Will Printing Your Photos Make You A Better Photographer?

Canon imagePROGRAF PRO 300

Intro

I have been pursuing landscape photography as a hobby for the past 5 years. Over time, I have invested in various camera equipment, bags, lenses, and drones to improve my craft. I have also taken courses and spent countless hours using Lightroom and Photoshop to enhance my photographs. Despite all of this effort, very few of my photos have actually been printed and displayed as wall art. This has been disheartening for me, and I now realize that something needs to change.

I have sent a few of my favourite photos to a lab, but I was never 100% satisfied with the results. The idea of re-editing the photo and sending it to the lab again and hoping it will be perfect this time was just too time-consuming and off-putting in my mind. So the print was laid to rest in a box in the corner of my room.

The benefit of using your local lab is no doubt cost. If you sell your prints and actually make a profit from it, it's a different story, but if not, it will rarely be cheaper to print yourself.

The lab is also experts in what they do, so why would you do it better yourself, you might think?

This is a good question and certainly a question I had in mind. But then I took a leap of faith and bought a printer last year. Let's dive into all the things that come with starting to print yourself!

The Printer

In 2023, Canon had a cashback campaign and I started looking at their printers. I considered the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-200, Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300, and Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000. Although Epson printers are also popular, I was leaning towards Canon as it is a well-known brand with a good reputation. However, to make an informed decision, I recommend checking out YouTube and my favorite sites for more information.

I highly recommend Keith Cooper and Jose Rodriguez so please check out their YouTube channels.

I can also recommend Perma Jet´s comparison between Canon PRO300 and PRO1000.

I decided to go with the Canon PRO 300 and I list the main reasons for doing so:

• I don’t need to print bigger than A3+

• I believe the PRO 300 is just a bit more for normal consumer
  and the PRO 1000 is a bit more for professional use, hence it needs to be used more often

• Size and weight, the PRO 1000 is big and heavy and the PRO 300 is a better fit for my room

• It is still pigment based ink and uses chroma optimizer (PRO 200 lacks this)

• Excellent reviews and not very old product

Note: if you are going to print a lot the ink cost is lower on the PRO 1000 model

How to select the right printer

As mentioned above there are many great printers out there so how to know which one is the right one for you?

Think of the following questions:

1. What sizes will I most likely print?

2. What quality do I need?

3. What is my budget?

Print size

Print size is a crucial factor to consider when choosing a printer. It greatly impacts the range of printers you can choose from. For me, A4 is the most commonly printed size, but I occasionally print A3, which looks great, fits many frames, and is neither too small nor too large as a wall piece in most homes. Therefore, I have decided that A3 is sufficient for me, and I use a professional lab for larger prints. It's important to determine what size you will be printing most often and select a printer accordingly.

Print Quality

Next is what quality you need, is it just photos from last vaccation you will print and save in an album or is it “Fine Art” you want to sell online?

For your private album many printers will do a good enough job and a printer like Canon PRO 1000 is just a waste of money, even the PRO 200 and PRO 300 are overkill for that scenario. I wanted to print high-quality prints that I should be able to sell even though selling is not my main idea. If this is the case for you there are a few things one must consider.

• Dye or pigment based ink

• Number of cartridges in the printer

• Borderless or not

• Type of paper to print on

Dye-based ink

Pros

• Produces saturated and vibrant colors, particularly with gloss papers

• Lower costs

Cons

• Dye ink fades “quicker” than pigment ink, often lasting around 25 to 30 years or less if exposed to sunlight

• It can smudge, especially if exposed to water which will mix with the ink

Best for

• Lower budgets

• Day-to-day prints where longevity is not a priority

• Images that have vibrant, saturated colors

Pigment based ink

Pros

• Prints are resistant to external influences such as water, environmental gases, and UV rays

• Higher color stability and print longevity, with the potential to resist fading for up to 200 years

Cons

• Prints can be less vibrant

• Generally available in higher-end, more costly printers

Best for

• If you require archival, high-quality prints

• Prints that will be exposed to a lot of UV light and/or be handled a lot

• Professional outputs such as exhibitions and wall art

Cartridges

The number of cartridges is per say not the key factor, but it will tell you how many colors the printer will have to work with and of course, more colors is never a drawback in printing.

PRO 200: 8-color dye-based ink system

PRO 300: 10-color pigment-based ink system

PRO 1000: 12-color pigment-based ink system

The more important thing to consider is the size of the cartridges, the PRO 1000 has 80ml in each whereas the PRO 300 has 14ml. This means the cost per ml ink is lower on the PRO 1000 than the other two. So if you print a lot the printer with larger cartridges will most likely be more cost efficient.

Borderless

Not all printers can produce borderless prints, so if this is a must for you make sure the printer you are looking at can handle this.

Both PRO 200, 300, and 1000 prints are borderless.

Type of paper

W printing, the type of paper you choose can have the final product. For instance, art paper is often thicker and heavier than regular printing paper, and some low-cost printers may not be able to handle it. However, if you opt for a high-quality printer such as the Canon PRO 200, 300 or 1000, this shouldn't be a problem. I would recommend using paper from the same manufacturer as your printer, as their papers are already optimized for use with their printers. It's a good idea to try out several different types of paper to see which one you like best. a big impact on the quality of

Budget

The ultimate deciding factor when it comes to choosing a printer is cost. For instance, the Canon PRO 300 costs approximately 800-1000 EUR, and other brands in the same category are likely to be similarly priced. However, keep an eye out for deals that may be available at the time of purchase so you can save some money. It's also essential to consider the cost of paper and ink because this is where you'll be spending most of your money in the long run.

Although third-party inks are more affordable, I recommend avoiding them. I always purchase original Canon ink to ensure that there are no color differences, providing me with peace of mind.

Besides the printer

If you are planning to print something, there are other things that you need to take into account. Getting the print to match what you see on the screen requires a trial-and-error process. To start with you need hardware such as:

• Screen

• Colorimeter

• Lights

Screen

I will not say you most but I strongly recommend having/getting a display that is aimed for photography. It should be able to display Adobe RGB and be hardware-calibrated.

I use a BenQ 270C and I am very happy with it but there are many other displays out there such as Color Edge series from Eizo and Pro Art-series from ASUS. Expect to pay around 700 - 1500 EUR for a new display but if lucky you can find one on the second-hand market.

The main thing here is to understand WHY you must have a calibrated screen if you want to print yourself. As a monitor gets older, the colors change, the contrast shifts, and the black-and-white levels skew. No matter what you do, over time your screen will slowly burn out and be less accurate. Calibrating your screen now and then makes sure color, contrast, and brightness are as correct as possible. The screen and print will always differ, that’s just physics but the goal is to keep them as close as possible.

Screen BenQ 270C and Calibrite Colorchecker display PRO

Colorimeter

If you have a monitor you can hardware calibrate the first step is to get a colorimeter. Common ones are Datacolor SpyderX Pro and Calibrite Display Pro. These changes name over time so search for them and you will find the lastest version (Might have a slightly different name), just make sure your screen and computer meets the requiremnets of the calibrator. The brand itself doesent really mather in my opinion but the cost for a device like this is in the reagion of 100 - 200 EUR. Besides the hardware (Colorimeter) you also need a software, Calibrate has its own software and works just fine but I prefer to use the BenQ Palette Master Element software. Its just a matter of taste but they can be some what complicated if you never seen this type of software before.

I will just mention the key setting all calibration software will have in common and shortly explain them.

• White Point

  With monitors, the white point is the temperature setting (measured in Kelvin) that determines the warmth or coolness of your whites. If you’re working with video and/or web content, the recommended white point is 6500K or D65. This is also known as the native temperature of your monitor. If you’re working with still images that you plan to print, the white point of 5000K (D50) is recommended, as it looks more like white on paper.

• Gamma settings

  Gamma is the rate at which shades go from black to white. A higher value has the same black and white as a lower value, but it will produce greater contrast within that range. For a screen situated in a bright room, like an office, the recommended display setting is 2.2. For screens in dark rooms like home theaters, the recommended setting is 2.4, because in a darker room contrast is easier to see.

• Luminance

  Luminance is the intensity of the light the screen emits, also known as brightness. The recommended brightness for a standard LCD screen is 120.

  This is an important value and if your print doesn’t match in darkness, shadows, blacks, and whites try to recalibrate and use a different setting here.
  If you edit your photos in a very dim and low-light environment you can try 80 - 100. My screen is calibrated with the value 80 since I work in a dark room with very little bright light. I printed several photos that didn’t match the screen until I used value 80.

Light

Last but not least, you must think of the light you are using when checking your prints. I am sure you more than once have noticed how objects kind of change color in different light. If you calibrate your screen to 6500K and you inspect your print in light of 5000K there is no way the print will look the same as on the screen. With that said it’s not impossible to do so but one must understand the impact of the light in the room.

I use Ilford Ilfolux MK1 which can be set to either 3000K, 4000K, 5000K, or 6500K. Since I have two calibrations saved on my screen (One for 5000K and 1 for 6500K) I can easily switch the color temperature when printing and I use different settings on the screen. Expect to pay around 150 EUR for this lamp.

Color temperature and its effect

Ilford Ilfolux MK1

Decision

So after reading all this you realize it’s expensive and somewhat complicated to print your photos instead of just sending them to the local lab, so why on earth should you do it then?

I will say it like this, it’s not because of this you should do it but rather despite all of this. Printing at home has nothing to do with cost, it’s part of your photography and you will learn so much from doing it. I have printed some photos so many times and every time I find some details I want to change, it can be that shadows are too dark, color saturation is slightly of or you just realize the composition is not good. You will look at your photos in a completely different way compared to watching them on a screen. So will you be a better photographer if you start printing yourself?

I truly believe so!

First framed prints