How many do you print?

[Tringa]

I found this thread - Defination of obscenity - interesting but did not want to hijack it to ask a question that was alluded to in the thread.

What proportion of the photographs that you take do you print?

Here I'm talking about the photographs you have left, after you have weeded out the rubbish, and keep on your hard drives and are included when backing up, ie the ones you don't want to lose.

My question comes from a comment on another forum where a contributor mentioned that while quite a large proportion of amateur photographers have expensive cameras and lenses capable of producing high quality large prints, he thought very few do nothing more that publish fairly low resolution images on the web.

Therefore are a lot of us wasting our money?

Admittedly, more expensive cameras/specialised lenses tend to have features that will allow us to get shots in more difficult situations, but for many web published photos a much simpler (and less expensive) camera would have sufficed.

Have to put my hand up and recognise I am in this camp. I have had about 5 photos printed in the last couple of years.

Dave

[allenlennon]

Dave, i only just got started into printing today in fact and enjoy doing it, and planning on making a photo wall in my room and lobby, nothing fancy, unsure if i will frame them, or all of them. Most likely will print out my all time favourites, and to print photos for family and friends.

[royphot]

Making good prints requires a complete additional skill set over and above what is needed for taking good photos. That was true in the days of wet processing and it is still true, if a little less so, in this digital age.

In order to make big prints - (above A4) - also requires an initial expenditure on hardware and then continuing outgoings on paper, ink and mounting boards. The difference in prices between A4 printers and A3+ printers is considerable, but if you enjoy making prints you are most unlikely to be willing to limit yourself to A4 size.

Having said all that, there is nothing quite like the thrill of seeing one of your images on display in a gallery, even though it is only as one small part of an exhibition.

[DanK]

A very low percentage of the total, and not all that many of the keepers, but that is mostly because I lack wall space. I give prints away as gifts, but even that does not increase the number all that much. I'd guess that all in all, I have about 25 of my prints hanging one place or another now. On the other hand, since printing is inexpensive, I replace the prints in my house from time to time, so I have printed lot more than that. I also print cards, using a matte card stock from Red River Paper.

Re equipment: some makes sense even for web posting. E.g., I do a lot of macro, so I need a macro lens and tubes. However, the fact is that when displaying in low resolution, you don't need much. I have macros taken with three bodies: an inexpensive Rebel (XTi), a 50D, and a 5D Mark III. On the web, you cannot tell the difference. I have also taken them with two macro lenses, the inexpensive EF-S 60mm and the 100mm L, which costs two and a half times as much. Again, on the web, you can't see the difference. (They are different in the field, however.)

[dabhand]

Dave - I'd say I physically print around 1 in 10 after all the weeding - most of the remainder (depending on subject) will go to one of the hi-res digital photo frames my wife / other family members have.

Edit - should have said I don't keep them all - max 8 in a frame at any one time.

[chauncey]

A little over 6,100 images on my HD, most of which meet my definition of potentially printable or have parts that I might use with other images...remember that it's a hobby with me, with four prints.

[xpatUSA]

What proportion of the photographs that you take do you print?
Dave

None at all. All are viewed on my monitor or posted on the web.

My early Sigmas are therefore adequate for the task and the Panasonic 12MP m4/3 is normally set to "small" image size.

[arith]

Well I print about once a month after sorting out a photo. Printing is challenging because so much can go wrong and then there is things that work in print but don't otherwise. It is generally harder to get a sharp accurate shot in a reflective medium and what looks alright on the screen will generally look different in print.

I've got an A1 size print appr 32" x 24" that is pin sharp using a cropped camera and that is I suppose as good as I can get, but also A3+ images that were challenging and look a bit corrupted by chromatic aberration on screen, look alright to me, and I mean me, in print.

Different photographic papers, different ink, different print. Using Canon's own medium quality paper I get very much sharper images than on the screen, but who can afford it, and using an Ilford gets reasonably sharp, as sharp as on the screen but much bigger area.

[Andrew76]

I'm pretty lucky in that my wife actually likes some of my work, and allows me to adorn the walls of the house. And, like Dan, I just rotate them every so often - except the ones that we really like.

I've printed up to 24x36, and as small as 4x5's for gift cards. I have no interest in printing myself at home. I'll leave that up to the pros. I can't see the benefit of doing it at home anyway, as I rarely print images from a similar genre, and so my local photo lab lets me choose from an assortment of papers, like more than 12 or 15. I've even just recently delved into canvas. There's no way I'd be able to offer myself that kind of variety by doing it at home.

Interesting timing on this thread though, as I just read in a photography text book earlier this week, how some purists don't even consider the image a photograph, until it has been printed. Before that, it's a digital image. And although that might just be semantics to some, I think there is a difference. A lot of flaws can be hidden in a compressed image that's only 1/10 the size it would be if printed. Especially with over post processing.

[Tringa]

I should have been more precise with my original question. I did not intend it to be limited to photographs that we print ourselves. If that were the case then my count would drop from about 5, to 1.

To remove any ambiguity, it should ask - "What proportion of the photographs that you take do you print yourselves or have printed elsewhere"

So my own answer is way under 0.1%.

Dave

[DanK]

To remove any ambiguity, it should ask - "What proportion of the photographs that you take do you print yourselves or have printed elsewhere"

That's how I took it. The answers are similar for me, because I do most of my own printing.

So my own answer is way under 0.1%.

In this digital age, I would bet that even the folks who print a lot print a very small percentage, because digital is free, and people take, and keep, vast numbers of images. I think a more interesting way to think about it is: of the pictures you are pleased with and want to show to people (that gets rid of most of mine!), how many do you print? Most people, including me, print a pretty small proportion of those too, but nowhere nearly as small a proportion.

I found printing on my own to be frustrating at first, because there is a lot to know and a lot that can go wrong. However, now that I am familiar with the process, I find it a lot of fun. It is very gratifying to have the image appear on paper and to be able to hang it up. I don't know if this is entirely rational, but I enjoy it more when I do it myself than when I send it off, even though my experience with the lab I use (Bay Photo) has been consistently excellent.

[James G]

I usually (now) print 1-5 from individual shoots. As a % average I guess it might be about 1-2%. I printed a lot less in the past but now I'm using A3 and A3+ and an excellent printer with excellent non OEM inks I just go for it. I have not used photolabs since I went digital about 10 years back. Before that I did all my own B&W printing, with a limited amount of colour work in my darkroom, but usually ended up 'large print' for specialist printing when I could afford it.

I'm old school though, since I started in the days when you had to print to see any results, and I still think that its what ends up on the paper that requires the last judgement and I'm very conscious that I'm much more critical of the final physical print.

I don't quite know how many prints I have, (never actually counted), but it must be somewhere near 1200 A3 and many many more A4. (I also seem to give away quite a number to a few friends who seem to like my work.)

At present I have about 2500 digital images on my screen saver that are refreshing every 6 seconds or so.

What's interesting is that an (old) image can often 'catch my eye', and I revisit it. About 50% of the time, when I do, I rework for print.