By Joe Kashi, for the Redoubt Reporter
Ansel Adams famously commented that the photo negative/image file is your musical score, but the exhibition-grade photo print is your public performance.
If that’s so, then I’m hearing a lot of our readers singing the blues about their photo prints.
This isn’t a local phenomenon. Last month, I and two other local photographers took a critical look at the photographs hanging in the statewide “Rarified Light” show. We all concluded that the majority of those photos suffered because of mediocre printing. So, over the next few weeks, we’ll do a short tutorial in high-quality photo printing, starting this week with recommended hardware and software.
There’s little reason to buy a lot of expensive, high-end photo printing gear unless you intend to make large, high-quality, exhibition-grade photo prints. You’re wasting your money on expensive photo gear if you only expect to print 4-by-6-inch snapshots, show your images on a “high-definition” TV ( whose “high” definition is limited to a mere 1,920 dots on its longest side) or post 72-dpi web-grade photos on the Internet. For these undemanding requirements, a cheap pocket camera or superzoom is probably adequate, at least if used in good light and correctly exposed.
On the other hand, if you plan to hang your photos around your house or office, or submit them for exhibition, then you’ll need not only high-grade photo equipment but also the ability to make good, exhibition-grade prints. You’ll either need a decent-quality photographic printer or be willing and able to afford quality custom printing by a professional, like Bill Heath, in Kenai.
If you decide to do it yourself then you should be willing to spend a reasonable amount of money on a quality photographic printer, particularly if you’ve already invested thousands on high-grade camera bodies and a fleet of lenses. Low-end inkjet printers and consumer laser printers are simply incapable of high-quality results.
Whether you buy a pigment-based printer or one that uses dye inks is relatively unimportant. Both can produce quality results when properly calibrated and used correctly.
Canon and Epson seem to make the best affordable desktop photo printers. Your first decision will be the maximum size print that you’ll need. All printers can make prints that are smaller than their maximum output size. Larger maximum print size obviously requires larger, and more expensive, printers.
Printers with a 13-by-19-inch maximum print size are the most affordable quality printers on the market. In that range, Canon’s Pixma Pro9000 MarkII is the least-expensive good printer, at about $450 including free shipping from Amazon. This is a very decent printer using dye-based inks. It’s capable of high-quality prints and is not much more expensive than printers limited to 8.5-inch-wide, letter-size paper.
Canon’s Pixma Pro1 uses a 12-color pigment ink set. I’ve not used it personally but it’s received good reviews, as it should for a 13-by-19 printer costing $1,000 from Amazon. Epson’s comparable 13-by-19 pigment printer is the new R3000, an $800 printer using Epson’s proquality Ultrachrome K3 with Vivid Magenta ink set. All three Canon and Epson printers are capable of excellent results but their total long-term cost is too high.
In the long term, printing costs are mostly affected by ink costs rather than the basic purchase price of the printer itself. Once you’re hooked into a particular printing system, you’re stuck buying their ink cartridges. Smaller printers use quite small ink cartridges in which exactly the same ink costs three or four times as much per unit volume relative to the higher-capacity ink cartridges used by larger printers from the same manufacturer.
As an example, Epson’s 13-by-19 R3000 uses 25-ml cartridges that cost nearly as much as the 80-ml ink cartridges used in Epson’s next-larger printer, the prograde Epson 3880. It’s precisely the same ink and the same printing software, so the results should be quite comparable. However, your ink costs for the same amount of printed area are about three times higher with the smaller R3000 compared to making the same prints with the larger Epson 3880.
Don’t even think about substituting cheaper, third-party inks for the printer maker’s own inks. It’s false economy. Using third-party inks for critical exhibition-grade photo printing will almost inevitably result in erratic results that are unacceptable for exhibition.
Over the long haul, then, you’ll actually save money by purchasing the larger, 17-inch-wide Epson 3880 and its high-capacity ink cartridges. You’ll have a more versatile and higher-quality printer, as well. A high-end printer is among the better photographic investments. They tend to last a very long time. Printer models are usually on the market for years without change.
The Epson 3880 is rated as having a maximum sheet size of 17-by-22, but that’s a somewhat artificial limit arising from old-fashioned sheet sizes defined by multiples of 8.5 inches and 11 inches. Actually, much longer prints are quite feasible, even though you are limited to a 17-inch paper width. I prefer using 17-by-25 sheet paper because its 3:2 length-to-width ratio matches that of a dSLR’s image file. As a result, it’s a more-versatile size that minimizes waste while allowing the maximum image area. Epson’s 3880 is the least-expensive quality printer in its size range and, despite its somewhat higher initial purchase price, it’s probably the best long-term buy because of lower ink costs.
Beyond 17-inch-wide printers, like the Epson 3880, prices increase rapidly. The least-expensive wider option is HP’s DesignJet 130r, which is capable of 24-inch wide prints. HP’s paper feed mechanism for cut sheet paper has always been a problem, but the roll feed works well. I’ve used both an Epson 3880 and also an HP DesignJet 130 for years. It’s hard to say which I prefer because each has different advantages and disadvantages. Because both printers use large-capacity ink cartridges, ink costs are relatively low for both printers.
Epson’s 3880 stays in calibration indefinitely and, once the entire system is calibrated, is very repeatable. That makes it easy to quickly make one or two prints, and also eliminates a great deal of wasted effort and material. Prints made with the 3880 tend to be resistant to water but easily damaged mechanically. Dark shadow details seem a bit better with the 3880. Cut sheet paper, though, tends to be rather expensive compared to roll paper.
With the Epson 3880 printer, I usually use 17-by-25 Red River Arctic Polar Luster 75-pound paper for large prints, and basic Kirkland 8.5-by-11 glossy photo paper for smaller, routine prints. Both papers look quite good with this printer.
The HP DesignJet 130r needs to be calibrated more frequently but, on the other hand, it includes built-in color calibration hardware — a real benefit. The DesignJet 130 seems to have somewhat better color rendition, particularly in areas of subtly varying tones, but tends to block up dark shadow areas more than the Epson 3880, which includes three shades of black and gray ink. HP’s print heads last a long time but need to be replaced from time to time, an easy maintenance task.
I prefer HP’s 24-inch-wide rolls of Premium Plus Photo Satin paper, a very heavy and strong paper that’s resistant to mechanical damage while retaining a very nice look. Unfortunately, as with all water-soluble dye inks, prints made with the HP DesignJet 130 are more susceptible to moisture damage. Roll paper is definitely less expensive per square foot compared to cut sheet paper. However, because of its tendency to curl, you’ll need to firmly mount prints made on roll paper rather than simply using a tape hinge.
Calibrating your camera to your computer monitor and then to your printer takes some time to understand and learn, but it’s critical to getting the best-possible prints out of any printer. Every printer ink system and every type of paper respond differently to each other, producing results that sometimes vary greatly when the paper or ink are changed.
In order to make good-quality prints, you must use a specific printer “profile” for that particular printer-paper combination. This profile tells the printer how to vary its ink usage to achieve a particular look. Although most printers ship with generic profiles for various sorts of paper, these are generalities at best.
The best, and most reliable, method is to create your own custom profiles specifically for your printer for each type of paper. X-Rite’s Colormunki hardware-software combination (about $450 at Amazon) is the least expensive way to make your own custom profiles that match computer to printer. It’s fast, easy and reliable.
If you’re serious about quality printing, then creating your own profiles is critical. Once that’s done, what you see on your screen will be a fairly close approximation to what your printer will produce. If you’re interested in the other half of the equation, calibrating your camera’s color rendition on the image files, then X-Rite’s Color Checker Passport ($99 at Amazon) does the job nicely.
I prefer to print RAW image files directly from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which offers a great range of effective printing controls and options. Lightroom makes printing easy and efficient. Camera, computer display and printer profiles prepared with the X-Rite products integrate easily and directly into Lightroom’s printing module.
Now that we’ve concluded our discussion of printing hardware and software, we’ll next consider what factors are important in making an exhibition-grade photo print.
Local attorney Joe Kashi received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT and his law degree from Georgetown University. He has published many articles about computer technology, law practice and digital photography in national media since 1990. Many of his technology and photography articles can be accessed through his website, www.kashilaw.com.
