Why prints are more satisfying than digital images

The_Traveler

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I have lately fallen in love with printed images (my own at least) and have started to print more and more.
And I think I understand why.
When I look at a scene, my mind's eye is free to block out everything else in that scene, concentrate on what I want to see and, essentially, magnify that portion of the scene until it fills my mind's eye. With a digital image, displayed at a single size, it is much more difficult for me to concentrate on one part of it and satisfy my interest.
The very physicality of a print allows me to move it, to bring it closer, to shift it right and left and essentially fill my visual field.
There is so much fine detail in a nice print that it allows me to get close and see things that essentially disappear into pixel boundaries on the screen.
Of course prints require a different 'look' than a screen-displayed image and I am learning to create that.
One example is shown below; this picture which is not so interesting as a digital image is mesmerizing as a print.

I had lost some interest in my own work and going back to print some of the older pictures from 5 or 6 years ago has energized my faith in myself.
I had planned to try a bunch of different papers but I am getting so much fun out of the Canon Paper Plus Semi Gloss, I'll stick with that for a little bit.

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i just like something tangible, in my hand. Also digital images never really excited me much and things look different in print. I should be printing more. It isn't a photo until it is printed.
 
I think printing makes the process feel "complete"
Keeping it in digital format leaves much to be desired. I can't touch it, hang it from a wall, put it in an album, and I don't think I want to pass on a gig stick full of photos onto the kids when they are grown. If I did had them digitals- who's to say they would know how/where to print them off correctly when the time came and I couldn't help? . I'd like to be able to say "here is your album! It's finished just the way I wanted!"

I have lots of unfinished printing to do!
 
Prints are like money. It something you can tangibly hold in your hands. Ever try to grab an image off of a screen. It ain't like Willy Wonka's Wonkavision.
 
There's something more professional about prints. They just feel more real than staring at a screen.
 
There's something more professional about prints. They just feel more real than staring at a screen.
Agree..
Some how the Robert Mann Gallery or the International Center of Photography wouldn't seem the same looking at images on monitors hanging on the wall.
 
I love prints too.

I don't print very many photos though. If I do print, it's because I have a particularly deep love for that photo. I don't generally develop a sentimental attachment to my photos, so it's a rare thing for me.

The last one I printed was this shot of a very good friend of mine. The lighting and her expression felt so good together that I couldn't stop looking at it and I decided that it had to exist, rather than being stuck as a virtual collection of pixels. So I had it printed on the highest quality museum paper I could find (cost me £60!) and gave it to her.


Marie
by Forkie, on Flickr
 
you know the kicker. If you spend too much on gear you dont have the money to print them. That is currently what i am considering. Print cost money. So , in weighing out that next purchase, i contemplate all the things i would like to have printed.
 
kind of like "i have this really great camera and nice lens now. But i don't have the cash to print the photos i take."
 
For me, photography is all about compressing space and time: on to a piece of paper. It is very challenging and not everything works on paper as you imagine it might; once you realize this is your aim, though, you raise the camera to your eye with a very different view.
 
So I had it printed on the highest quality museum paper I could find (cost me £60!) and gave it to her.



Marie
by Forkie, on Flickr

£60 for one picture?

Including delivery, yes.

I could have printed it on standard everyday photo paper, but this was museum-grade stuff with coatings and things to make the print really pop. I was advised that the type of paper was particularly good for skin-tones. Which it was. I don't have much technical knowledge about paper, but it was exquisite stuff and the print was utterly flawless.

It was worth it.

EDIT: Just looked at my receipt and it wasn't £60, it was £40. My bad. But still.
 
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I have no space for prints. Until I start selling more, looks like it's digital.
 

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