Digital Photography

August 18, 2009 freebee Comments off

Before I was a photographer I never printed anything bigger than a 8 x 10 print. Heck, it was only last month when I purchased my first canvas, but now that I see the impact and beauty they bring a room, you can be sure our home will be filled with them.

The sheer size and scale of a big print can’t be beat – in these days when nearly everyone shoots digital a lot of people tend to leave their photos in digital form and either never print them at all, or if they do print them they print a mean little 5×4 or 6×5 – great for snapshots, but not for your latest masterpiece!!! I’ve got some shots on my site at Photography which only a large print can do justice to, even if I do say so myself!!!

It can be cheaper than you think to print _really_ big too. I once worked for a printers and I remember being surprised at the literally wall-sized prints you can buy for maybe a couple of hundred at most – why the hell not? You can also print to unusual media like flexible wash-wipe plastics that can be mounted outdoors – how often do you see that?

Not only that but people miss out on some of the other cool things you can print to like acetate, cloth, custom art papers and more.

If you get a chance, purchase a print that you love onto canvas. You won’t be disappointed.

Why do so many things get overlooked? I guess because a couple of hundred is a lot to lay down on something you never tried before like a new media or format so people stick to the same old printing styles they know well and have used so many times before, but it leads to your style stagnating and deprives you of many opportunities to get more creative and have more fun. In fact, it’s not even true to say you need to spend money to check this stuff out – most printers will happily show you examples of their work – why wouldn’t they, they want your business!!!

Just go in and ask and I’m sure you’ll find your local printers can help, but it does pay to avoid the high street places that are used to printing holiday snaps at $10 a time and instead search out the places that do promotional printing for companies to use at trade shows, banners for businesses, printing of business stationary and that sort of thing – because they are used to dealing with clients who print to different media and in different forms they will likely have lots of different options which they can show you and are likely to be more willing to spend time showing you what is possible, rather than the high street places who just want to get your $10 and get you out the door as soon as possible!!!

To learn more about the different printing techniques you can use, and especially profiling for correct colour, go to Digital Camera