# The joy of the printed photo



## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

I've just found a standalone photo printer I didn't realise we had (don't ask  ) which led me to root out some of my photo albums, which led me to thinking about the joys of a printed photo.

I've always been interested in photography and obviously started with 35mm film (even shot roll film for a while :swoon: ) and up until digital took off obviously always had 'hard copies' which I would put in albums etc and thumb through re-living holiday memories and the such like. Then the advent of digital (or at least when it became really accessible) and BOOM no more 'hard copies' just a file on a computer 

At this point the joy of photography started to slowly drain away for me - I've never been an 'arty' type photographer, I like the documentary/ vernacular style of photography - capturing a moment not striving for a particular look. I like to use photos as a way of reliving events and moments. I have found however with digital files stored on a computer I just don't do this, it's just not the same clicking open a file and looking at it on a screen. You also can't just pass a photo around for others to see or stuff it in a pocket to take to someone and staring at a computer screen isn't as restful as looking at a printed photo either  What I'm trying to say is I just don't find digital files as much fun :yes:

Does anyone else feel the same and does anyone routinely print off their photos?

To save on space I am going to print my photos at the traditional 6" X 4" put sets into envelopes (labelled) and store them in a shoe box, to be taken and thumbed through as I feel like :yes:

If you do print off your photos how do you store them?

Thoughts and ramblings of others much appreciated :thumbsup:


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## jsud2002 (Nov 7, 2015)

My opinion is mobile phones killed proper photography . When I was younger I always took a camera on holiday with me (35mm) then as time went on took a digital camera but then the lens on mobile phones got bigger and better and special apps became available and the designated camera became redundant and the mobile phone camera took over. I now have over 300 photos on my phone which gets backed up every now and again and all stored in one seperate directory which is a shame I should take the time to create speratate folders . I do agee that there is no better feeling than getting old printed photos out and flicking through them all the memories reappear.


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## gimli (Mar 24, 2016)

I am a bit of a photography enthusiast. (funny thing is I actually become one in connection to watches by taking pictures of watches in seemingly artistic ways)

I'd like to know more about printed photography although I don't think I could do it myself at the moment (the materials and technology would cost too much I imagine)

My mother has some walls that need "filled" up with some paintings and I think it would be interesting to take some good artistic shots and have them printed. Maybe add some passepartout and frame them.


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## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

jsud2002 said:


> My opinion is mobile phones killed proper photography .


 Completely agree with this @jsud2002 The mobile phone is even 'worse' than the digital camera. Because we have them on us all the time we seem to pull them out snap a photo and put them back in our pockets without ever really registering what we are doing. As you say the photos then sit on the phone to eventually be transferred to a storage device, probably without even being looked at 

I took 'better' photos with some really poor quality film cameras (think cheap advantix camera) than I have done with some good quality DSLR's - partly because I thought about it more (the most I used to carry on me was three films so 108(?) photos but then processing costs) but I also think partly because film had more soul to it, the way it all varied slightly.

Hopefully I can capture some of that magic again by printing off my photos at least :yes:


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## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

gimli said:


> I'd like to know more about printed photography although I don't think I could do it myself at the moment (the materials and technology would cost too much I imagine)


 It depends how you print them @gimli If you are on about 35mm film then it can get a bit complicated finding someone who can process and print it well (most high street 'developers' seem to use a digital photo lab that essential gives you the same output as a printed digital file) can become costly - I used to shoot slide film and the cost to have that developed was ridiculous (£9 just to develop and mount one film)

If you mean printing digital photos at home that can be quite cost effective. The main thing to look at is not the cost of the printer itself but the cost of the ink, it can be better to go for a dearer printer that has affordable ink. And I reckon pictbridge printers are good as you don't have to connect them to the computer, if your photos on a usb stick you just plug that into the printer and away you go (the printers that can do this always have a screen so you can see and choose the photos you want to print)


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## gimli (Mar 24, 2016)

Yes I was talking about digital photos as I don't have any film ones. My father used to have 2-3 cameras and I think we just scrapped them or they're somewhere at the countryside rusting away sadly. I even think one was a Leica which I understand is sought after today.

Isn't it better and easier to have them printed at a specialized center ? I never had a good opinion of photos printed on a "normal" printer. I mean, there's the quality of the printer, the quality of the ink and probably you'd need a special thick paper right ?


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## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

gimli said:


> I never had a good opinion of photos printed on a "normal" printer. I mean, there's the quality of the printer, the quality of the ink and probably you'd need a special thick paper right ?


 You'd be surprised how good some of the photo printers are now @gimli I know I was. It wasn't many years ago photo printers produced really poor quality photos, but they have come on leaps and bounds since then. You do need a special photo paper that is more like card and glossy on one side - a good photo paper manufacturer is Harman, quite expensive but very good. Although I have had very good results with own brand paper as well (from stationary shops etc) Fotospeed paper is also very good. I have also had good results with aftermarket ink, one of my old Canon photo printers (now gone) was I believe over £100 for a set of original Canon ink but I used to buy aftermarket inks online for about £20 and the results were still very good. If you can find a printer and ink at a reasonable price @gimli give it a go and I bet you'll fall in love with printing photos :yes:


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## gimli (Mar 24, 2016)

Interesting graham. Will do some research. One more pet peeve. I'm assuming that the "ordinary" ones allow a maximum of A4 size to be printed. Is this correct ?


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## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

gimli said:


> Interesting graham. Will do some research. One more pet peeve. I'm assuming that the "ordinary" ones allow a maximum of A4 size to be printed. Is this correct ?


 Unfortunately yes @gimli , you can get bigger printers but I think you are then getting into very expensive territory


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## gimli (Mar 24, 2016)

Well there goes my dream of becoming a do-it-yourself commercial photographer... :laugh:


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## dobra (Aug 20, 2009)

Interesting thread

Printers - I have a Canon Pixma 9000Pro inkjet printer for A3 prints for club competitions, but useful for poster printing (very rarely). Obviously it with print 6x4 images as well. I have a number of sepia prints from WW1 onwards, and most have survived very well. Today, archive quality paper is readily available with various surfaces and tints.

I have three twin lens reflex cameras, and the Rollei has a colour slide film in it. Each exposure must count, so very careful composition is slow and paramount!! I also have about a dozen film cameras for 35mm and 120 film. I still have an SLR with BW film in it. Plus six digi cameras. Prefer the film camera every time.

Fine, but the question is why print at all? For future generations of course. With computers changing by the minute, those CDs you filled with images of the family will be un-readable in ten years OS's will move on every year, so committing your software to an early grave. I also remember a pro snapper who lost 7000+ images when the cloud agency went bust.

mike


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## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

dobra said:


> I also remember a pro snapper who lost 7000+ images when the cloud agency went bust.


 I was only wondering about that today @dobra writing/ reading this thread, I would never trust my photos to a third party for that reason. Also printed photos are easier to share when face to face - passing round a bunch of photos with friends as opposed to producing a drive, booting up a laptop or desktop and then passing around said laptop or crowding round a computer screen - far too much faff :biggrin: Although obviously digital files have the advantage when sharing photos over distance :yes:


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## dobra (Aug 20, 2009)

Ektachrome slides - the choice of pros is about to be relaunched says the rumour machine


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## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

dobra said:


> Ektachrome slides - the choice of pros is about to be relaunched says the rumour machine


 Was it Ektachrome that came with process paid? I remember the slide film I used was process paid and you just sent it off when you had finished shooting it.


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

dobra said:


> Fine, but the question is why print at all? For future generations of course. With computers changing by the minute, those CDs you filled with images of the family will be un-readable in ten years OS's will move on every year, so committing your software to an early grave. I also remember a pro snapper who lost 7000+ images when the cloud agency went bust.
> 
> mike


 PC standardisation has proven that to not necessarily be the case. I have jpegs and gifs that are twenty years old. The shift from proprietary computer technology in the 80s resulted in backwardly compatible standards. One has to keep their storage media in order of course, but that was true of film and slides as well. A fire, lost box while moving house or rising damp could result in the loss of conventional photos.

Later,
William


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## Tomh1982 (Dec 31, 2016)

As for printing I use a local guy who I can talk face to face with. I've tried online company's(reputable ones) & always been disappointed with the results. Always found the exposure differed from my screen. For the amount of printing I have done I just couldn't justify spending the money on a printer set up. I only really have large prints done either to be framed or for competitions so just not worth it.

As for image storage once I have edited RAW files I save a high res tiff file to my pc, external hard drive & a memory stick which is normally kept in the car. Maybe a bit over the top but I'd be gutted if I lost all my images!


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## jsud2002 (Nov 7, 2015)

whilst on the subject of Photography and digital photography what recommendation do members have for storage ? when I mean storage I mean how do members organise their photos and is there any specific software that anyone can suggest .

yes it is time I organised the last 10 years of digital photos which should take me some time . Looks like I had better be buying myself some kind of external storage as well seeing as the one I have is rather old big and noisy and likely to break any day now


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## gimli (Mar 24, 2016)

@jsud2002 You could buy an external HDD. 1TB 2TB 3TB depending on how many photos you have. Just plug it in whenever you have new photos to transfer from the computer and use it for storage.

A slightly more complicated way is to permanently connect it to a router/wireless router and just transfer photos from any device you have onto the HDD at any time via Wifi.


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## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

@jsud2002 I use one of these - http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing-accessories/data-storage/data-storage/seagate-backup-plus-portable-hard-drive-1-tb-black-21802415-pdt.html

Relatively in-expensive in the sense that 1TB (terabyte) will hold around 180,000 photos (low estimate), in fact I actually use two - one as the main drive for photos i.e. I look at/ edit and share the photo's from this drive and the other (identical) drive I use purely to store copies of my photos, I don't access it (only to copy photos to it) or edit the photos on it, it's purely there in case the other one fails. The good thing about these drives is they don't use an external power source your computer powers them, just plug 'em into the USB port and away you go :thumbsup:


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## jsud2002 (Nov 7, 2015)

Ihave found a seagate external hdd that runs its power from the usb for just over £50 which I am happy with .

When it comes to organising your photos do any of you use a specific software or just multiple folders all in file explorer all named with a description


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## graham1981 (Jan 1, 2016)

jsud2002 said:


> Ihave found a seagate external hdd that runs its power from the usb for just over £50 which I am happy with .
> 
> When it comes to organising your photos do any of you use a specific software or just multiple folders all in file explorer all named with a description


 I did start using Adobe photoshop elements 12 organizer which is quite a powerful tool. You can easily label photos, search etc but the organizer shows all your photos not folders and even though it's just reading whats in the files wherever you stored your photos (i.e. you tell it to use your external HD) and doesn't actually save them in the organizer it was painfully slow to load up, I think I have around 20,000 photos and it took forever to load up elements organizer (sort of 10 minutes before all photos were visible).

I now just put my photos in individual files on the hard drives i.e. 2016 Italian holiday, and browse through the HD using windows File explorer, much quicker! Although I'm not sure you can add key words/ search by key word using file explorer (although that doesn't bother me so much).

One thing I would say is DO NOT rely on any one device - I used to use just one external HD (a Toshiba one) and it died one day - I lost five years worth of photos  So whatever drive you look at basically double the cost as you should buy two right from the start.


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## jsud2002 (Nov 7, 2015)

I did think about that and thought I would copy all to a new external hdd then sort them out and file them etc then once finished copy them to my old hdd that does still work but as said is old and slow but does still do the job needed this would be my secondry backup


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

As an added backup, you can get 128GB USB 3.0 flash drives for £20 - £30. Not the cheapest but if you purchase as needed it takes some of the sting out of it. Their advantage being small size and no moving parts. A fire box can hold a lot of USB flash drives. :wink:

Most of the software packages that come with cameras these days have a basic management system. Usually date oriented.

Later,
William


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