Test Printing...

[e.rose]

I've had an account set up with a "local" printer (I say local because it's actually about 4 hours away, but whatever, haha), and I've been thinking about getting a bunch of "test prints" done, just so that I'm familiar with different papers and coatings and what not. But aside from getting prints done on different papers and with different coatings, is there anything that would be beneficial for me to test out... maybe like how images end up looking from one size to another? Are there particular sizes of prints that would be worth comparing to? Or anything else along those lines, for that matter?

Does this even make sense to anyone? :lmao:

Probably not...

 

[KmH]

A place like MpixPro sends you paper sample strips with photos printed on the samples. They send both photographic print and press print papers.

If your "local" lab doesn't offer similar. find a different "local" lab.

 

[e.rose]

A place like MpixPro sends you paper sample strips with photos printed on the samples. They send both photographic print and press print papers.

If your "local" lab doesn't offer similar. find a different "local" lab.

I don't know that they don't. It's not something that occurred to me as something they'd offer. I'll just have to ask, I suppose.

 

[Overread36]

One thing I've learnt with my limited printing experience (on rubbishy LCD monitors) is that the dynamic range of a print seems to be less than the dynamic range of a screen's ability to show. In short the whites clip more easily on a print and the blacks blacken more easily. This might be different for higher and lower class printing establishments - but I found that I had to adjust photos that looked fine on a calibrated screen so that they would look correct in the print version. I tended to do this with cheap postcard sized prints for test samples before doing larger.

 

[e.rose]

One thing I've learnt with my limited printing experience (on rubbishy LCD monitors) is that the dynamic range of a print seems to be less than the dynamic range of a screen's ability to show. In short the whites clip more easily on a print and the blacks blacken more easily. This might be different for higher and lower class printing establishments - but I found that I had to adjust photos that looked fine on a calibrated screen so that they would look correct in the print version. I tended to do this with cheap postcard sized prints for test samples before doing larger.

Thanks for the heads up :sillysmi: I'll have to check that out. And yeah, I was planning on doing the testing on small prints. I wasn't going to print test sheets of 8x10s out, unless I had a reason to compare the quality an 8 x 10 to the smaller sizes, for example.