Filmwasters
Which Board? => Main Forum => : Late Developer April 14, 2016, 12:22:09 PM
-
The growth in popularity of digital photography over the last decade or so has had a significant and negative (no pun intended) impact on the amount of photos that are printed. However, after the news from Kodak-Alaris about the closure of their printing paper plant, I've been wondering about the specific reasons behind why we don't print.
Hopefully, the list covers all of the main reasons.
-
I'd add ... I don't have the time for darkroom printing.
Though with a single option vote my choice would still stand.
-
Thanks Sandeha, I've added your suggestion.
I made it one vote only as I'm trying to get the "real" reasons. There is probably more than one reason for us all but, as you said, there's usually one that is the main one.
-
I'm actually printing more now than I ever have (though not in a darkroom). I recently got a photo printer, which I'm coming to grips with slowly, and I've used a commercial printing service to produce both prints and photo books. It's still a small fraction of the photos I take, but there's not much point in printing the stuff that doesn't make the cut.
-
To be honest I could put my vote to a number of the choices. I don't have a dark room or printer, don't have much time, where would I put them...etc., etc.
However I have started printing Kallitypes. When I get the time.
-
I picked "I don't have time" but I'm hoping to change that.
-
Lack of time in my case. I have the darkroom, the negatives, some ideas and intentions... but no time at the moment.
-
I don't have a "darkroom" with an enlarger, etc., but I do print my photos, both on a printer (http://www.filmwasters.com/forum/index.php?topic=8574.0) and via contact printing processes like cyanotype (https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrlequin/10468789903/in/photolist-dMxb4q-euHAt2-euVrzy-eu2opr-8NCER1-8D26af-52sFzK-94mJcy-cLkary-bFY3GD-buw5gN-52sP8K-8VtqBD-8BnNqU-cLkbi3-gX5jr7-gX6hvD-gfJANA-aaqeio-a9uUs6-qHgvD6-9hZpW6-9bcsK3-9cAPqD-9axwDN-9F8ZyB), salted paper (https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrlequin/21382909932/in/dateposted/) and gum bichromate (https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrlequin/5382128945/in/photolist-dMxb4q-euHAt2-euVrzy-eu2opr-8NCER1-8D26af-52sFzK-94mJcy-cLkary-bFY3GD-buw5gN-52sP8K-8VtqBD-8BnNqU-cLkbi3-gX5jr7-gX6hvD-gfJANA-aaqeio-a9uUs6-qHgvD6-9hZpW6-9bcsK3-9cAPqD-9axwDN-9F8ZyB).
-
My answer would be, "I don't have time for any type of printing (or processing, or scanning)"
-
I don't have a darkroom, I'd probably need to get the bathroom redone first with conversion in mind!
Ink-jet printer ink costs more than fine champagne....!
I used to make 6x4" prints to show my friends, using one of those Canon Selphy printers. But when I upgraded to OSX Yosemite, I could no longer print from the Mac, as there are no drivers. Canon's response was "Buy a new printer, skinflint!" despite the new printers being the same tech and same consumables. Put me off buying a new one under any circumstances.
-
I print. I made it my goal to print more this year and so far I have.
It's not part of your query, but just thought I would throw that out there... 8)
-
In the days when there was only film then a person might get a roll of color negative processed with small prints. Then, if they were just family or vacation snapshots many may have been edited and only a few placed in a album. With B&W, which I developed myself, only a very small fraction were ever printed, perhaps 1 or 2% and even of those you might select only 1 out of 3 or 4 prints to keep. I agree that digital has made it worse, with the precentige of printed images down to 1 out of 1000 or even less. This ratio might not apply for paid work of course. Even now, still shooting and developing B&W film, my printed rate is still less than 2 or 3%. But then again I shoot small format, 35mm half and full frame, and 16mm subminiature and 9.2mm Minox. I also have, but don't use much 6X6 and even 4X5. On those sizes I take much more care of each exposure and am more likely to make a print.
Definitely time is a factor. Traditional wet darkroom work takes a lot of time. How many of us has spent an entire evening futzing under safelight only to wind up with a pile of wet photo paper in the garbage and one enlargement to show for all those hours. But then I could be just a sloppy darkroom worker to.
-
I don't have a darkroom, I'd probably need to get the bathroom redone first with conversion in mind!
Ink-jet printer ink costs more than fine champagne....!
I used to make 6x4" prints to show my friends, using one of those Canon Selphy printers. But when I upgraded to OSX Yosemite, I could no longer print from the Mac, as there are no drivers. Canon's response was "Buy a new printer, skinflint!" despite the new printers being the same tech and same consumables. Put me off buying a new one under any circumstances.
I had a similar problem when I moved to Windows 10. Canon say they don't have the money to acquire the proper signatures for their drivers from Microsoft... like they think people will actually believe that!
But there are workarounds...
On Windows 10, you have to restart the machine in safe mode with driver signatures disabled and get a tweaked version of the driver from somewhere else on the net.
On OSX, the simplest would be to install a minimalist version of XP in VMWare and just install the drivers and irfanview. You prepare the files on the mac, move them to the VMWare shared folder, start the VM and print from there.
I also wonder if there isn't a driver in Linux, so you could run the whole printing off a Raspberry Pi?
Have you tried using a CUPS Guttenprint and the CP770 drivers?
-
I print. I made it my goal to print more this year and so far I have.
It's not part of your query, but just thought I would throw that out there... 8)
Becky - you're most welcome to chime in anytime you like. Great to hear from you, as ever :)
-
In the days when there was only film then a person might get a roll of color negative processed with small prints. Then, if they were just family or vacation snapshots many may have been edited and only a few placed in a album. With B&W, which I developed myself, only a very small fraction were ever printed, perhaps 1 or 2% and even of those you might select only 1 out of 3 or 4 prints to keep. I agree that digital has made it worse, with the precentige of printed images down to 1 out of 1000 or even less. This ratio might not apply for paid work of course. Even now, still shooting and developing B&W film, my printed rate is still less than 2 or 3%. But then again I shoot small format, 35mm half and full frame, and 16mm subminiature and 9.2mm Minox. I also have, but don't use much 6X6 and even 4X5. On those sizes I take much more care of each exposure and am more likely to make a print.
Definitely time is a factor. Traditional wet darkroom work takes a lot of time. How many of us has spent an entire evening futzing under safelight only to wind up with a pile of wet photo paper in the garbage and one enlargement to show for all those hours. But then I could be just a sloppy darkroom worker to.
I know what you mean about evenings printing. I used to shoot weddings on film back in the early 80s and, when assisting the chap who fed me work, used to take candids of the attendees in B&W. Some evenings, if we had time, we'd get back to the darkroom and process / print off a selection of the photos on 6x4 or 5x7 and have examples ready by mid way through the reception. It was bloody hard work and very pressured, but we probably made as much money out of selling enprints to friends and relatives as we did out of the main gig itself. Ultimately, if we could nail the exposure and process good negs, getting respectable / consistent prints wasn't that difficult as there was minimal crop, dodge or burn.
It's many years since I've had a darkroom and I've no space here. Pity, as I used to love seeing the photo emerge in the tray.
-
I know that for me it's a bit of a mix of a lot of stuff.
First, prints are not getting cheaper, especially in color.
Second doing lab work needs time and the proper mindset to do a good job, something I haven't had lately.
Also, there's not much reward for making small 5x7 prints only to put them in a paper box...
-
Also, there's not much reward for making small 5x7 prints only to put them in a paper box...
Francois, this might be the only time ever in 15+ years I have to disagree with you... :)
There is a reward of having 5 x7 prints in a box. I mostly say this because I recently inherited a box of family photos and they are a treasure! True, not many 5 x 7's in the box, but a few were and they are a joy to hold. So I guess for later times, in a historical sense, the box of photos is pretty cool to have.
-
Also, there's not much reward for making small 5x7 prints only to put them in a paper box...
Francois, this might be the only time ever in 15+ years I have to disagree with you... :)
There is a reward of having 5 x7 prints in a box. I mostly say this because I recently inherited a box of family photos and they are a treasure! True, not many 5 x 7's in the box, but a few were and they are a joy to hold. So I guess for later times, in a historical sense, the box of photos is pretty cool to have.
[/quote
I'm not ganging up on Francois but I do have to agree with Becky on this. Some years ago, after I was sorting my life out after a divorce, I discovered that a large number of family photos and the negs (mostly of my parents and close relatives) had gone missing. They were mostly sets of 36 provided when I got my colour photos processed but many were B&W ones I'd developed and printed. I missed the at the time but, now my parents and the other people in the photos are gone, I really miss them.
-
A just stuggle to find time and space. I have the equipment and if i had the space i would have a darkroom. I am slowly moving back to printing cyanotypes (first as a contact sheet) then as a print. they are easy and fun.
I used to print in a commercial lab and stay until the wee hours of the morning printing. Nothing more satisfying as printing your own work. One day I will get a darkroom again.
-
Like others have said, I could have picked a few of the options above? I don't have a darkroom, I don't have time and even though I have printed in the past I will say I don't know how. The last time I printed in a darkroom was high school photography class in the early 1980's.
If we weren't talking about just darkroom printing I do have many non-digital "prints" including Polaroids, Viewmaster reels, 8mm and Super 8 movies, prints from the lab, inkjet prints and slides. I do appreciate having an image I can see without getting on a computer.
-
I print. I made it my goal to print more this year and so far I have.
It's not part of your query, but just thought I would throw that out there... 8)
Becky, you're my new hero. :)
Where's my "too disappointed in my image quality" option?
-
Not easy to answer for me. It's a matter of space in first degree, I can't install the darkroom gear permanent and that`s very unconveniant.
But I have quite a lot of prints from scanned negs, printed by RGB-laser (Durst Theta f.e.) on real silver based colour paper by the big labs here, I'm really happy with the quality and even bw is fine.
I'm taking less pictures since some time but review my older pics to have much more prints. Even the colour paper ones will probably survive any of my digital files. They don't need backups.
-
For two consecutive years I signed up for photography night courses at my local FE college. It was fantastic.
I only shoot colour, and I was almost the only person working in the colour darkroom for the majority of the course (the other photographers were predominantly interested in black and white).
That was a revelation (having to feel where your paper is, having to test colour filters as well as exposure time, groping to the machine, groping for the exit, and all the time saying aloud 'I'm just going to the machine' or I am just going out' on the rare occasions there was another student in the darkroom).
And then of course actually watching the print come out of the machine is pretty impressive. I even miss the smell.
I really want to go back, especially now as I have recently invested in 4x5.
Considering the cost and that I have no space or patience to work with a darkroom at home, it was an absolute must for me.
On top of all these the course also offered access to equipment, a studio, the library and lectures.
-
Francois, this might be the only time ever in 15+ years I have to disagree with you... :)
There is a reward of having 5 x7 prints in a box. I mostly say this because I recently inherited a box of family photos and they are a treasure! True, not many 5 x 7's in the box, but a few were and they are a joy to hold. So I guess for later times, in a historical sense, the box of photos is pretty cool to have.
I'm not ganging up on Francois but I do have to agree with Becky on this. Some years ago, after I was sorting my life out after a divorce, I discovered that a large number of family photos and the negs (mostly of my parents and close relatives) had gone missing. They were mostly sets of 36 provided when I got my colour photos processed but many were B&W ones I'd developed and printed. I missed the at the time but, now my parents and the other people in the photos are gone, I really miss them.
I guess you're both right... thing is I haven't been as active over the winter with my shoulder problem. This means no enlarging (I couldn't reach the focus knob while peeping through the focus scope), no loading film in the enlarger (my shoulder wouldn't lift that high), no long developing jobs (Agitation would just kill me), no holding a camera at eye level (locked shoulder)... I just hate capsulitis.
-
I make prints in my darkroom most weeks if I miss a few weeks I can spend a whole day making print to make up
Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk
-
Those of you who wish to print but don't have a darkroom, do you know the Localdarkroom Ilford project (http://www.localdarkroom.com/countries/index.php)?
-
I make darkroom prints when I can. Mostly 6X6" or thereabouts on 8x10" paper, and the prints go into an Iilford box for storage. On quiet evenings I get a lot of enjoyment just thumbing through the images.
Honestly though I don't think I would be making prints if I shot digital (which I sometimes do, and never print them)
-
I must say that this is the nice part.
I seldom look at what I print after putting the prints in storage, but sometimes I will go through them and I'm always amazed by how good it feels...
I think that's the thing: it feels good.
-
Those of you who wish to print but don't have a darkroom, do you know the Localdarkroom Ilford project (http://www.localdarkroom.com/countries/index.php)?
This is really good.
Shame there aren't many around me, but I think the college still run the course.
What I REALLY enjoy doing these days is picture framing. I try and buy old frames (a bit of character), I can cut fairly large mounts and then framing them is a real pleasure, it's really calming and satisfying.
-
I do some limited printing using a technique I found on some dumb Instructables-type website. I call it "wood transfer" and it involves printing a reversed image on a laser printer and then gluing it to a piece of wood using a very generous coating of matte gel. Then after it's completely dry, you can very carefully rub off the paper and leave the ink glued to the wood. It looks like this:
(http://www.indofunkstudios.com/images/wood_prints/big_ben_wood_print_crop.jpg)
I haven't quite figured out how to best hang these though...
-
I was talking to a gentleman today, who is a steam train enthusiats and photographer. He regularly gets his favourite photos printed to approx 15x10 which he stores in film boxes and has some 400 images in his collection at present.
I asked him how many times he gets them out and looks at them and he said every day, in fact he had looked through them before coming out and intended to review them again this afternoon, when he got home with the two new prints he had printed today.
How much of this is because he is proud of these images, or the are a reminder of the times he has spent persuing his real hobby of steam trains. He is certainly proud of the images he shows me but for him I think it is the latter.
With repect to the why don't we print with todays technology it is too easy to load a bunch of images to a photo sharing web site to share with friends\family. I have hundreds of 6x4 prints in storage boxes and rarely look at them.
However, I have for sometime be promising that I would get some of my better photos printed and finally got round to doing so last week. Now I'm trying to work out how to display them.
Mike
-
Mike, that's an interesting take on things.
I've selected "I don't have a printer". My preference has always been for traditional prints but I've given up any hope of ever having one in the house. I've also seen output from some of the better inkjets which are, IMO, extremely good and I'm thinking about getting a good A4 printer as 10/8 / 8x8 is about as big as I need to print. If I want bigger, I can get the odd one done commercially.
I don't see the point getting 36 printed wit developing these days as I have a scanner and can scan what I want and either post them to a website or print those I really want to see "blown up".
-
I haven't quite figured out how to best hang these though...
Have you tried some saw-tooth hooks?
I try and always use these, they're just wonderful.
And if the print has a tendency to slightly tip forward and move left to right, all it needs are two rubber bumpers on the bottom.
BTW, I was just at the dollar store and they got some nice panels like that. I'm going to give it a try just for fun :)
-
I haven't quite figured out how to best hang these though...
Have you tried some saw-tooth hooks?
I try and always use these, they're just wonderful.
And if the print has a tendency to slightly tip forward and move left to right, all it needs are two rubber bumpers on the bottom.
BTW, I was just at the dollar store and they got some nice panels like that. I'm going to give it a try just for fun :)
You have to nail those into the board, right? I think the problem I found with those is that my boards are 1/8" thick and the nails would go straight through. Maybe there are adhesive versions though...
-
In that case, just hold the saw with either a blob of hot glue or a blob of epoxy.
As long as the glue oozes out of the nail holes, it's going to be plenty solid.
Or if you want to get in touch with your girlie side :o you could always hang it with a decorative ribbon...
Or just a small hole in all four corners with some decorative tacks to hold it on the wall.
Or... I could come up with more if you need :)
-
Those are all great ideas, and make me realize that I'm not really that good at thinking outside the proverbial box ;D I'll try one or two of those ideas and see how they fly ;)
-
Bah, don't worry about the proverbial box. These things come with training. When you've been a maker for as long as I have, you tend to have a little drawer in your head full of solutions like that.
-
None of these. I actually love darkroom printing but don't do it as much as I used to because the darkroom I rented for years closed. Then the one I started using after that closed. At home I can only use a digital darkroom because I live in a studio apartment, so I've always relied on rental darkrooms. If I lived in a house I'd set up a darkroom and print all the time. As much as I love Instagram, I still think photographs belong out in world, hanging on walls.
-
I remember seeing in an art book a japanese artist who put some safelight colored film on the windows of her apartment so that she could do B&W printing at home.
She also was cross processing some Agfa Ultra in E-6... quite interesting results that defy the word saturation!
-
She also was cross processing some Agfa Ultra in E-6...
I would like to see what this looks like!
-
I'd have to do a bit of googling since I can't remember her name. But let me tell you, I never thought colors could be so saturated! It's a bit counter intuitive in a way because processing color neg film in e6 usually results in somewhat more muted colors because of the orange mask, but it didn't seem to be the case with her work... Unless there's a trick I don't know about.
-
A friend has just converted their extra bathroom into a darkroom, so though I answered 'I don't have a darkroom', my reason has now been made void. So if there's a postcard-print exchange later in the year, there's the risk of a few of you receiving a beginner's print! :o
-
She also was cross processing some Agfa Ultra in E-6...
I would like to see what this looks like!
Just as a side note, I found a Flickr group dedicated to C41 film in E6: https://www.flickr.com/groups/xpro-c41-to-e6/pool/ (https://www.flickr.com/groups/xpro-c41-to-e6/pool/)
-
Here's one I found in that group that was shot on Ultra
(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8882/17989782638_6502f848d6.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/tpGkCb)ave 26. venice beach, ca. 2015. (https://flic.kr/p/tpGkCb) by eyetwist (https://www.flickr.com/photos/eyetwist/), on Flickr
From what I've seen, it can be quite unpredictable, especially since the E6 has an effect on this film's color base.
-
From what I've seen, it can be quite unpredictable, especially since the E6 has an effect on this film's color base.
Yeah, looking through that Flickr group's shots, some look almost "normal" and others look as crazy as the one you posted.
-
And the thing with these crazy ones is that they can be the subject of an endless number of interpretations.
The Japanese ones I saw were of some red signs and let me tell you, those colors were quite something.
Usually, color negs in E6 come out quite tame, but it's not the case with Ultra. Too bad it isn't made anymore as it was one of my favorites.
-
Are these all scanned/printed as negatives, or as positives? Couldn't tell by reading the descriptions of the pics...
-
The picture on Flickr was scanned as a negative... Well, kinda since it looks like it was scanned as a slide and simply inverted in Photoshop. He would have gotten different results if scanned as a negative and still different results.