Joe's How-To

Preparing your photographs for printing

By Joe Doherty

For some reason we’ve stopped printing our work. On one level it makes sense, as we can quickly share digital images online. But on another level I think it’s harmful to the creative process. At the risk of getting philosophical, a photograph isn’t “real” until you hold it in your hand, twist it in the light, set it down, look at it from a distance, or hang it on the wall. Seeing an image on your phone won’t surprise you in the same way that a print stuck to your refrigerator will. And a print is something you can permanently share with others. It’s a means of communication far beyond a three-second Instagram hit.

“The refrigerator is a good place to display work that you’re thinking about.”

A print is more than an object, though. It’s also a discipline and a craft. Printing requires the artist to make a series of choices that are simultaneously creative and technical. And these choices, made at the final stages in the process of one image, feed back on the decisions made at the beginning of the next ones. For the sake of simplicity I’ve compressed these choices into four groups: curation, size, process, and media. One could spend a week discussing any one of these groups and not exhaust the topic, and among any three photographers there are at least four thoughtful opinions.

Curation

What makes an image worth printing? It depends on what you want to do with the print. Sometimes I get frustrated by my own work; something is off and I can’t put my finger on it. Is it the color? The composition? The crop? The contrast? I will make a work print and let it sit around the house where I can see it as I pass by. I may never figure it out and abandon it, or I may find the print a year later and figure out the obvious.

Just as often I’ll print an image that I want to see around the house. I am, ultimately, taking pictures for myself, so that makes sense. I don’t need to make a big commitment to the image. I don’t need to send it to a framer, or frame it at all. I might just leave an 8x12 on a table (or on top of the printer) to see as I pass by. In this way I get a better idea of how my photographs are perceived by others, and it helps me to improve my craft.

Occasionally I put together portfolios of my work. Each portfolio is built around a theme, and each contains about ten prints. From my catalog I select about twice as many images as I need for the portfolio, and I use those to evaluate the print quality and to sequence the collection. These work prints are often smaller than the final product. I’ve made 5x7 prints as the starting point for a 13x19 portfolio.

When I have a large project like a book, I will have a commercial printer (like Costco) make a bunch of 4x6 prints. I use these to curate and sequence the project. The prints are small enough that I can lay out 60 of them on our dining room table, which is about the limit of a photography book. I go through the same process with my annual calendar, and I ultimately make 8.5 x 11 prints of the final selections to check for abnormalities or other issues.

Ideally we want to see our prints matted, framed, and hung on a wall, hopefully on the wall of a patron. The curation of these images begins when you decide to make them available. This might be from posting images on a website or on social media, or in a juried exhibition, or in any of other myriad venues for photography. Even if nearly everything you post is never purchased, I advise that you only post those that you are confident will look good when printed. Curating your website in this way takes experience with printing. If you are advertising prints that are 24x36 inches, you should have already made at least one 24x36 inch print so that you’re familiar with the process.

Size

There is a rule of thumb for print size; the viewing distance should be 1.5 to 2 times the diagonal of the print. For an 8x10 that is about 20 inches, or a comfortable arm’s length. For a 24x36 the distance is about 6 feet, comfortably viewed on the wall from a short distance away. There are exceptions, but for the moment let’s accept these calculations and talk about the implications for your work. Once upon a time I wanted to print everything big, due to the mistaken belief that bigger means more important. But then I saw Edward Weston’s peppers in a gallery. They were perfect 8x10 prints. Given their size only one person could properly view them at a time, so the viewer’s relationship with the image was intimate and immediate.

At roughly the same time I saw a very large print of Ansel Adams’ “Moonrise Hernandez New Mexico” on the wall of the G. Ray Hawkins Gallery in Los Angeles. I had seen this photograph previously in smaller sizes in books, but never like this. It was marvelous and inspiring, its power enhanced by its size.

What I took away from this is that print size and artistic vision can be deeply interconnected. There is a saying that landscapes want to be BIG, to surround you and impose the grandeur of the scene on the viewer. By the same token there are intimate photographs that want to be held, appreciated like jewels for their delicacy and brilliance.

There is no rule of thumb for how this plays out in your own work. Large, small, or indeterminate sized prints are artistic choices that only you can make. Sometimes market forces are at work (if someone wants an 8x12 of one of my grand landscape photos I’m happy to oblige), but otherwise the decisions are yours. And these decisions feed back onto your decisions in the field, when you make the initial exposure.

Process

My Nikon D850 has a huge sensor chip – 8256x5504 pixels. At 300 pixels per inch I can make an 18x27 inch print without resizing the file. If I want to print it at a different size I have a choice. I can leave the resizing to either the printer software or to the vendor that is printing it for me. Or I can handle the resizing myself.

I have universally found that leaving the resize step to the printer software or to the vendor is a bad idea. Two things go wrong. The first is the print is blurry. Reducing the size of a file (i.e., downsampling from

native 18x27 to 4x6) results in less distinct detail and mushier local contrast. Even if a file has been sharpened at full size, it needs to be re-sharpened after it has been reduced and before it is sent to the printer. (In some circumstances it is best if the original file is not sharpened at all.) The same is true for enlargements, but those have separate re-sampling issues that I won’t bring up here.

The second thing that can go wrong is that the printer may decide to crop your image. This is especially true when printing smaller images through an online vendor. If I send Costco a square 1200x1200 pixel file to make a square (4x4) print on rectangular paper (4x6), Costco will give me a rectangular print (4x6) that is heavily cropped.

Consequently, you should create a file that is exactly the dimensions you want from the printer at 300 ppi. For practical purposes this means that a 4x6 print should be 1200x1800 pixels (even if some of the pixels are white). If you want a border around the image, the file should still be 1200x1800, with the border included. My settings in Lightroom to accomplish this are in Figures 2a and 2b. Lightroom settings for creating 4x6 jpeg files that include a .125 inch white border on all sides suitable for printing at 300 dpi.”

In addition to size you should also pay attention to the color profile of the printer. Some vendors simply specify “sRGB” as the profile, so use that. If you have a specific profile for the vendor you are using (assuming you are not printing your own work), be sure to use it to soft-proof the color and contrast of your image. It’s important to accept that every print involves some compromise between what you see on the screen and what comes out of the printer. I have found, for example, that prints made on a Noritsu do not reproduce yellows and oranges (i.e. Fall Colors) as faithfully as prints made on an Epson inkjet printer. There are color differences across papers, as well, which will be discussed below.

Finally, the images need to be sharpened after they are resized. I touched on this above, but it deserves expansion. There are many ways to sharpen for printing, and many opinions on how to do so. I use Nik’s Output Sharpener, but in the past I’ve used the sharpening tools in Photoshop. What I’ve found generally works is to apply enough sharpening so that it appears to be oversharpened on your screen. The texture of your paper and the printing process will blur that a little bit.

Media

Eric Joseph of Freestyle Photographic has convinced me that the choice of media is as important as the choice to print in the first place. Dozens and dozens of papers and surfaces are available, and there are few tasks more important than identifying the one (or six) that best suit your images. While this is especially true for those who print their own work, it’s also important when you send your work out to a vendor. One popular online printer, Bay Photo, has 18 different fine art papers to choose from made by Moab, Epson, Hahnemuhle, and Canson.

There is no way to choose which paper is right for you without sampling it, and that can get expensive, especially if you want to test using multiple images. For example, Bay charges $24.30 for an 8x10 print on Canson Platine. If you’re testing ten images, that’s a lot of money. Keep in mind, though, that Bay is going to print what you send them. If you send them a file that is 2400 pixels x 3000 pixels (an 8x10 at 300 ppi), that’s what they will print. If that file happens to contain the ten images you want to test (each shrunk down to the appropriate size) they will not complain. That can be accomplished in Photoshop using the File>Automate>Contact Sheet II option. For a first pass at what paper you like, that’s an economical option.

We have a few simple rules we follow when we choose which paper we will use for a given print. Velda’s series “Flowers in a Time of Quarantine” is photographed against a black background, which requires paper that can achieve a deep black. She uses Hahnemuhle Baryta Satin, which provides a deep black along with vivid color. For my landscapes, especially the misty colors of the Sepulveda Basin, I prefer Innova Fabriano Printmaking Rag. The matte texture and the colors it reproduces are reminiscent of watercolor paintings.

Once you have settled on a print media the real work begins. This is because the more control you assert over the process the more you reveal your intentions as an artist, both to yourself and to others. That knowledge is the source of creative growth, and the good part is that it keeps replenishing itself. The more work you do, and the more choices you make, the greater the opportunities you’ll have to create art that expresses exactly what you mean. www.joedohertyphotography.com

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