I like looking at my photos. There is really nothing like having a big print of your finest work in your hands. Before we get to printing, I also have my photos up on all of my devices. Each of them have backgrounds and screen savers rotating my best photos from the last year. I've done this for a few years now, so I'm at the point of being able to choose if I keep looking at the pictures or not. Regardless, they remind me of photography all the time, and make me feel proud of my own work.
For the prints, I mostly do two different things. At the start of each year, I take my 50 to 80 best images and create a photo book. I've done this for 5 years now, and the newest is the biggest yet. I started with books from the most popular camera shop in Finland, Rajala. The book was a 28x28cm 'quality paper' one. When I got the book, I noticed the print issues almost immediately.
28x28cm with blue cloth covers, 30x30cm with black, and an A3 with print cover.
This banding is present on almost all pages. The detail is very nice, though.
Now comes the stupid bit. I didn't return the book. And what's worse, I bought the same model the next year. Yeah. Proper Finnish behavior there, being too bothered about complaining. The year after that I decided to change company, and went with the popular European choice Cewe, which is sold in Finland through Gigantti Kuvapalvelut. I chose the same format book in approximately the same size, to make the books similar to the years previous.
No banding issues with this one, or the one next year. The print quality, other than that, is pretty much identical. So, great.
The reason I chose a square format is that a lot of my photos are in portrait orientation, even among the landscapes. With a square format both are printed the same size, without you having to turn the book while you browse through it.
So, after 4 years I had a nice set of books that looked similar to each other, and I was happy with the print quality of the last two (that's fine since my photos have gotten a lot better over time :) ). Then, this year, I was starting to create the yearly book, when I noticed something; Cewe had discontinued the square book with cloth cover. So, I had a choice to make.
Trying to find the same format of book from another service (ifolor), I noticed that I liked their editor program better than the one from Cewe. Also, I could choose a bigger size book, and get it for cheaper! The only compromise was that I couldn't get the cloth cover on that one either. In the end, I just said 'F it', and ordered the new bigger format. And boy, am I glad I did.
Closeup from one of the pages, this is an area of approximately 2x3 cm.
The height of the books are the same, but the new width is amazing. The A3 page also works incredibly well with the standard 2:3 image ratio of my camera, almost filling the full page. And as you can see, panoramas fill an entire fold-flat open. Portraits are obviously smaller, but I can fit two on a page with the same print size in my old books, so it's fine. As a bonus, the print quality is absolutely amazing. The only issue i have is that the pages are plastic, where I'd like paper. I could have missed a setting somewhere for that, I'll have to try harder next year.
So, what if A3 is just too small? What if you want something on your wall? Then you get out the big guns that do big prints. I've thought about buying a big image printer, but I can't really justify it for the number of images I print. Also, I've found a nice, affordable non-paper alternative.
That right there is a 40x60cm aluminium print from iFolor. I have a few of those, and let me tell you, they are ridiculous. There is really nothing like it to look at one of your high-resolution landscapes printed that big and hung on a wall. I'd love nothing more than filling up my entire flat with these. Long-term, that might just happen, but for now I only have them on two walls. First, I have a set in my kitchen of the few food-related pics I've taken. The wine image was the first I took, the two others were specifically set up and taken for the purpose of going on the wall.
Crayfish, Spaghetti Bolognese, and last but not least, a lovely french red.
The second set is in my home office, where I've filled a whole wall. There's a few very old paper prints taped up in the corner too, from before I realized I couldn't get cheap frames for that size paper prints locally.
A big pile of inspiration.
The head is 6 cm in diameter, with very nice detail.
The prints are 3mm thick, quite light, and have built-in wall hanging hooks. Just put two screws in a wall, and hang. Couldn't be simpler.
For the future, I have a few plans. I'm going to continue with the yearly books. They are great for summing up your photographic year for yourself, to look at your skill progress from year to year, and if you're inclined to show your images to visitors, they work for that too. For prints, I'm toying with a few ideas. The 40x60 isn't the biggest size these prints come in. I also have a good spot in my flat for a bigger one, a 90x60 vertical. The plan is to get a photo from Lofoten in March to put there.
The second plan is for my living room. I'd find a 1:2 panoramic image and print that on three 60x40 verticals, hanging them side-by-side. I could supplement that with 3-4 other landscapes on a nearby wall. Lots of plans, but I'm in no hurry. Let's see what I find in Norway first :)
Finally, a few words about the technical side of prints. It is slightly different than posting your pictures online, mostly because you don't have a preview and can't re-do the print once it's done. When I order prints, I always double-check the post-processing of the image and I export using different settings (sharpening is set to high, print). I double-check for sensor dust spots, and make sure the exposure is what I want using the histogram. I also fine-tune the colors since it's usually been months since I did the first edit. My main monitor is color-calibrated and I use 5000K light bulbs in my office, so the color on the screen is the same it will be on the print.
As far as resolution goes, all of my wall prints are uncropped 24 megapixel images. I have some cropped images in my books, mostly the bird images. If we do the math, you don't actually need a lot of megapixels for a big image. At a very decent 150 pixels per inch, you need 8,3 megapixels to print 40x60cm. With 24MP, it will give you more than 60x90cm. More important than the number of MP is the quality of the pixels, though. A smartphone might give you 16 MP, but a 16 MP DSLR image will typically give you a lot better quality. I also use the lowest ISO I can, use a tripod, and make sure my horizon is straight when taking the image so I don't have to lose pixels in post. The last part is to have good-quality lenses and the biggest sensor you can afford, but I'm still working on that part. For the record, I use a crop sensor with consumer-level lenses for all my images, and I bet you can't tell that from the images on this blog ;)
That's it for now, I have a lot of things to plan for my next trip. Expect a similar report from that one as my previous trips. With good luck I might get out for some local birding inside a few weeks as well to tide me over.