Printing Portfolio

[aspnet]

Hello, I am very new to the forum

I am a portrait photographer (kind of second job) and I would like print some portfolio. I am working with a local printer but I find a lot of discrepancy based on what I see (and what she sees) on the screen and the final result.

Firstly, I have a calibrated monitor with X-rite device, I work with a Fuji GFX100s and Capture one. My pictures are quite dark, background RGB value are low, but on screen I see a color.

The issue is that in the printing the background is completely black, it seems the printer (or paper) do not handle the dynamic range of the photo. Is this possible? I am using Hannemuller German etching (matte). Of course it could be a monitor not well calibrated, but this is the same at printer. We checked 2 monitors and on screen the photo is correct, but on printer is dark.

Do you have experience in these situation? Should I lighten my pictures for this kind of paper and very dark images? Printer said that they do not use ICC paper profiles and they build their own.

I am almost thinking to invest in a printer and do by myself and then offer a kind of local service for photographer that need accurate printings....


Thanks a lot for any help
Alessandro

[Manfred M]

First of all, this is a fairly common issue and the most likely explanation is that room you are working in is too bright and the computer screen is set too bright as well. Straight out of the box, even high end ones have been set for work in an office environment, which is far brighter than what we use in photo retouching.

Your computer screen should be set (with the xRite device) to between 80 and 120 candela / square metre. I personally find that 80 works well for me. Your workspace should be dimly lit as well. Light falling on your computer screen should be below 70 lux and ideally below lux. If you have an incident light meter, you should be able to measure this.

You also need the correct light levels to evaluate the final prints; a lot of people suggest for normal use, the light falling on the print for evaluation should be 150 lux.

The dynamic range of matte paper is only around 7-1/2 stop of light, so that is well below what your camera can capture (14+ stops) and what your screen can output (usually 10 stops if your screen has a 1000:1 contrast ratio). You have to prepare your images to handle this.

Depending on the printer use, darks below 12 - 20 will print as pure black. Likewise any values above 240 will not deposit any ink (I am assuming your print maker is using a photo inkjet process) and will effectively be pure white. That would potentially explain the reason for the pure black in the prints.

You should also remember that your camera and computer screen are projected light, additive colour RGB while any printer uses a reflected light, subtractive colour CMYK process and the results will never be identical.

I hope I have not confused you too much, but most of us print makers have gone through this issue when we first started out.

A few other thoughts; are your computer screens at least 100% sRGB compliant, what format and colour space does your print maker use? If they make their own print profiles, you will get slightly more accurate colours than with the paper maker supplied ones.

I hope that this all makes sense to you.

[aspnet]

This is making absolutely sense. I’ll try to adjust the screen to the luminosity value that you suggest. Also is very useful to know approximately the stop range value of paper!! I thought that it was a bit larger than this. And also, background value indeed are in the 20-40 range so that’s why i see as black.

But I still think printer is not set up correctly, as also what they see in their 2 screen is not corresponding at all to the final print. They propose to adjust picture but to me it seems to random as process.

Thanks again for the input

[Manfred M]

But I still think printer is not set up correctly, as also what they see in their 2 screen is not corresponding at all to the final print. They propose to adjust picture but to me it seems to random as process.

There are no adjustments that can be made to the printer, other than through the ICC profile or determining whether internal software or the printing software controls the print process (for colour, the software, like Photoshop should be used and for B&W, the printer should be in control). The only other variable is the prepared image.

Your prints will never look identical to what you see on the computer screen. As I explained in my previous post you are looking at an additive colour, transmitted light, RGB process versus a subtractive colour, reflective colour CMYK process. Your printer should have a viewing area where the light quality and intensity can be controlled.

Adjusting the picture is 100% the proper way to do this. Back in the traditional darkroom days, final print parameters were set using test prints. In high end digital print making, the same process is still in use. A print that looks good on your computer screen will not necessarily look good as a print and the print maker needs to handle that .

[billtils]

Alessandro, this is really good advice from Manfred.

You mention buying a printer - I found having my own one a great help to getting on top of the art of printing. It's a bit more complex and probably more costly than you think, but you soon find out the things that matter! I use CaptureOne too and if you send me a PM I would be happy to guide you through how to set things up (or specifically how I set things up!)..

Bill

[aspnet]

Sorry that was my english. I meant their workflow is not set up correctly. As they have 2 screens and none of them show the same image so their adjustments look more hoping to get right image that a organised process

[aspnet]

i need still to decide but I will definitely ask once I know what . I need kind of fine art print so is also understanding if maybe I want to get into the printer business as well, maybe starting with local photographer

[billtils]

You have a ot to learn before even just thinking of getting into the printing business. Baby steps ...

[aspnet]

You have a ot to learn before even just thinking of getting into the printing business. Baby steps ...

Of course, but I will invest in a printer if I will frequently use. Certainly I won't buy a printer and start a business tomorrow

[Manfred M]

i need still to decide but I will definitely ask once I know what . I need kind of fine art print so is also understanding if maybe I want to get into the printer business as well, maybe starting with local photographer

A word of advice here; some printers are made for occasional printing, i.e. not daily, but others need to be used almost daily, otherwise the nozzles can get quite clogged. Ink prices (cost per ml) tend to be lower (in some cases much lower) with larger printers. Roll paper tends to be less expensive than sheet paper, but not all photo printers can handle rolls.

You will need to understand the business you want to be in before you invest in a printer.

[aspnet]

A word of advice here; some printers are made for occasional printing, i.e. not daily, but others need to be used almost daily, otherwise the nozzles can get quite clogged. Ink prices (cost per ml) tend to be lower (in some cases much lower) with larger printers. Roll paper tends to be less expensive than sheet paper, but not all photo printers can handle rolls.

You will need to understand the business you want to be in before you invest in a printer.

Yes of course, I am thinking an Epson P900. But I am discussing with local association to maybe start supporting the other photographers in the group. The model I would use is that they will basically pay the maintenance of the printer, ink etc... They can purchase their own paper, they will pay calibration and "time" for printing. I think this can be good for using the printer regularly and at the same time learning better how to print, supporting people that do this for passion, that would not spend anyway in fine art print. I totally understand that printer need to be used regularly but maybe this is a model that could work.

Also, a detail that I did not added, I would like to print 20-25 Hannemouller german etching and cost will be 500EUR... if I am happy of first printing, and I have already payed 100EUR for tests. So finally buy a home printer is not that expensive if I find a way to use it regularly. And I have 2 series to print, doubling the costs

Are there some book specific for printing that you would recommend? I have monitor calibration equipment (x-rite), I would need a printer calibration device as well (don't know if x-rite or spider). Are there other equipment that I would need to correctly print?

Of course I have C1/Lightroom/ Photoshop etc..

Thanks again for all the advices, this is a very useful forum!

[DanK]

they will pay calibration

I would need a printer calibration device as well

See Manfred's post #4. You do not need a printer calibration device. If you buy a standard printer (in that size range, an Epson P900 or a Canon Prograf Pro 1000), virtually all paper manufacturers provide ICC profiles that match each of their papers to the printer. They are usually fine, and it is very rarely necessary to create a custom ICC profile, but if you need one, there are numerous services that will do it for you. I have been printing for years and have exactly 1 custom profile, and to be honest, I don't think I need it.

I would echo Bill's advice: you have a lot to learn before you try to work as a commercial printer. To pick just a few examples, you need to know how to softproof, how to do output sharpening, how to set the black point, how to compensate for the lower contrast of papers without loosing shadow detail, how to choose between perceptual and relative rendering, and in some cases, how to deal with out-of-gamut colors.

If you decided to buy a professional grade pigment-ink printer on which to learn, you will have to print often to avoid both head clogs and the wasted expensive ink when the head cleans itself. How often that is depends on the printer. With my Prograf, printing once a month is enough to avoid serious clogs but not enough to avoid wasting a lot of ink when I start the printer back up. (The Prograf dumps the ink it uses for self-cleaning into a big tank, and you can watch an indicator of how full it is on screen as it forces ink through the head to clean it.) Of course, you could share the printer with one or two other photographers to avoid that problem, but that adds the complication of dividing the cost of inks.

If you want to learn to print without that problem, a dye-based printer is much less likely to clog, but the prints fade more quickly and in my opinion are not suitable for sale.

[Manfred M]

You have received a lot of good advice here already. Learning to be a strong printer takes a lot of time and effort. I have been printing fine art inkjet work for over 10 years now, and when I was younger I also did a lot of printing in the traditional darkroom, both B&W as well as colour work. Digital printing is both easier and much more challenging that in the darkroom.

The old joke among printmakers is that to make a print, you just send your image to the printer. To make a good print, you do prep work (mostly dodging and burning) first. In fact, I would have to say that 95% of the work I do to prepare an image for printing consists precisely of that work. Test prints are critical to creating strong final images.

The paper you are planning to use right now is a matte paper. I suggest that you add a lustre paper to your inventory as well, as some prints are better suited to these papers. They tend to have a higher Dmax and generally have around 1/2 stop greater dynamic range.

If you are looking at getting into the business, you will have to understand how much work is involved and how much time and materials it will take to create a sustainable business. There are two distinct and relate parts to the process; image prep and the actual print production. If you want just the print production, then someone else will have to do the prep. If you want to do the prep then you can hand off the "print ready" images to a third party print maker. The other path is to do it all yourself.

When it comes to print prep, the work associated with doing that is virtually identical, regardless of final print size, but people are generally willing to pay more when a large print is produced that a small one...