Glyn Dewis discusses the reasons behind the thinking that printing makes us better photographers. He takes a look at Permajet paper and gives some of the reasons why you'd choose this over other types of paper and educates us as to what makes a good paper for printing. He looks at the components like OBA (optical brightening agent) and tells you why it's good that some papers do not have this.
Printing is something every photographer needs to do. It's not just about what paper we select and which printer gives the best results. Understanding how colors translate from a backlit screen to a piece of paper (or fabric rag in this case) is key to making our images accessible and available for the longest length of time. He explains what archival paper is and why it's going to be better when printing images that will be seen over a long period of time.
The paper he tests is Permajet's Smooth Rag 310, Baryta Rag 310, Etching Rag 310, and Watercolour Rag 310x. All are printed on the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300.
I have the Canon PIXMA PRO-200, which is similar, but doesn't use the dye sub ink, rather the standard ink that most inkjet printers\ use. Even still, the results are fantastic.
Glyn's tone and explanations of archival paper over standard paper are, as usual, on point and easy to understand. Be sure to check out his book.
Here is how printing my images has made me a better photographer. For some reason, when a selected image just goes to social media or even a blog post, I find myself a lot more lenient on the content and editing of that particular photo. When I then decide to print it, I don't know why, but I look at the image with a much more critical set of eyes. Instead of asking myself if I like the white balance and coloring or if I like composition, I start asking myself if the entire photo is even worth printing. It's a strange psychological phenomenon; I'm totally happy and even proud of an image from a session when it's just in digital format but then if I force myself to print it, I look at it completely differently. Maybe it's because it feels more permanent and therefore I question if it's strong enough to be worthy of a physical print.
I love printing my photos, but there are a few downsides: I can't afford to buy as much paper as I want and I've run out of room to put the prints! A2+ takes up a lot of space, perhaps it's time to look at printing a photo book/album instead at ~A3.
Printers really are great teaching tools - something about printing a photo makes every flaw immediately more apparent.
Absolutely teaches us so much about gamut, style, paper, and ink. I try to print my favourite images all the time.
I have been printing for 40 years. The first bottlenecks in printing from film were over-processed negatives combined with a less than stellar enlarging lens. (A thin well-exposed negative was preferable). What this and other mistakes did was make bigger enlargements harder to make. 11x14 was pretty much the limit. 16x20 for only the best negatives. If you wanted a 24x36 inch print, one needed the next level of darkroom. A Durst enlarger mounted on a wall in a concrete darkroom allowing the necessary minute long exposures. The people who ran these darkrooms were seen as magicians.
In the digital world printing a 24 x 36 is relatively easy. It can be brought to another level with a great monitor. I have to admit that purchasing a CG class EIZO monitor is the next step to better prints. Working with RAW files, one can enter any tone, and perfect it. To see it mirrored from monitor to paper is its own type of magic.