I am taking this exercise slightly out of order, before reading about the White Cube, simply because I have been experimenting with printing of late, having just bought a new, professional standard Canon inkjet printer. For some time I have struggled with a fairly basic all-rounder Epson printer but it simply does not produce good quality prints. Colour balance can be problematic and ink delivery can sometimes be a bit streaky. Given what I have paid over the last couple of years to have prints made professionally for assessment purposes I reckon that although the new printer was expensive it will actually pay for itself in fairly short order, particularly as I am now likely to print more of my work routinely.
This exercise is also a bit odd in its timing as I have been through the process of preparing images for professional printing on various occasions before now, not least for the assessment of the last three modules. Nevertheless, I have gone through the motions of file preparation again as I have just added Lightroom to my computer and this is a useful opportunity to get to know how that program works.
- Quotes
Much of the work that I have had printed has been in the region of A4 so for the purposes of this exercise I have checked the prices for 12×8 inches. The type of paper used does not seem to make a great deal of difference to the price, so I have chosen a lustre finish for C-types. For Inkjet comparison I have checked out prices for giclée and where there has been a choice I have opted for a fairly basic Fuji or equivalent paper, rather than a more fine art, and therefore more expensive, paper such as those produced by Hahnemühle (which I have used in the past for printing etchings).
The company that used to print for me, Lumejet, unfortunately stopped trading a while ago which is a real shame as I was very impressed with their quality. They were somewhat on the pricey side but I felt it was worth it as their product (a new form of silver halide print that they had developed) was excellent. In their stead for the last lot of printing that I needed I used Loxley, who also seem to be pretty good, so I have turned to them first. In rough terms their prices start at about £2.24 for C-type, and £7.29 for giclée.
Next I have checked DS Colour. Although I have not used them before I understand they have a good reputation. Their prices seem to start as low as £0.65 for a C-type (I have to say this does not seem to me to be quite right and maybe I have just got it wrong or misunderstood) and £6.99 for inkjet.
A company that I use for my film supplies, but which I have not used before for printing, is AG Photographic. C-types are about £3.86. They have also started offering inkjet prints but unfortunately the prices do not yet appear on their website.
Out of curiosity I have also looked at a local, Newcastle-based, printer, Max Spielman. C-types are about £2.50. They do not seem to do inkjet printing other than in poster form, which unfortunately they do seem to do as small as 12×8. Their smallest size, 16×12, comes in at about £11, which sounds about right compared with the other giclée costs mentioned above.
In practice, now that I have a good printer, I am more likely to make my own inkjet prints for the foreseeable future, unless I need something a bit more special. Costs per unit should be significantly less this way, mostly just being the cost of the paper. The inks are pretty expensive but depending on the number of prints that can be made before running out I do not expect the proportionate unit cost per print to be significant.
For my black and white film work I can now do all my own printing in the new darkroom in the traditional way.
2. File preparation
This is now fortunately pretty easy and straightforward. By way of example I have included a link below to Loxley’s file preparation guide, which is simplicity itself. This is greatly helped by the company handling colour management for you.
Nevertheless, as indicated above, notwithstanding that I have been through the process before I have gone through the exercise again to try to get the hang of Lightroom. Unfortunately though so far it has defeated me – I clearly need to spend more time learning how to use it (and to properly understand the difference between Lightroom Classic and the cloud-based Lightroom CC!). I have therefore for now simply redone it in the latest version of Photoshop, which is much more familiar having used older versions of it in the past.
This was originally a .dng file, now converted to .jpg, 300 dpi resolution, compression level 10, Adobe RGB colour profile.
3. Inkjet/photograph?
This is in a way a particularly significant question given that I have just bought a printer.
At the same time though I wonder whether it is still really relevant in today’s digital world. I can certainly see the argument that only a traditional print (whether produced in a darkroom from a negative or digitally) on light sensitive paper is a “photograph”. It is certainly supported by the dictionary definition of a photographic print. I do though feel that this is an old-fashioned and unhelpful distinction today. Not the least part of the problem that I have with the distinction is actually a point by Walter Benjamin back in 1936 (2008, at page 12):
“The reproduced work of art is to an ever-increasing extent the reproduction of a work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic plate, for instance, many prints can be made; the question of the genuine print has no meaning.”
More than whether or not something is properly a “photograph”, it strikes me the issue is more one of the value to be placed on the physical artefact. A print made by the photographer in person in the darkroom will have a certain value, that is, what someone is prepared to pay to acquire it. The more prints the photographer makes, the less will be their value. It seems to me that a photograph printed in a newspaper is still a photograph but it will be effectively worthless. I see no reason why an inkjet print should be regarded in any different way. If a photographer works digitally and uses a printer instead of light-sensitive paper why should that not also amount to a “photograph”? Why should it, indeed, have any less value as an artefact?
The way I look at this is that so many photographs now do not actually have any tangible, physical existence. They are little more than bits of information in an electronic realm. They only become “photographs” when given physical form, by printing, for example. That is not so different from an analog image. It exists in the form of a negative but it is not until light is shone through that negative onto photo-paper that a physical “photograph” comes into being. The photograph is something that is created by exposing a light-sensitive chemical or electrical cell to light. How the physical photograph is then produced seems to me to be more a matter of process and that process should not in itself determine whether or not something can properly be called a “photograph”.
Benjamin, W, (2008). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin
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