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Author Topic: how do you display photographs? Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-31-2010 03:03 PM                     quote: Randy Stankey Choosing size also has a lot to do with how and where the print will be viewed and from what distance. If you want to hang it on the wall in your living room or in a gallery 11x14 would be the size. Why just 8"x10" or 11"x14"? Many of the newest DSLR cameras capture enough image detail to create large poster-sized images in a variety of different shapes. You're not going to see all that detail in a small print and certainly will not see all of it at once on a computer screen. Frame shops can build custom frames to fit the image. Although it probably be a little difficult to do tastefully in a home, it's pretty easy to cover an entire wall with a single photographic image. A panorama of multiple images stitched together can cover a big area and maintain high resolution at close viewing distances. You just have to plan ahead in creating the image.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-31-2010 05:48 PM                     8x10 or 11x14 are just the sizes of paper that it are easy to buy. The pain in the ass comes when you discover that the 35mm frame is 24x36mm. You must crop to fit the image on paper. The same thing goes when you use a digital image and try to fit it onto 8.5x11 paper. You must crop. In either case you're going to lose some of the image. The point is that image size is arbitrary. You're going to have to make a compromise somewhere. The easiest thing is to use paper that is easily available and crop to it. You could cut your paper down to a desired aspect ratio. Many photographers do that. They crop the image to their vision of what looks best then cut the paper down to match. You can also buy photographic paper on 60" wide rolls. Then you can make it almost any size you want, up to the width of the paper and your ability to process it efficiently. (This usually means you have to make your own tube processor and rig up your own easel/enlarger arrangement but many people have done it.) Make your images any size you want. But the examples above are just common sizes and many photographers just accept them as standard sizes to make prints. Unless you want to make custom mattes and frames, it's probably wise to stick to sizes that are, at least, close to standard.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 05-31-2010 07:05 PM                        Why must you crop? Letterbox instead. Also, use a pair of scissors to cut off the letterboxes.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-31-2010 10:37 PM                     quote: Randy Stankey You can also buy photographic paper on 60" wide rolls. Then you can make it almost any size you want, up to the width of the paper and your ability to process it efficiently. (This usually means you have to make your own tube processor and rig up your own easel/enlarger arrangement but many people have done it.) The darkroom enlargement approach really isn't necessary anymore unless the photographer enjoys the "old school" process. You can have camera negatives or slide film elements carefully drum scanned to a variety of resolutions and have a high quality digital file as the end result. DSLR cameras eliminate that step with the original image being a digital file. Either way, the digital files can be output at a very high level of quality on large format digital printers. You're still going to have to do some trimming. At least with a large format digital printer you can preserve the full 1.5:1 aspect ratio of a 8-perf 35mm still camera image (or DSLR image).  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-31-2010 11:27 PM                     Yes, I scan a lot of my negatives. I don't know anybody in Erie, PA who has a drum scanner, or at least anybody who offers services. There are places that have the usual Nikon film scanners. I have my own Canon flatbed which does an admirable job at scanning 35mm negatives. But, for the average price of sending one 35mm negative cross country to be run scan on a drum scanner, I'll print my own negatives on an enlarger and, if I want them available in digital formats I'll scan them, myself, on the flatbed. If I ever get that one special picture that needs to be scanned professionally I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. At this point, I am much farther ahead with my traditional darkroom than I ever would be if I was completely digital. I spent under $500 for everything, including paper, film and chems. You can barely buy a "decent" digicam for that and, if you want a really good one, expect to pay $1,000. But anyway, that's beside the point... Regardless of the format you shoot in. Regardless of the workflow and method of output, you are probably going to end up either cropping or letterboxing your images one way or another. If you shoot film, you're going to end up printing on 8x10 or 11x14 unless you choose paper on a roll. No matter how you slice it, you're going to end up slicing it... You'll either have to cut the paper to match the image or you'll end up cutting the image to match the paper. If you do it completely digital you'll still have to contend with how to crop or letterbox your image to fit on the display you intend to show it on. Even on the internet, there will be some shrinking, blowing up, cropping or letterboxing going on. The bottom line is that is your damn image and, last time I checked, we still lived in a free country. Crop or don't crop your image any way you please. You will, however, have to contend with standard paper sizes or display sizes and you're going to have to decide how to fit your image into one of those shapes. 8x10 or 11x14 are just the traditional sizes of paper that people have standardized on over the years. That's all.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-02-2010 03:17 PM                     quote: Randy Stankey Yes, I scan a lot of my negatives. I don't know anybody in Erie, PA who has a drum scanner, or at least anybody who offers services. Since drum scanners are so ridiculously expensive their use is limited to small numbers of service bureaus in large cities. You have to mail them your negatives, chromes, etc., they scan them according to your needs and send you back your film elements and digital files. Sometimes it can be worth the money to have a film image drum scanned if the people operating the scanner really know what they're doing. In sheer terms of image quality capability drum scanners are simply better than flatbed scanners and slide film scanners. The wet mounted drum scanned image will have far less problems in the way of dust specks, tiny scratches and dreaded Newton Rings. I used to use a $1300 Linotype-Hell Saphir2 scanner and even it was prone to throwing Newton Rings into a scan from time time. The amount of time it takes to edit those problems out of an image and/or do repeat scans a good drum scan from a service bureau could pay for itself. Obviously, drum scans are best used for commercial purposes where you have someone paying you to complete a graphics project. The cost is more difficult to justify if the work is just for yourself.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-03-2010 10:19 AM                        My understanding is that digital scanning and output is fine for color negatives and slides, but that B&W photographs are still best printed in a conventional fashion, and that conventional fiber-base B&W silver prints that are processed and washed properly will outlast any other type of photographic print. Is this still correct? I don't have a darkroom (no space); my prints are done at a conventional lab from 35mm, 120, and 4x5 negatives, printed onto B&W RC or fiber-base paper. I often develop negatives in my bathtub, but don't have space for a full-size 4x5 enlarger. When the aspect ratio of the negative does not match that of the paper, and I don't request special cropping, they print the image full-frame within the paper size, with a white border around the image. It works sort of like letterboxing, but with white borders instead of black. I always order prints with narrow white borders, anyway, since they tend to be handled by the edges, and since fingerprints on photographs annoy me.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-03-2010 11:42 AM                     It's pretty difficult to digitally scan and print black and white photographs and achieve the same level of contrast and tonal range you see in a well produced dark room print. Naturally you have to scan the B&W negative in RGB and convert to CMYK in order to get blacks in the print output that actually look black instead of dark gray. Even with everything done right the contrast and tone may not "pop" as well as you would like. I read about a new approach a few high end printers support: printing multiple passes of opaque white ink on rich black media. Basically it takes the worst part about printing black and white images out of the equation: trying to achieve a black ink level that is black enough. Photographers like Annie Leibovitz are experimenting with this approach for B&W ads in some fashion magazines. The approach requires some odd work with channels in Photoshop to get the white levels right but can yield very dramatic results.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-03-2010 05:09 PM                     All the B/W images on my gallery page were shot, developed and scanned directly from film. I do it all myself at home. http://gallery.me.com/randystankey These images are ones I think are interesting enough to work on as a photographic print. Basically it is my on-line contact sheet and sorting bin. Scott, there is no reason you can't develop your own B/W negs at home then scan them. There are all sorts of neat ways you can develop a hybrid workflow. (i.e. Shot on film, printed digitally.) There are lots of guys who print their images on clear transparencies then contact print the final phase. There's lots of guys making cyanotypes and stuff like that. You should at least look into it for curiosity's sake.  |  IP: Logged

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