There is a common belief among photographers that the process isn’t complete until you have made a print, so take the photo, process it then print it! I have over the last year or so pushed myself to learn the printing process and it probably appears as though it should be relatively straight forward task, but is it?
My first attempts with my new (second hand) A3 printer produced dark, flat, uninspiring images – what a let down. I though having the monitor calibrated would be enough along with the standard paper profiles but this was the first lesson to be learned. I then had bespoke profiles created and went from a slight pink colour cast to a yellow-green cast so still not happy. Back to eBay and was very lucky to find a Spyder calibration kit and picked it up for £50, this enabled me to get my very own personal profiles made at home with various paper type and was the first time that I got colour accurate prints.
Prints normally are darker than the on screen image so I have always added a brightness compensation to get them to match the screen and this remains.
Still, the print did not meet my requirements so further work was required. I now work on the assumption that some images are better on screen and some better in print but I needed 15 prints for an accreditation so need to make some of the screen images more print oriented. The image shown below is a before and after of a print that I have re-worked to what I think is a higher standard. Here’s hoping…
Steve Proctor 