera LCD, or on 4x6 glossies!
 
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