From: "Bruce Walker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> http://www.amazon.com/Fine-Art-Printing-Photographers-Exhibition/dp/1933952008 >> > > Christine, did you ever get any recommendations or did you go ahead and > buy this book? Any update? Hi Bruce: I didn't get any response to this post, and I haven't purchased the book, but I still might. Godfrey, suggested a book too: "301 Inkjet Tips and Techniques: An Essential Printing Resource for Photographers" by Andrew Darlow. I suspect I'll take a looksee at that title & purchase it too. > There's been chat here (eg re the Epson 2880) and elsewhere that's got > me thinking about printing alternatives. My local photo shop will print > 8x10's on some fancy-schmancy high-end printer/imager for about $10 > (Can) per sheet. Or I can buy an ink-jet (eg 1900, 2400, 2880), paper, > the inks, and do it myself. The Epson 2880 is just fantastic. I recently printed some BW shots of butterflies in 6 x 6 size on 8.5 x11 Velvet Fine Art paper, and my husband & I were just blown away by the quality. Bruce, the print quality is just amazing. This printer can take a bad shot & make it look great :-). When I 1st bought my K10D, I did upload jpegs to Kodak for prints, but I was never that happy with the quality, but it was a way for me to see my shots in print. 8 x 10s were about $3.99 & I did a lot of 4x6 for about 15 cents a piece, but all that started to add up in terms of money, & felt I should just save the money to buy a high quality printer so that I'd be happy with my prints & have the control. Also, I definetly wanted to do some large size printing. Moreover, my photographic skills were improving & my knowledge of the K10D was improving, so it just all kind of completed itself. But I've always known, whatever work you do on the computer, it's not going to shine unless you have a good printer--long before I got into digital photography I held this belief since I've done some low-end graphic/text project work with Microsoft Publisher et al, & we had a really great HP printer for that kind of stuff--but I do a lot less of that work now. Bruce, I definitely recommend you start printing your own work. It's so much fun, but I won't kid you, the joy of this part of the photographic process takes money! But photography has always taken money! > Gad! I thought figuring out what lenses I needed was research-intensive > enough. All of the 3 Epson printers you mention have gotten excellent reviews. That 1900 is supposed to be an excellent BW printer. The 2400 is an excellent workhorse that produces beautiful prints, & I had planned to buy it, but I got a better deal on the R2880, and it's new technology--so I went with it. I'm very glad I did. I've been shooting for a little over a year & have seen so few of my shots in print, so now I'm in constant "oooh, let's see what this shot looks like printed up." I'm going through ink & paper like you would not believe. But as my husband said, "well, you've got a backlog to print & a lot of enthusiam, an explosively expensive situation to be in." :-) Here's the new plan: a careful think-through of what constitutes a shot to be worthy of printing--now that I'm sobering up from "printing intoxication." My plan is to do theme driven printing (and shooting, for that matter) & become brutal in deciding what shot is worthy of printing. Hopefully, this will keep costs in the safe & sober zone & make me a better photographer. > > Is there some rule-of-thumb that suggests whether using a printing shop > or going DIY with my own printer is the more appropriate alternative? I don't know of any rule of thumb, but others probably do. > > Then I have to figure out how to frame the darned things ... :-) I hear ya. And to make matters worse, we have floor-to-ceiling bookcases covering every inch of virtually every wall in our apartment--& we have a huge apartment. I just recently cleared out the closet in my study, moved a bookcase into it, so I could have 1 clear wall to use as a kind of working gallery. I said a lot, & hopefully some of it was useful. All-in-all, I say get the printer. I gotta go. I'm late for an appointment. Hope this helps! Big cheers, Christine -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
