Is it cheating?

[SVAGUY]

So I am curious to some of your thoughts. I really have zero patience for printing. I was thinking of using a printing place (White House Custom Color) that does an amazing job at printing my photographs. You send them your files, and they UPS them 2 day air to your home. It is quite inexpensive and I feel would leave me with more time to work on files and photographs.

Anyone find this wrong? Curious to everyones thoughts!

thanks!

[Charles Carstensen]

It sounds like a plan to me. If you are not great at printing, let someone who is do the job. Your final work product will be enhanced. Nothing wrong with that.

[Daniel_Buck]

I use WHCC for my printing, I like them :-)

[Bill_1856]

Cheating? Cheating who?

[Ron Marshall]

You're the one preparing the files! Whatever suits you!

[domenico Foschi]

Photography is all about cheating in one way or another.

[Michael Graves]

If having somebody else print your final image is cheating, then W. Eugene Smith was a cheater. So was Wright Morris. I'd be better off if I had somebody else print mine....I'm just to stubborn to admit I'm not that good at it.

[Brian K]

The only person you're cheating is yourself. The point in printing yourself is that you are supposedly making corrections to the prints, and printing prints over and over again until they're the best you can make them. In the process of doing that you may end up making changes or corrections to better them or even changing the direction of the print. If some guy at a service bureau is doing the printing unless the print has a glaring defect he's going to just do one and move on to the next client's print.

[Dave Brown]

It certainly isn't cheating. None of us truly works solo. I may take the photos, develop the film and make the prints, but I didn't make the film, the camera and lens, the developer, etc. And if sending your files out to be printed is cheating, so is using store bought film, or using an editing program you didn't write yourself. Have fun. You've done the hard work; choosing a subject, composing, exposing. It's your work, take credit for it.

[domenico Foschi]

After my "wise" remark I need to tell you that if that's what you want to do: try a lab, then I would recommend you to do it.

Only by trying a lab you will be able to find out if you are taking pictures to express yourself or just for the fun of it.
In any discipline not having patience is not a real problem.
If you are feeling frustrated in a print and you want to punch the table in front of you, by any means do so!
If you want to yell in your darkroom, well, you are alone, do it!
But then, when the pressure has been relieved go back to work.
Too many times we don't have patience because we don't know how to go about in solving problems.
The real key ingredients to get better and less frustrated is commitment and a good teacher.
A teacher is invaluable to show you techniques useful to resolve problems you might be hitting the head against repeatedly.
Commitment is proportional with the passion and familiarity of the medium.

[SVAGUY]

Brian I can print no problem just fine. How am I cheating myself? Now that I think about it almost all great photographers have printers. Granted I wont be having them done in a darkroom but using a printer that does a great job and gives me great results. No cheat there man.

To the rest of you, THANK YOU for reassuring what I was thinking. ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!

[Mark Sawyer]

You're cheating yourself of the skill and experience of printing, which may or may not matter to your style of work...

If you tell people you are the printer, then you're cheating...

If you sign the prints "Paul Caponigro" then you're cheating...

Beyond that, don't worry about it.

[SVAGUY]

The thing is I can print. I have extensive training in it, and have printed for others. I just hate doing it. It isnt cheating. Its my picture, my image, therefore my pictures. Doesnt matter who prints it.

[Brian K]

Brian I can print no problem just fine. How am I cheating myself? Now that I think about it almost all great photographers have printers. Granted I wont be having them done in a darkroom but using a printer that does a great job and gives me great results. No cheat there man.

To the rest of you, THANK YOU for reassuring what I was thinking. ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!

Almost all great photographers have printers? Maybe the trend now is for some to have printers but if you look historically at the photographers considered to be the masters, the vast majority of them did their own printing. The fact is that both wet and digital printing are opportunities for a photographer to greatly influence and add expression to their work. I recall a some what known photographer, I believe his last name was Adams, who said the "the negative is the score, the print is the performance"

And if you're so certain it's not a "cheat" why did you bother to ask the question in the first place? Also I'm curious about your screen name, are you an SVA student?

[phaedrus]

Anyone find this wrong?

Wrong for me might very well be right for you, only you can decide if your means meet your ends. You could have your prints made at WalMart and drag them over asphalt afterwards if it helps.
No really, it is subjective and you shouldn't listen to other people's opinions on this.

Best regards, Christoph

[Bill_1856]

[QUOTE=Brian K;370520]Almost all great photographers have printers? Maybe the trend now is for some to have printers but if you look historically at the photographers considered to be the masters, the vast majority of them did their own printing. [QUOTE]

Yes, and many of the greatest photographers were really shitty printers. I think specificaly of two of the greatest: Dorothea Lange and Cartier-Bresson.

[Brian K]

[QUOTE=Brian K;370520]Almost all great photographers have printers? Maybe the trend now is for some to have printers but if you look historically at the photographers considered to be the masters, the vast majority of them did their own printing. [QUOTE]

Yes, and many of the greatest photographers were really shitty printers. I think specificaly of two of the greatest: Dorothea Lange and Cartier-Bresson.

Bill there's a difference between sending them off to a master printer that you have worked with for years and supervising and directing the printing versus relying on the printer to tell you when the print is "done". Also neither of them were known for particularly good prints, just great content. My concern is that today there's less and less hands on influence by the photographer. I see many prints and more and more they are becoming like frozen foods. Photography today is becoming cellphone snaps and ctrl-P.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

The only person you're cheating is yourself. The point in printing yourself is that you are supposedly making corrections to the prints, and printing prints over and over again until they're the best you can make them. In the process of doing that you may end up making changes or corrections to better them or even changing the direction of the print. If some guy at a service bureau is doing the printing unless the print has a glaring defect he's going to just do one and move on to the next client's print.

So if one buys film rather than coats his or her own emulsions, is that cheating? How about buying a pre-made view camera rather than designing one and building it from scratch in your basement?

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Anyone find this wrong? Curious to everyones thoughts!

thanks!

And what's with all the moralism so rampant in so many threads on this forum? Do whatever you want in photography- use digital point and shoots, don't bother to ever bracket, leave the tripod at home, have your prints made by some 16 year old at Wal-Mart, I don't think you'll end up going to hell for it.

[Gary L. Quay]

Black and white photography is all about vision. No matter how many instructions I gave to the lab that printed my stuff (each of which they charged more for) I could not get the look that I really wanted until I printed them in my own darkroom.

--Gary

[Oren Grad]

Do whatever makes you happy. Life is far too short.

[Brian Ellis]

[QUOTE=Brian K;370520]Almost all great photographers have printers? Maybe the trend now is for some to have printers but if you look historically at the photographers considered to be the masters, the vast majority of them did their own printing. [QUOTE]

Yes, and many of the greatest photographers were really shitty printers. I think specificaly of two of the greatest: Dorothea Lange and Cartier-Bresson.

Cartier-Bresson didn't print his own work, he used the same guy whose name I can't now recall for many years to do all of his printing. His printer agreed that many of the prints were bad but maintained that was because the negatives themselves were generally terrible and very difficult to print.

[Eric Leppanen]

If you are just drop-shipping digital files that WHCC prints verbatim, then you are responsible for all of the creative content and are just eliminating the hassle of maintaining digital printer hardware, paper, accessories, etc. This is different from sending negs to a traditional wet lab, as traditional darkroom printing intrinsically involved some degree of creative participation on the part of the lab.

If maintaining your own printer is uneconomical and/or just not your cup of tea, then outsourcing your printing is clearly the way to go. You are clearly not compromising any of the creative aspects of your work.

[QT Luong]

Eric is right, and I am surprised nobody wrote that earlier. Contrarily to what some lab operators would have you believe, there isn't that much creativity in running a printer. There is also nothing that prevents you, upon receipt of your print, to tweak your file and have teh print redone until entirely satisfied, although you are less tempted to do so because there is more time delay and marginal expense than when you are running your own printer.

There is at least one member of this forum who even argues that it is artistically preferable to have everything done by a lab rather than at least attempting to prepare the files yourself.

[Mark Sawyer]

Eric is right, and I am surprised nobody wrote that earlier. Contrarily to what some lab operators would have you believe, there isn't that much creativity in running a printer. There is also nothing that prevents you, upon receipt of your print, to tweak your file and have teh print redone until entirely satisfied, although you are less tempted to do so because there is more time delay and marginal expense than when you are running your own printer.

There is at least one member of this forum who even argues that it is artistically preferable to have everything done by a lab rather than at least attempting to prepare the files yourself.

I'll differ from Eric and QT in that, when doing your own printing, you often exercise the option of tossing the first print in the trash can and immediately having a second go with a few new tweaks. In sending it out, the temptation is much greater to say, "good enough..." This is true for both digital and darkroom printing.

[Bill_1856]

[QUOTE=Bill_1856;370527][QUOTE=Brian K;370520]Cartier-Bresson didn't print his own work, he used the same guy whose name I can't now recall for many years to do all of his printing. His printer agreed that many of the prints were bad but maintained that was because the negatives themselves were generally terrible and very difficult to print.

Actually, before WW2 Cartier-Bresson DID do his own printing. They are reproduced in the book, "HC-B Scrapbook," and the prints were TERRIBLE.
I think that Walker Evans was another "Great" who may have farmed out his printing, at least after he went to work for Fortune Magazine.

[Brian K]

So if one buys film rather than coats his or her own emulsions, is that cheating? How about buying a pre-made view camera rather than designing one and building it from scratch in your basement?

Brian V, how about mining your own silver? Your argument is absurd. But if you want to go along that path fine let's explore it. There are or were many dozens if not hundreds of already made camera choices out there. There are or were hundreds of films and developers with perhaps tens of thousands of variations in how to process that film. So just using already available materials and equipment you have already made tremendous choices and highly personalized about how you will work and the technical results of your work. And those choices are aesthetic too. You do not need to make your own film or camera to produce work that is truly expressive of your vision all the way from capture to print.

SVAGuy, If you think that preparing a file and then sending it off to a printer is going to yield a print that is exactly what you want then you are working under an illusion. The amount of variation that occurs between screen, printer, inkset and paper is huge. It's not truly WYSIWYG.

I have done extensive testing and densitometry of my film and dev combo. And when I apply it to a digital work flow I scan this film on my own carefully calibrated IQSmart3 scanner. I then view the file on a carefully calibrated Eizo CG210 monitor. The file then goes to a PC where I open it in Studio Print 12 and use linearizations and custom ICC profiles that I made for the actual batch of paper and ink that goes through my printer. And after all that calibration on equipment and with materials that I am familiar with on a daily basis, it still takes me several outputs to get the print where I want. And this isn't even my critical work, my final prints are silver gelatin, these digital prints that i do are more like enlarged contact prints for me or throw aways to send to galleries to mail to their clients.

When you send a file off to a service bureau you don't have that level of calibration to their system, plus you don't know if they have a new batch of ink, you are limited to the papers that they have and whether they have made profiles for that paper, and the paper has an incredible impact on the final look of the print, so you have no idea of what the final print will look like. And you will not be there when the print is coming out of the printer to make corrections. So unless they pull a print that has obvious flaws you have to accept what they produced unless you want to take your file back home, make corrections, bring it back to them, have them print it out again and then possibly have to do it, and pay for it (hey it's not their fault it's YOUR file), all over again. And how many times are you going to go through this fire drill before you just give up and accept what they give you as "good enough"? Does this sound like a workflow that gives you exactly the print you want?

But you know what, maybe I'm being too hard. Everyone has different standards. People pay a pretty fair price for my prints so I always try to do my best and provide those that buy my prints the best possible print I can produce. And as you claim to have extensive training in printing and have been good enough to print for others, then why would you send your prints out to a place, not even near you and from the sounds of it a mass printer, where you'll have zero supervision? Granted you said they were cheap and that they'd 2 day air your prints back to you. Just the kind of thing that clients or collectors love to hear.

[SVAGUY]

Can I ask how a simple question that was meant to have a nice civil discussion about printing turned into this nasty mess? Some of you need to relax and learn how to not take this site so seriously.

And WHCC does have a long list of papers and they arent expensive. YES. But when I said cheap, I didnt mean cheap quality. Sorry for even asking the question. Ive noticed a lot of people on here act as if they are above everyone else and I think most of you need a serious dose of reality.

For those of you who did respond in a friendly manner thank you.

[Brian K]

SVAGuy this is a discussion and it has been quite civil. Although you're the one who has made it personal by stating that "some of you need to learn how to relax" and "most of you need a serious dose of reality". But just because someone has a differing opinion doesn't indicate hostility or disrespect. You asked the question and just my opinion here, I don't think you were looking for differing opinions, I think you were looking for affirmation of the choice you have made and have been surprised that anyone would think differently.

As for "a serious dose of reality" what makes you think you have a greater sense of reality than anyone else here?

[David_Senesac]

In any case the word "cheating" sounds like the wrong choice of words. What are you really trying to say or are worried about?

Not all printing labs are created equal. At the highest professional end with those I deal with, as a service if one requests so, they excercise ZERO creative input to whatever print file I have submitted. I can submit the same print file for a new print that I had printed by my lab into a master print a year ago and the new and master prints will be nearly identical, as will the one I might submit another year from now. Thus it is totally up to me to evaluate what images quality might print out on my own computer display. This level of printing service did not exist a decade ago. Before then during the enlargement lens dark room days, there was certainly merit in having the printing under one's own control. And even earliest digital prints had to be processed from original media by labs. And today those who do chose to print with any of the top ink jets today indeed do have more command over what comes out a printer though whether choosing that workflow versus working with a lab has nothing to do about creativity much less cheating.

[domenico Foschi]

SVAGuy this is a discussion and it has been quite civil. Although you're the one who has made it personal by stating that "some of you need to learn how to relax" and "most of you need a serious dose of reality". But just because someone has a differing opinion doesn't indicate hostility or disrespect. You asked the question and just my opinion here, I don't think you were looking for differing opinions, I think you were looking for affirmation of the choice you have made and have been surprised that anyone would think differently.

As for "a serious dose of reality" what makes you think you have a greater sense of reality than anyone else here?

May I add that you could have informed us of the fact that you are an experienced printer?
From your first post, that didn't transpire at all.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Brian V, how about mining your own silver? Your argument is absurd. But if you want to go along that path fine let's explore it. There are or were many dozens if not hundreds of already made camera choices out there. There are or were hundreds of films and developers with perhaps tens of thousands of variations in how to process that film. So just using already available materials and equipment you have already made tremendous choices and highly personalized about how you will work and the technical results of your work. And those choices are aesthetic too. You do not need to make your own film or camera to produce work that is truly expressive of your vision all the way from capture to print.


Mining your own silver- I like that idea- think of how much closer you'll be in touch with the true process of making a photograph. Maybe we should all study glass working so we can make our own lenses out of sand from the local beach while we're at it.;)

Of course my argument is absurd- I was being facetious- perhaps sarcasm doesn't always come through well on the internet. The real absurdity is that someone would have to ask if having a service bureau make a print for him is cheating in a moralistic sense. As long as you're the one paying for the photograph, do whatever you want. For people who have little or no experience with digital printing, West Coast Imaging, Calypso, and numerous other providers would do an infinitely better job of making a print. Better to cheat yourself of the experience of making the print than to cheat yourself out of a decent print for want of doing everything yourself.

[Brian K]

Mining your own silver- I like that idea- think of how much closer you'll be in touch with the true process of making a photograph. Maybe we should all study glass working so we can make our own lenses out of sand from the local beach while we're at it.;)

Of course my argument is absurd- I was being facetious- perhaps sarcasm doesn't always come through well on the internet. The real absurdity is that someone would have to ask if having a service bureau make a print for him is cheating in a moralistic sense. As long as you're the one paying for the photograph, do whatever you want. For people who have little or no experience with digital printing, West Coast Imaging, Calypso, and numerous other providers would do an infinitely better job of making a print. Better to cheat yourself of the experience of making the print than to cheat yourself out of a decent print for want of doing everything yourself.

Brian the point is that SVAGuy claims to be a really good printer and that he just doesn't like to do it. That's not about producing the best print you can and if you have made any real effort in the capture of the image then all you are doing is cheating that effort, and yourself, by having some service bureau bang out a print for you.

[Brian K]

May I add that you could have informed us of the fact that you are an experienced printer?
From your first post, that didn't transpire at all.

Domenico you couldn't tell from my post #27 that maybe I had some experience in the area of printing? But if you require a CV of myself to give credibility to what I have said I'm fine with that. But to keep it short, yes I am an experienced printer. I have made a pretty good living as a photographer for over 30 years. I did my undergrad work as a photography major at SVA, and later I taught there. I have been working digital professionally since 1991 but produce silver gelatin prints for my exhibitions and sale.

[Colin Graham]

Domenico you couldn't tell from my post #27 that maybe I had some experience in the area of printing? But if you require a CV of myself to give credibility to what I have said I'm fine with that. But to keep it short, yes I am an experienced printer. I have made a pretty good living as a photographer for over 30 years. I did my undergrad work as a photography major at SVA, and later I taught there. I have been working digital professionally since 1991 but produce silver gelatin prints for my exhibitions and sale.



I believe he was referring to the original poster.

But why anyone would want to put their morality up for public debate is beyond me.

[Brian K]

I believe he was referring to the original poster.

But why anyone would want to put their morality up for public debate is beyond me.

Hi Colin, the original poster did state that he was an experienced printer, but Domenico's quoting of my post makes it look like he's addressing me.

I don't think that SVA was putting his morality up for debate, I think he's trying to convince himself that farming out his printing out of convenience was OK. If he's just some hobbyist that is of course perfectly fine, but my assumption, and I could be wrong, based on his screen name and some of his comments was that he was serious about his work, maybe a student or someone seeking to make it his career and to me what he was seeking approval for was not consistent with those endeavors.

[Colin Graham]

Brian, personally I agree with you totally. I love printing and can't imagine why someone would forfeit that control over their own work. But at the same time, I totally respect their decision to engage in whatever aspect of creation that appeals to them the most. But the OP did introduce morality to the debate the instant he used the term 'cheating'. Maybe I'm hair-splitting there..

[jetcode]

Printing is it's own art form and to be honest there are two things I enjoy most; capturing a great image and viewing a great print.

[Tim Hyde]

There used to be a stripper bar in Anchorage that had a sign above the bar reading, "We cheat the other guy and pass the savings along to you." Somehow that seems appropriate here, though don't ask me how.

[jetcode]

Eric is right, and I am surprised nobody wrote that earlier. Contrarily to what some lab operators would have you believe, there isn't that much creativity in running a printer. There is also nothing that prevents you, upon receipt of your print, to tweak your file and have teh print redone until entirely satisfied, although you are less tempted to do so because there is more time delay and marginal expense than when you are running your own printer.

There is at least one member of this forum who even argues that it is artistically preferable to have everything done by a lab rather than at least attempting to prepare the files yourself.

I assume that by "printing" the print operator is in charge of tweaking an image in not simply sending a flat file to a printer. The printer is responsible for playing the score to use Ansel's terminology. I am reminded of a great book on darkroom printing that was written by a man in England who was an excellent printer. His clients were journalists and photographers and because this printer was extraordinary the clients work value was raised significantly affecting who they attracted as clients.

[domenico Foschi]

Domenico you couldn't tell from my post #27 that maybe I had some experience in the area of printing? But if you require a CV of myself to give credibility to what I have said I'm fine with that. But to keep it short, yes I am an experienced printer. I have made a pretty good living as a photographer for over 30 years. I did my undergrad work as a photography major at SVA, and later I taught there. I have been working digital professionally since 1991 but produce silver gelatin prints for my exhibitions and sale.

Brian, I was referring at the original poster.

[QT Luong]

> I assume that by "printing" the print operator is in charge of tweaking an image in not simply sending a flat file to a printer.

Personally, when I write "I send files", I assume that the printer just prints them without working on them, otherwise I write "I send scans". That's an important difference, and now that you point to it, something which is somewhat ambiguous in the original post.

Back to the original question, as long as you are upfront about how and where the print was made if asked (some collectors or galleries eg Photography West insist on prints made by the artist), I don't see anybody being cheated.

[Brian K]

I assume that by "printing" the print operator is in charge of tweaking an image in not simply sending a flat file to a printer. The printer is responsible for playing the score to use Ansel's terminology. I am reminded of a great book on darkroom printing that was written by a man in England who was an excellent printer. His clients were journalists and photographers and because this printer was extraordinary the clients work value was raised significantly affecting who they attracted as clients.

Joe if you're a lousy printer (not you in particular) then you owe it to your work to get better at it, if no matter how hard you try you still suck at printing but are great at capture, then you owe it to the work to have a great printer print your work.

In the case of SVAGuy, he claims to be a very capable printer but just hates printing. Well if that's his attitude and he chooses to have some service bureau print his work without any supervision on his part he's losing out on the last chance to really make his work as good as it can possibly be. But hey that's fine with me, the more guys out there who choose to work like that, comparatively the better the prints will look from those photographers who choose to participate in their own work from start to finish.

[David_Senesac]

... But hey that's fine with me, the more guys out there who choose to work like that, comparatively the better the prints will look from those photographers who choose to participate in their own work from start to end.


Hi Brian,

Considering your statement above, maybe you are missing a side issue that I and then QT brought out in our posts. And not about what you and the others seem to be narrowly discussing.

That is that today one can send profiled color print files to a few of the top printing lab services (ie Lightjet output etc) that today have such tight quality control of their processes, that if one requests the printer not do any adjustments to their process and merely print out the file with standard "ready for printing" settings, that essentially only the person that processes the file (as in the photographer) has an impact on the results. It is true that just a few years ago, this was not the case. In those earlier digital printing days when printing processes were too variable from day to day much less month to month, one had to send a in a master print or old proof that a lab would match colors too. And because of that one tended to send in media that a lab would both scan and then digitally process with photoshop. One might as well have done so because to get the colors to match a master print, a lab person would need to do that anyway even if a print file was sent.

[Brian K]

Hi David,

The whole problem with just sending a file off to a service bureau, not matter how good, is that you will not see exactly what is coming out of their printer. The simple reality is that no matter what you see on your screen a print will always look different. A screen shows a transmissive version of the image, and unless you can view it fully at 100% you are always seeing the digital image squashed and full of edge artifacts to fit on the screen. A print is a reflective representation of that digital file, a file that you prepared based on seeing a screen sized, compressed transmissive image. There will always be differences and adjustments needed to make the print appear exactly as you want.

If you then add that papers themselves have differing levels of blackness and ink absorption, whiteness, reflectance,etc, there are many factors that require the artist themselves to approve the print, or make adjustments. I have 2 prints done for me on a 12 color Da Vinci printer by a friend who is arguably one of the most technically savvy digital print experts in the country (he's the guy who writes the profiles for a very large number of the paper manufacturers). These 2 prints are from the same file, printed on his DaVinci at the same time, the only difference is that they are on 2 different papers. They look completely different.

To clarify, I use an eizo color edge CG210 monitor, arguably one of the best and most accurate monitors out there. next to that monitor, which has been carefully calibrated with an eye-one spectrophotometer, is my Just reflective and transmissive colormatch light box. This is how I initially compare my prints to my monitor.

All my images are scanned on my IQSmart 3, so there's no variation on the scanner or scanner operator. I have made custom profiles using StudioPrint 12 of the papers I use and with my printer and inksets and use StudioPrint for the ripping. And still the prints need tweaking.

Bottom line is that when you've done all your corrections based on a screen image when you go to paper some corrections or adjustments may be needed. If you send your work out to be printed, there is no way the operator will know if the print that's coming out really matches what you had in mind. And until you see the actual print neither will you.

[jetcode]

Joe if you're a lousy printer (not you in particular) then you owe it to your work to get better at it, if no matter how hard you try you still suck at printing but are great at capture, then you owe it to the work to have a great printer print your work.

In the case of SVAGuy, he claims to be a very capable printer but just hates printing. Well if that's his attitude and he chooses to have some service bureau print his work without any supervision on his part he's losing out on the last chance to really make his work as good as it can possibly be. But hey that's fine with me, the more guys out there who choose to work like that, comparatively the better the prints will look from those photographers who choose to participate in their own work from start to finish.

there are no ultimatums in photography ... artists are free to choose what works best for them whether printing is in house or not ... to suggest an image is inferior because of who prints it is speculative at best

[Brian K]

there are no ultimatums in photography ... artists are free to choose what works best for them whether printing is in house or not ... to suggest an image is inferior because of who prints it is speculative at best

Speculative? You think a technician who was not there when you created the original image, who did not work on the file and make the subtle changes that almost any artist applies to their work, who is merely opening your file and then hitting CTRL-P just like he did 50 times that day for 50 other photographers, and who unless there is an obvious error, like a smear, will merely take that print and put it in a package and send it off to the shipping dept is going to do as good a job or be able to produce a print that is exactly what the artist wanted?

Maybe this type of workflow works for amateurs or those with lower expectations or those whose living doesn't depend on the quality of their prints. So maybe I'm just being too demanding because my living depends on my prints so I take them very seriously, but if you are talking about producing prints of the best quality and that most closely match your vision, you either need to do them yourself or be standing next to the printer and telling the technician what adjustments you need done.

[jetcode]

Speculative? You think a technician who was not there when you created the original image, who did not work on the file and make the subtle changes that almost any artist applies to their work, who is merely opening your file and then hitting CTRL-P just like he did 50 times that day for 50 other photographers, and who unless there is an obvious error, like a smear, will merely take that print and put it in a package and send it off to the shipping dept is going to do as good a job or be able to produce a print that is exactly what the artist wanted?

Maybe this type of workflow works for amateurs or those with lower expectations or those whose living doesn't depend on the quality of their prints. So maybe I'm just being too demanding because my living depends on my prints so I take them very seriously, but if you are talking about producing prints of the best quality and that most closely match your vision, you either need to do them yourself or be standing next to the printer and telling the technician what adjustments you need done.

Anyone who cares about their work say in LF will send it to a competent printer such as West Coast Imaging or Lenny Eiger or the equivalent. These folks are not amateurs, they are professionals with reputations to maintain. LF has always been a do it yourself sport mostly because I believe cost is a huge factor and there is value in the art form itself.

If a documentary photographer needs 60 images for a show but has 3-6 assignments in the works at all times what is he/she going to do?

[Brian K]

Anyone who cares about their work say in LF will send it to a competent printer such as West Coast Imaging or Lenny Eiger or the equivalent. These folks are not amateurs, they are professionals with reputations to maintain. LF has always been a do it yourself sport mostly because I believe cost is a huge factor and there is value in the art form itself.

If a documentary photographer needs 60 images for a show but has 3-6 assignments in the works at all times what is he/she going to do?

Joe, Lenny doesn't know exactly how the photographer wants the print to look. Lenny has to view the image as a transmissive one on the screen. And depending on what paper is being used the end result can vary widely. That is why the artist needs to be there.

And regarding a documentary photographer being too busy to print for shows, well they can do what many artists do, you print your work yourself when you get back.
I spend half the year on the road, when I get back I print.

[David_Senesac]

Thanks Brian, quite agree with your more narrowed comments. Obviously something you already understood but did not elaborate on as you were addressing the other conversation. Although most of my first master prints come back close to what I expect because I have so done so many prints, that is certainly not always the case. Indeed there would be nothing like having full command of a printer locally. Obviously one can run a small proof print first to get that really close without having to burn through expensive media and or waste ink.

[QT Luong]

Hi David,

The whole problem with just sending a file off to a service bureau, not matter how good, is that you will not see exactly what is coming out of their printer. The simple reality is that no matter what you see on your screen a print will always look different.

I entirely agree with this assessment, and that's one of the reasons I started operating my own printer. All I was saying is that if you wanted, even though you send out, you could still have the print redone after tweaks until fully satisfied. I did that many times when I was using Calypso. This is within margins of repeatability, which probably are better for Lightjet prints than ink.

[jetcode]

Joe, Lenny doesn't know exactly how the photographer wants the print to look. Lenny has to view the image as a transmissive one on the screen. And depending on what paper is being used the end result can vary widely. That is why the artist needs to be there.

And regarding a documentary photographer being too busy to print for shows, well they can do what many artists do, you print your work yourself when you get back.
I spend half the year on the road, when I get back I print.

No doubt Brian however a professional printer should take the time to understand what the client is trying to achieve. The goal is to satisfy the client. Reputations are on the line. The other thing to consider is that a newbie or one with less skill in printing can learn a lot from a professional printer and in many cases may get a better print. No doubt if you print yourself you will get exactly the results you know how to achieve.

In terms of the documentary photographers I was referring to this was in the days before digital processes and the art of getting a great silver based product is not something that can be obtrained easily. Some of these photographers may spend their entire life on assignments.