Why Printing Your Images Is So Important

I am a huge fan of printing your photos. I have written about it a lot on this site. Check out these articles after you have finished reading this one:

Are You An Image Hoarder? Is it Impacting Your Family’s Legacy?

Photo Display Ideas for Your Home

Printing is important because these days we have all our photos on phones and hard drives. Thousands of photos, never to see the light of day. We take a photo, have a quick look at the back of the camera (or phone) and we move on. We never get to appreciate them.

Printing your images gives you something tangible to hold which increases your emotional connection to it. You can put them up on your walls and on tables and can appreciate them and the people in them every day.

So my suggestion to you is print a small collection of photos every month? Choose the photos that mean something to you or the ones that make you feel something.

Nowadays department stores charge so little for prints you’d be crazy not to.

However, the only problem with these stores is that it is common for your prints to come back looking crappy.

Why Do Cheap Prints From Department Stores Look So Bad?

When people show me their printed photos they always ask me why the skin colours look “a bit off.”  This is what is known as a colour cast and I we will talk about it later on.

So what can you do about it? Well, nothing really. This is the price you pay for having them printed at places like this. But please don’t let that get in your way. Printing is way more important.

Which would you prefer in 20 years time: a print of your young child at the time even though his skin is all purpley-red or just a distant memory?

I wanted to write this article so that you are at least aware of the problem associated with cheap prints.

How to Overcome The Problem of Prints That Have Terrible Colour Casts

So what causes this problem. I’ll try not to get too techy with the description.

Professional photographers and printers call it colour management. Basically it is a system we put in place when dealing with our client’s photographs that ensures that the colours we see (or capture with our cameras) in real life are the same colours that our displayed on our computer monitors which are then the same true colours that are printed out on paper.

Have you ever walked into the TV section at a shop and they are all showing the same show. What do you notice? One will be brighter, one will be sharper, one will show the blues more vibrant, another will show the reds more vibrant. No two TV’s are alike. Even if they are the same model and brand.

Everyone’s computer monitor is the same.

To get the colours correct professional photographers calibrate their monitors. Well at least they should (ask the next photographer you book if they do). Calibrating allows us to know that the colours we are looking at are indeed true to life.

The next step is sending your images off to a professional printing lab and not a department store. Professional printers also run calibration checks but they do so on their printers.

The end result are prints that look amazing. They are printed on high quality paper, they are not washed out or too dark and they don’t have a colour cast.

Take a look at the following images. The first is an image that has been corrected for colour. I know for a fact it has been because I did it myself on my calibrated monitor. If you are looking at it and thinking, “Mmm it looks a bit [insert colour]”, remember your monitor is not calibrated and the colours you see when you surf the web will all be a bit off.

The next image below has the colour corrected one alongside others that have a colour cast. From left to right they are: correct colour, magenta cast, cyan cast, yellow cast.

On their own each image may look alright but alongside the colour corrected image they look bad.

There’s a lot more that goes into creating perfectly printed colour images for our clients. Like making sure the contrast is good, the black areas are rich and full of detail and the white areas don’t wash out the images, but for now let’s just stick to colour casts.

So now when you get your budget prints back from the department you’ll know why they look the way they do. Oh and one more thing….if you reprint the same image at the same store on another day you’re likely to receive a print whose colours are again totally different.

Using my best drawing skills (Not!), I have tried to summarise the process of colour management and how we obtain the best quality images for our clients.

Like I mentioned earlier printing is important no matter what the quality of the photograph you receive. However, if you are looking for photographs that you know will stay with your family for decades to come, then hiring a profession photography service like us is the best way to ensure that your artwork is printed on the finest quality paper and canvas and has true colour reproduction.

To enquire about our photography services call the studio on 9570 6191 or use the contact page here.

Until next time, take care,

Warren