Displaying: The next step!
Autumn Ivy: From this morning’s shoot
Seemingly, for as many ways as there are to take a photograph, there are an equivalent number of ways of displaying it! For our home, the preferred method is gallery style without a frame, as shown above, except that all of the pictures that I’ve hung so far are B & W. Mind you, using self-adhesive foam core board is NOT the museum/gallery/archival way of doing things. Of course, these boards are acid free and of archival quality, but there is no glass protecting the picture from the rays of the sun or pollutants. I figure, if it starts to fade, etc. I’ll just print another one! Also, I mount, on the back of the board a couple of Velcro tabs and mount these to the wall. This is a sure way, if not removed correctly, to have to paint in the future! 
However, the tried and proven method for removal is patience and a blow dryer to melt the glue.
Anyway, since I’ve been asked a few times to sell my prints, now I have to start thinking about:
- Papers (Luster, high gloss, plastic film, fine art paper)
- Sizes
- Mats
- Mat boards
- Prices
- Shipping containers
- How to sell: Customized, 3rd party (Photoreflect, for example), by request, Paypal, etc.
Geez! When you are printing for yourself, only, none of these things really matter. You can do it however you want!
I’ve decided on a couple of things, I think:
Sizes: 6 x 9, 10 x 15, 12 x 18, 16 x 24. As you can see, all of them are full-frame size, not the common types of frames that you’ll find in the grocery store. When I shoot, I shoot for the entire frame (2:3 ratio), not for a 4:5 cropped ratio.
Mounting: More than likely conservation mounting where the photo can be removed, without damage, and placed into something else. So, I’ll probably use precut mats and mat boards that I found here, a place that I finally found after searching high and low for 13 x 19 mats, etc.
Pricing: Who knows. I’m seeing that this is rather expensive to even get a single print out of the door. I’ll have to consider ink, paper, mats, mat boards, tape, etc. It all adds up rather quickly! No wonder prints cost so much! There’s a lot of work involved!
In the photographic work flow, if the end result is the web, things are a lot easier! If you want something to hang on your own wall, a little more difficult, if you want something to sell to someone, a lot more difficult!
I know that there are a lot of you who sell prints and, as usual, I welcome your input regarding any of the above mentioned items, especially shipping containers and materials.
Printing: Good enough, or great?
Sushi 101
The standard driver is designed to take a good quality file and print it “good” and a great quality file and print it “good’. ImagePrint on the other hand is designed to print a good quality file “good” and a great quality file “great”. -Colorbyte Imageprint FAQ
As I fall deeper down this rabbit hole called photography, I find myself wanting to master certain aspects of it. There is nothing, in my mind, that is as satisfying as looking at a well done print. It is something to behold. Today’s technology allows prints to be made, from digital images, that rival prints made in the darkroom. With the advent of new papers, or films such as Inkpress White Gloss Film, which is similar to the old Cibachrome films, we are getting lovely blacks and beautiful whites. I want to find those images that speak and then be able to translate them to print. I want to master this, especially for B & W.
I just read a fantastic essay by Pete Meyers, a fine-arts landscape photographer living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The article was all about printing and getting the most dynamic range possible from your prints by using:
1. The right inkset – He’s using an Epson 3800 and Epson Ultrachrome K3 Inkset : $1200
2. Colorbyte Imageprint software for the 3800: $895
3. Inkpress White Gloss Film
Not all subjects, of course, are well suited to the paper type, which will vary depending on your needs and the subject that you are printing.
In reading the article, he recommends that you always use RIP software for printing. This software is made by printing experts for one reason, and one reason only, printing photographs, whereas the regular drivers included are made to handle a variety of printing needs.
It’s easy to get something to work to 90% of potential—as many non-Olympic athletes can attest. But to obtain a 99% performance level requires vastly greater skill, precision, practice, and knowledge.
And so it is with stochastic RIP technology used in driving the inkjet print engine. Getting the printer to print an image is not that difficult. Getting it to print that image with exacting fidelity is a whole different matter. – Pete Meyers
So, do any of you use RIP software and, if so, how much difference can you see in the prints? If I believe all of the testimonials, then I cannot see how one could function without RIP software for a professional printer; however, that said, I’ve survived all of this time without it by subscribing to the theory of “You can’t miss what you’ve never had.”.
Well, my printer will be here on Friday or Monday and I can start to experiment. Much thanks to Laure, of Capture This!, for sharing her knowledge of printers and papers with me via e-mail!
Finally, B&W mode: D2x Firmware upgrade
Morning Moonlight: Nikon 18-70mm @ 31mm, f/8 15 seconds
Last night, I got a camera upgrade! No, I didn’t buy a new D2xs or a D3, but I finally downloaded and installed Nikon’s firmware update for the “D2″ series of cameras, which can be found here.
The upgrade is fairly significant for the D2x. Although it has been out for more than a year, I am just getting around to upgrading. I don’t know how I found out about it, or which paths led me to it, but I’m glad that I did!
The top picture is taken (almost) directly from the camera. I’ve adjusted the levels just a little bit and added some sharpening. What’s so important? It’s in B&W, or rather gray scale, straight out of the camera! Big deal, you might say, my camera does that too! Well, until October of 2006, when this firmware upgrade was released, the D2x didn’t do this!
Many times when I’m out, I want to photograph something with a black and white print in mind. Well, taking a color picture and then imagining black and white is quite different than taking a black and white picture, viewing it, and then continuing to make adjustments. When I had my Minolta DiMage A1, I used the black and white mode a lot. I’ll have to experiment with this a bit to see if the output is different between taking it in ‘native’ B&W or if it is better to convert from color. I can always use these as ‘proofs’ if it turns out that the color conversion is better. Having multiple shooting banks makes this very easy to do. With a push of a button or two, I can have my camera configured a completely different way. Currently I have 3: Normal, B&W, and Sports.
There are some other features, like increased auto focus sensitivity/capability, but I probably wouldn’t really notice a difference. It’s pretty good at the auto focus anyway. Perhaps I’ll notice when I put on my 80-200mm and try to focus on some smaller items, which is where the auto focus usually has problems.
Fun with multiple exposure. Not new, but still fun
Nikon have also squeezed in a couple of ISO numbers between 800 and H1. If your camera is set up in 1/3 EV increments, you can now get H 0.3 (1000 ISO), and H 0.7 (1250), before you get to H1 (ISO 1600). Not a big deal, but it is still cool what they can do with software!
Anyway, it was a great upgrade and one that I’m sure to enjoy.
Personalized gifts
Each year about this time, perhaps sooner, I start thinking about what to give as gifts for Christmas. Recently, my wife brought home some photos from her best friend’s childhood. I scanned them in and opened one of them and started to restore it. I printed out it, gave it to my wife, and she took it with her on her next trip to Dallas to present it to her friend, Tamami. From what my wife said, it was an instant hit. She loved it and now has it in a frame, prominently displayed in her home. Sure, I didn’t take the original picture, but I was able to use Photoshop to breath new life into the picture.
This started me to thinking about personalized gifts for Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. With the ease of doing calendars, books, slide shows, screen savers, etc, all I need do is to look into my store of pictures, pick some out, and create a very personalized gift.
Tamami and her mother
So, here is the before and after of the picture that I touched up. Mind you, I’m not especially handy with PS and this took me about 30 minutes, or so, to clean up. The healing brush, spot healing brush, and clone stamp tools were very useful. Also, using contrast and brightness along with the curves tool allowed me to add a little bit of punch to the picture. It was a fun endeavor. The original picture was about a 3 x 5 inch; I am now able to print it nearly any size up to about 16 x 20 and I can print as many copies of the ‘original’ as I want, with no degradation!
Now I wish that I had held onto it until Christmas! It would have been a great gift idea! Oh well, I guess that I’ll have to come up with something else … I already have, but I can’t say what. My wife reads this blog, ya know!
I’m interested in what types of personalized gifts that you’ve come up with using your photography.
A walk in the park
I’ve not had much to post lately, but I have been out and about shooting. I’ve been going to Reedy
Creek Park and having a look at the last few leaves that remain on the trees. Winter approaches, though this is not a bad thing. I rather like the soft light and the nakedness of the trees in winter.
As I was out in the park early in the morning and it was about 26 degrees F, there were no people around. This is an excellent opportunity to not only see autumn, but to hear it. All around I could hear the leaves falling to the ground. Not only is autumn a visual feast, but it is wonderful time of year to bask in the smells and sounds of the fall. I took several pictures of the leaves falling from the trees; unfortunately, on the size that I’d have to use for the web, you can’t see the leaves well at all, but at least it was a fun thing to do.
Fall – In progress
Soon, all of the leaves will have fallen and nothing will remain except the bare limbs and trunks of the deciduous trees, leaving the evergreen trees to stand in stark contrast to the emptiness of the others. I hope to make it to Asheville, or perhaps Boone to capture some snow and ice! This year I’d like to hike up the parkway a short way, as the roads are usually closed because of snow and ice.
Ouch!
Ouch!
I happened to look up as I was crossing through the living room and saw this imprint. That had to hurt! I hope the the bird was alright. I’m pretty sure that it was dazed!
We have a large picture window in our bathroom and the birds are always flying into it. I’m going to get some decals to put on it to lesson the chance of that happening; however, I didn’t think that they would run into these windows, but, there are several times when the birds are feeding that one of the neighborhood cats comes stalking along. Then, they fly away with reckless abandon. Perhaps this was one of those times.
This particular window is about 12 feet off of the ground. The birds usually fly to the woods, which is in the opposite direction, but sometimes towards the house, I guess. If it was aiming for the roof, it missed by a long shot!
Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter
Willow Dance: 1/15 sec @ f/5.6 ISO 100
As I’ve mentioned, I don’t ‘do’ filters much; however, there have been those times in the mountains and along the Blue Ridge Parkway when I chided myself, on occasion, because I didn’t have a set of neutral density filters.
Sure, sometimes you can accomplish the same effect by stopping down to your smallest aperture and using your lowest ISO. In my case, since I prefer to use my 18-70mm lens, this would be ISO 100 @ f/22. The problem with this is that although you may get the shutter speed that you desire, stopping down increases your depth of field beyond what you may want and it also reduces image quality because of light diffraction while passing through the small opening between the aperture blades. Knowing this, and having done some experiments, I prefer not to go below f/11 on any of my lenses. Around f/8 is where I get the most bang for my buck.
Here is where a neutral density (ND) filter, or set of filters, is really useful. The ND filter, of course, reduces the amount of light going into the lens by a number of f/stops. It’s like putting sunglasses on your lens, except there is no image degradation, nor color shift. Usually, it’s good to have about 3 ND filters, each blocking a different amount of light, for example 1 stop, 2 stops, 3 stops. You could combine all 3 to black a total of 6 stops of light. The disadvantages here are that you have to carry 3 filters, and each time you add a filter, you loose a little bit of sharpness due to refraction between the filters. Also, if you are using wide angle lenses, I’ve seen problems with vignetting.
There is a solution: The Singh-Ray, Vari-ND filter. Wow! What an impressive filter this is. It only comes in 77mm and 82mm thread sizes; however, you can buy step-up rings (lens to filter) to accommodate any lens that you have. I bought the filter and two step up rings, each about $10, a 55mm-77mm and 67mm-77mm and now I can use this filter with any of my lenses. It would certainly behoove you to do this as each of these filters costs nearly $400. I had to sell some more of my stuff that I had sitting around just to buy this! There is one small drawback about using these rings on wide angle lenses. I get a bit of vignetting on my 18-70 at the 18mm range, but it’s no big deal. It’s easily fixed in Photoshop.
ISO 100 1 s @ f/5.6
About the filter:
The filter has a turning front ring with Min and Max markings on it. Min is about 2 stops of light reduction, max yields about 8 stops! Yes 8 stops, 2 to the 8th power, or about 256 levels of light less! You’ve got to see it to believe it.
In using this filter, here is where it comes in handy to understand manual exposure and how to read a histogram. Because this filter reduces the light levels so much, it makes it nearly impossible for the lens to auto focus. Most auto focus cameras need a lens opening of f/5.6 or better to perform auto focus. Well, putting this filter on my 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 makes it an 18-70mm f/8-11 approximately! Auto focus doesn’t work well here! Turning to maximum density ensures that my AF doesn’t work, so I just focus manually, then move the filter to ‘max’.
Regarding exposure, I find that a maximum density, which is cuts the light by 8 stops, my camera’s meter is generally off about 1 – 1.5 stops in the direction of underexposure; however, it depends on how your subject is lit, so experimentation is the key.
In the field:
When I first got the filter, I wanted to rush of to the nearest stream or moving body of water, such as a fountain or some such; however, I tempered my desire for a few days and came up with a solution that I liked. I love trees, plain and simple. So, I knew that my first tests had to have something to do with trees.
There’s a place near my home called University Boardwalk; I’ve mentioned it before. All along the walking path, there are these beautiful Willow trees dangling over the side and into the water. I love to watch their reflection in the pond. I thought that it would be an ideal subject.
Windy Day! ISO 100, 4 s @ f/8
I’m pretty much a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) shooter and will rarely stop more than one f/stop below the widest opening that I have. I’ve always been that way. Please don’t ask me to change now! I have a depth of field preview button, but rarely use it. So, this filter is great for me. I can even shoot with my f/2.8 lens all through the day and shoot wide open!
I can see all types of use for this, especially panning, water movement, portraits (to get nice blurred backgrounds by shooting wide open), capturing cloud movement, etc. As I get more suitable images, I’ll post them and keep you up to date about my use of this filter; however, even after using it briefly, I have to say, I’m glad that I bought it!
Lastly, to our film users (Micki!), this can be used with your film cameras too!