Print from Home, or Order Prints?

Haraldo · Jun 9, 2008

Hey, pretty wild discussion. Thought I'd drop in; only my second post on The Photo Forum.

Here's my answer: it all depends! I've printed with the following digital printing technologies ($XX says no one can top me ;-):

INKJET: Epson, Canon, HP, Dell, Lexmark, Kodak, IRIS/IXIA, Roland, Mimaki, Mutoh, Xerox Phaser; ELECTROPHOTO: Xerox Phaser, Minolta; DYE SUB: Olympus, Kodak; DIGITAL PHOTO PRINT: Lambda, Lightjet, Chromira, Frontier, Noritsu, Kodak.

Two advantages of inkjet: (1) best color print permanence (if done on correct combinations), (2) if doing Fine Art, you can print on a myriad of media (paper) that you cannot get with other processes, e.g., 100% cotton rags, bamboo, rice papers, aluminum, etc.

Bottomline: it all depends on what you're looking for. Good luck!

Harald Johnson
author, "Mastering Digital Printing, Second Edition"
author, "Digital Printing Start-Up Guide"
DP&I.com (http://www.dpandi.com)
digital printing and imaging consultant

Battou · Jun 9, 2008

PhilGarber said:
Hi,

Ok, first off, thank you all. All your responses have been enormously helpful.

Battou: You mean the self-service printers..right? Anyway.. I've always heard there will be a large drop in quality when using these. But, by reading these posts I'm finding the opposite. So..whats up?

Phil,

Yes, that is exactly what I mean. The large drop in quality you hear about using these is for the most part user caused. Complaints come when the print does not look like it did on theri screen.....well most of the users here have screens that are calibrated for prints or know their printer well enough to compensate. That is why you are finding the opposite in the replies here.

It's really trial and error to get to know the printer at hand. I don't know how your local place does it but mine is real good about trial and error, If you get it wrong and don't like what you see they just toss it and you can print anew, even if this means you have to go home and reprocess (this is how I found out I needed to letterbox format my film pictures) and you only pay for the one you keep. That full well justifies the four and a half to five bucks I spend on an 8X10 on top of the security of knowing that I am not going to loose my original media in transit as well as having the print when I want it.

But, on the otherhand, I don't trust the labs available to me enough to do the job right (I have more than enough evidence to support this in my case) so I Don't have a order service 8X10 to compare to the drugstore 8X10. I resently gave an 8X10 of his car to a gentleman and they where so inceradably impressed the only thing he and his doughter coud say is "are you sure you don't want any money for it"......so those self-service printers can do the job they where made to do well enough as long as you know how to make it print what you want and not let it print what it thinks you want.

When I get home from work, I could scan one of the 8X10s I had done with that machine if you would like, bare in mind that my scanner sucks so the scan won't look as good as the print but it would give you an idea to the results.

hippyatheart · Jun 10, 2008

So what do you do for professional pirctures? Do you send those off? Surely you are not using the self-service printers, right?

Haraldo · Jun 10, 2008

hippyatheart said:
So what do you do for professional pirctures? Do you send those off? Surely you are not using the self-service printers, right?

Pro labs and pro "PSPs" (print service providers) all do "professional" prints. But you can also do them at home on inkjet on top equip. Most of the prints I do are LF (large format), which is 24" wide or more. Lots of photogs do 16x20s, which you can do on C-size (17-18" wide). Others like A3+, which is 13x19". Everything I do smaller than that goes to online providers like Snapfish.

Harald Johnson

PhilGarber · Jun 10, 2008

Battou said:
Yes, that is exactly what I mean. The large drop in quality you hear about using these is for the most part user caused. Complaints come when the print does not look like it did on theri screen.....well most of the users here have screens that are calibrated for prints or know their printer well enough to compensate. That is why you are finding the opposite in the replies here.

It's really trial and error to get to know the printer at hand. I don't know how your local place does it but mine is real good about trial and error, If you get it wrong and don't like what you see they just toss it and you can print anew, even if this means you have to go home and reprocess (this is how I found out I needed to letterbox format my film pictures) and you only pay for the one you keep. That full well justifies the four and a half to five bucks I spend on an 8X10 on top of the security of knowing that I am not going to loose my original media in transit as well as having the print when I want it.

But, on the otherhand, I don't trust the labs available to me enough to do the job right (I have more than enough evidence to support this in my case) so I Don't have a order service 8X10 to compare to the drugstore 8X10. I resently gave an 8X10 of his car to a gentleman and they where so inceradably impressed the only thing he and his doughter coud say is "are you sure you don't want any money for it"......so those self-service printers can do the job they where made to do well enough as long as you know how to make it print what you want and not let it print what it thinks you want.

When I get home from work, I could scan one of the 8X10s I had done with that machine if you would like, bare in mind that my scanner sucks so the scan won't look as good as the print but it would give you an idea to the results.