Printing

A lot of us became photographers not so much for the pay check but because we were passionate about photography. Still we all have to pay the bill and please our clients which means a lot of the time we have to shoot whatever comes our way. But every once and awhile we get the opportunity to do something fun and inspired like this creative collaboration by photographer Steve Shaw and painter Gregory Siff for Treats! Magazine. I know not everyone will get what these artist have to say and there will be plenty of trolling but when peers come together to create, how can we not want to celebrate the process?

In this age of an increasingly competitive photography market, we shooters need to utilize every tool possible to make us stand out in the pack. My buddy Matthew Jones has gone back to basics with his printed pocket portfolio. He has found that in a world of modern digital portfolios, these printed books allow prospective clients to not only have something that they can take home and remember his work by, but it even easily fits in their pockets! Jones shares his thoughts on the benefits of having a pocket portfolio below.

Yes, the instant print camera popularized by the one and only Polaroid is back and in a new form factor for 2015. The long awaited Socialmatic doesn't use film but rather snaps and shares your photos via the web and social media options along with delivering nifty adhesive prints of your photos. Wrapped in an Android based OS that shares to Facebook, Twitter and of course Instagram, I'm interested in seeing how people respond to its release come January.

Each year, TIME Magazine picks and highlights the best photography books of the 12 months prior. This year, they’ve put a special focus on the growing trend of bucking the traditional publishing system as many of their choices fall in the realm of self-publishing and self-promotion. This was made most evident when many of TIME’s editors picked the same book for the top spot, Magnum Photographer Peter van Agtmael’s self-published Disco Night September 11, an often brutal look at America post-September 11.

Flickr's tumultuous history has been well documented over the years, but this photo sharing site has been fighting back with revamped designs, generous storage for users and new photographic services. Among these initiatives is a new Wall Art service, allowing users to make prints from a mind blowing 50 million freely-licensed Creative Commons images as well as Flickr hand-selected collections. While this service provides an opportunity for photographers to have greater exposure and to make money from their work, some are very upset with how their photographs are being treated.

Over the past couple of decades, technology has changed every aspect of modern life both at work and at play. We now live in a digital era dominated by high-end digital cameras, mobile phones, smart tablets and even intelligent watches. However, what we often forget is that each shutter click on these devices captures a slice of history, a moment which felt significant enough to pull out our gadget and press that all-important shutter button. Most of these images stay rooted deep inside our device’s memory never to be viewed again. That is until now, where next month we see the release of ZenCam, an application which enables intelligent printing for portable devices.

Prynt, a startup company based in Paris, is working on a unique smartphone case that houses a built-in photo printer. Not only will you be able to pass around your snaps in physical form, but the Polaroid-type prints will also support augmented reality video playback through their app. Launching on Kickstarter soon, will the Prynt case makes prints cool again?

I absolutely love seeing the photos I have taken hanging up in my client's house. However, I dread the time it takes to get together and try to sell large prints or canvases as I know I could be using the time for other things. Finally, I've found a solution that I am super excited about that will make the experience for both my clients and I enjoyable, quick and easy. The end result is a win-win for both of us. Swift Galleries is about to change everything!

I’ll never forget the email; I was on a plane somewhere over the Florida coast, on my way to the Bahamas for the Fstoppers Workshops 2014. Just before I left the States, I had signed on with the artist consulting firm Wonderful Machine. The first step in preparation for a press release was to tear my website apart. The critique was tough and they slashed it hard… here I am in one of the most beautiful places in the world, feeling a truck load of anxiety. For years, I had thought I had a clean and straight to the point website, but it turns out I needed to strip it down even more.

Announced this morning, preceding PhotoPlus Expo, is the brand new Epson SureColor P600. Kicking off the new SureColor P line, the P600 uses Epson's UltraChrome HD Ink to deliver high quality and affordable prints from your home. However, the biggest announcement from this 13" printer comes in it's black intensity, at black density with L values as low as 2 (~10 shades of black density).

Growing up in the family's studios and labs, I learned a thing or two about mounting and framing prints, and I also ruined a lot of them in the process. In this video, I'll demonstrate a version of my process so you can skip the lab and mount your own prints, fresh from your home or studio printer.

In this excellent installment of the B&H Prospectives video series, photographer Robert Rodriguez Jr. explains what goes in to taking successful landscape images, offers his thought process while out in the field, and dives in to some worthy ideas to inspire the development of your art.

Professional-quality photo printers and paper are expensive. It can be difficult to justify the steep price of the machine and upkeep for most photographers who shoot as a hobbyist or even a starting professional. Outsourcing your printing needs to a pro photo lab alleviates the cost, but there are some inherent complications in not being able to print from home. These four helpful steps will minimize the disconnect when sending out your images to the lab.

I've reviewed BlogStomp in the past, and decided it was a tool that all photographers should be using to create simple and beautiful collages. Announced today from the same team is AlbumStomp, containing all the features you've come to love from BlogStomp, but for the use of creating brilliantly beautiful and simple photo albums for your clients.

Color banding is a problem we encounter when retouching many of our images or making them ready for print, but in many of the cases we just ignore it hoping no one will notice. In this long and detailed video, photographer / illustrator Lee Varis explains why banding appears in our photos, how we can recognize it, and shows the best methods we can use to fix it.

If you like social media and manicure, you can now combine the two with NailSnaps - a new product that let you turn your Instagram photos into nail polish stickers. All you need is to snap a photo, import it to the NailSnaps app, decide what each nail will look like, and wait for a shipment.

Fine art photographer George Tice is a master craftsman of the medium and the documentary "George Tice: Seeing Beyond the Moment" explores his rise from family portraitist to accomplished artist and educator. The film, which is available on IMDB in its entirety, was successfully funded through director Bruce Wodder's Newstreetfilms via a Kickstarter campaign. It is an evocative look at the American landscape through the lens of one of the 20th Century's greatest photographers.

When was the last time you printed your family photos instead of just posting them on Facebook? when was the last time you made a real photo album instead of just posting on Picasa? The creators of the 'Flag' app decided to make people print again, and to do that - they created a simple and free high-quality printing service. The catch? An ad will be printed on the back of each print.

Last night on the EDM Photographers Facebook group a member posted a tweet from an upset photographer who wasn't properly credited for an image that famed music producer, Diplo, posted on his Instagram feed. The concert photography collective, Visualbass, tweeted their irritation to Diplo about the uncredited photo and was met with a rather unpleasant and public exchange from the artist.

It's not a brand new idea to incorporate printing photos on food. Recently we talked about printing photos on coffee with the selfie-latte, but Boomf takes photo printing a little bit more out of the box. Well, maybe more out of the cup. With this product I will preface with one question: do you like marshmallows? Yes or no, this product is for you.

In 2012 I interviewed Carli Davidson regarding her animal portrait photography. She was able to bring out and show personality and emotion in our furry friends in a way that was truly unique. She recently released her book "SHAKE" which is filled with pages upon pages of dogs shaking off, caught in the action. If you or anyone you know is a dog-lover, this is a book you'll want sitting on your coffee table.

One of my regular followers, Mike Nelson, said that there are plenty of resources on WHERE to buy portfolios, but very little information on HOW to make a photography portfolio. He suggested I do a blog post and share my personal perspectives and advice on the subject. I’ve also included contributions and tips from other photographer friends (such as Luke Copping whose work is featured in the video above) in the industry. Hopefully the following post will teach you everything you need to know.

Miroslav Tichý, was a photographer that constructed his own homemade cameras out of cardboard tubes, tin cans, dress elastic and old camera parts he found. From 1960 to 1985 he used these homemade cameras to snap thousands of images around town often of unsuspecting women. It wasn't till 1981 that one of his friends gathered up prints strewn all over his studio, and organized them to share with the world through photo exhibitions, that Tichý's work would finally be discovered.