If you’re disheartened by inconsistent photographs that don’t meet expectations you’re not alone. In fact, one of our favorite educators says many of his workshop students encounter similar common problems that are easy to fix.
Instructor William Patino is an accomplished landscape photographer who regularly shares the secrets to his success. In this 10-minute episode he provides five simple tips that he says will “help you improve your photography, break through the plateau, and start experiencing the joy of creativity.” And we all want to do that, right?
Patino’s straightforward advice comes from the perspective of a landscape photographer, but the techniques he describes will work wonders for just about any images you shoot outdoors. His first encourages you to “lead from dark to light.” As he explains, “darkness plays a huge role in leading the eye to light.”
An effective way to explore this method is to make sure that the main light source in a scene is near your primary subject, while trying to compose the image in a way that the surrounding areas, particularly the outer edges, fall in shadow or at least exhibit a darker tone. Doing this not only accentuates the key subject of the shot, but also adds dimension and depth.
Tip number three involves what Patino calls “layering up.” Here he means finding a composition that exhibits a variety of layers from near to far. Instead of filling the frame with one interesting object, Smith recommends pulling back a bit so that the image includes interesting elements throughout the photo. By doing this your image will exhibit far more depth.
Another way to assure optimum results is to create impact by using the right lens. A common pitfall is becoming addicted to using a wide-angle lens for every landscape photo you shoot. The problem with this approach is that “all your photos look the same”— with an over-emphasized foreground that leads to a background that looks small and far away. His point is that experimenting with longer focal lengths often delivers much more compelling images.
The lesson concludes with a discussion of “tonal range,” and Patino uses a 150-year-old landscape painting from master Albert Bierstadt to illustrate the concept. Patino draws your attention to the sense of dimension in this painting and explains how you can do much the same with your camera to create photos that almost appear three-dimensional.
When it comes to printing photos, you have two options. You can either print them yourself or use an external printing service. Both of these options have their advantages and disadvantages.
In this guide, we will have a look at the various pros and cons of printing photos by yourself using an inkjet printer versus external photo printing services. It will help you decide which of these is a better option. We will consider all the factors that will help you make the right choice.
You have two types of color printer options to print pictures. They are inkjet and laser printers. For photo printing, photographers prefer quality inkjet printers due to their better color reproduction capability.
Number of Prints
The first factor that you must consider is the number of photos you plan to print. If this number is very low, you don’t need to invest in a printer. It will not be a cost-effective solution. It is better to use the service of an external photo printing agency in such a case. If you plan to print lots of images, it is better to invest in a good-quality photo printer.
Size of Prints
The photo print size is another major factor to consider. If you plan to go with a single print size for all your photos, your home printer will be sufficient. But, when you go for large-size prints, you need to invest more in the printer.
Various photo sizes
Also, if you plan to print pictures in different sizes, one printer may not be enough. You need to have different printers when you go for multiple print sizes such as wallet and poster. When you try to do this at home, you need to spend more. It will not be a cost-effective solution.
Frequency of Printing
Another factor to consider is the printing frequency. So, how often do you want to make photography prints? If you plan to do prints 3 or 4 times a year, investing in a high-quality photo printer will not be a good solution. When you buy such printers, you need to do prints regularly, at least a couple of times a month. If you don’t do this, it may result in the drying of printer inks. It may also affect the functioning of the printer. You may end up repairing and changing printer inks often. Inkjet printers are also known for the ink clogging issue when the printers are not used for a long time. Thus, you may end up spending more money.
Printer Calibration and Maintenance
As a photographer, you are calibrating your monitor for editing of your images. Similarly, you need to calibrate your printer. It is essential for the perfect alignment of the photo print heads and the cartridges. It helps to calibrate the colors and make sure there are no issues with prints coming out offset. Only then you will be able to get good-quality prints. If you own a printer, you need to do the calibration process at regular intervals. If you have photos printed by a service, you don’t have to worry about the calibration process. If you are really interested in investing in a printer for printing your images, you must be ready to do the various maintenance activities too. Also, the printer, its supplies, and the accessories are going to consume some space at your home.
Epson home photo printer
Cost Comparison
The cost of printing is an important deciding factor. So, we will do a comparison between the cost of printing at home versus online/ offline photo printing services.
You can get different size prints when you go for an external printing service. For this cost comparison purpose, we will stick to one particular size. Lets make it one of the standard photo sizes, 5×7 inches. Some of the popular photo printing services like Walmart, Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Amazon charge around $0.12 on average for a 5×7 inch photo print.
Now, we will find the average cost of printing a 5×7 inch picture at home. When you do a photo printing setup at your place, you need to invest in a good quality photo printer, photo papers, and printer inks. When you invest in a photo printer, you must also consider the cost of various other supplies too.
It includes the cost of the inks and photo paper. You will get a set of ink cartridges when you buy a printer. But, once it is finished, you need to buy another set. When you do prints regularly, you will have to buy ink cartridges very often. This ink replacement can become a costly affair if you do not consider it initially. Before buying a printer, you need to check the cost of the replacement ink cartridges also. Choose the printer in such a way that these cartridges come at a budget friendly price. Some ink cartridges, especially in fancier printers and in laser printers, can cost hundreds of dollars, and dont forget you need to have multiple cartridges if its a multi color printer.
There are many high-quality photo printers out there. For comparison purposes, we will pick one printer among them. Lets pick the Canon G3260 photo printer. It will cost you around $215. It is a budget friendly photo printer. This printer is capable of printing around 7000 pictures per full ink set. This printer is capable of printing pictures as small as 3.5 x 3.5 inches all the way to A4 size images. Thus, it offers a good size range. If you want to purchase a full set of replacement inks, it will cost you around $50. So, the cost of ink per sheet will be roughly $0.01. A set of fifty 5×7 inch photo paper sheets will cost around $7. Thus, the cost per paper will be $0.14. Therefore, the cost of printing a 5×7 inch image at your place will be around $0.15, without considering the printer cost. If you use this printer for printing around 2000 images, the overall cost of a 5×7 inch photo print will be $0.25 ($0.15 + $0.1).
Thus, printing at your place is slightly more expensive when you compare it with standard printing services. External photo printing services can give you prints at a lower price since they buy the printing materials in bulk for a lower price.
If your interest is to print large-size prints at home, this printer will not be sufficient. You will have to invest in a wide-format photo printer. It will cost you around 4 times the price of this printer. Thus, your print cost will also be more.
Print Quality
The maximum quality of photo prints varies for different printers. When you print at home, you are left with only one option that is supported by your printer. But when you use the service of an external printing service, you have multiple choices. So, if you want to take prints at very high resolution, printing photos from an external printing lab will be a better option.
Photo Paper Options
When you use a printer at home, you will be investing in only one or two types of photo paper. It will be mostly gloss and matte photo paper. This is because you need to buy these photo papers in sets of 50 or 100 or even 200. You will not need this many papers unless you do a lot of printing. Also, it is going to cost you more if you go for different varieties of photo paper.
When it comes to an external print house, they have many varieties of photo papers, thicknesses, textures, etc. It includes gloss, matte, luster, satin, canvas, etc. You can get your prints in any of these papers. So, the photo paper options are better in the case of an external printing agency. Also, you will get multiple size options.
Speed and Control
One main advantage of printing at home is it gives you more control and speed over the printing process. When you depend on an external printing agency for printing pictures, it will definitely take some time. But, when you own a printer, you can make prints as and whenever required. If you are not happy with the print, you can discard it and go for a new one, without waiting for it to arrive. You can also get different types of photo paper for printing pictures. Also, if you want to try some creative printing, it is always good to have a printer at your place.
There are people who are not comfortable sharing their family pictures with an external lab for printing. I’m sure most of you have seen the movie One Hour Photo with Robin Williams. Such people can definitely consider investing in a good quality inkjet photo printer at home.
Color Matching
When you have a printer at home, it is easy for you to match the print colors with the colors on the monitor if you have the right tools, such as calibration device. Thus, you can get photo prints with colors matching your monitor colors. If you decide to use an external printing lab, especially a regular inexpensive one, the colors will vary for different labs. Thus, there will be a slight color-matching issue between your monitor and the print from the lab. You may end up reprinting your picture and paying more. It has happened to me many times. There are high-end labs that take your color profile and print your pictures accordingly. But, those options tend to be very expensive.
Conclusion
I hope this article has addressed all the things you need to consider when trying to decide between printing at home vs at a printshop. There is not a simple answer to this question, it all depends on your printing requirements and expectations but you can make your own educated decision based on this guide. Please consider reading this article to know about the various benefits of printing pictures.
The world of 100mm macro lenses a crowded one. From name-brand to third party options, there are dozens of options for all budgets and requirements. Yet among that crowd, the TTArtisan 100mm f/2.8 ultra-macro tilt-shift stands out thanks to the wide array of features packed into the lens, including 2:1 macro capabilities, tilt and shift functionality, and even cold-shoe mounts built into the lens. Yet it only costs $389. Do all these features add up to a compelling package?
Panorama photos are a lot of fun to make and can really grab attention. Some cameras can automate the process by merging successive shots to achieve a pretty good result. Doing it this way may require a tripod for absolutely precise merging, and you’ll still need some post-processing to finish up the job.
Oftentimes a better approach is to simply shoot multiple images, and then use Photoshop to both stitch the photos into a clean panorama and edit it at the same time. This is what you’ll learn how to do in today’s tutorial from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel. Not only will your panorama look perfect, but this process is surprisingly easy to accomplish.
First you have to merge the HDR panorama which involves selecting all the images from your sequence, right-clicking on one of the thumbnails, and choosing Merge to Panorama from a dropdown menu. This process can take a while depending upon your system, so patience may be required.
A preview window appears with the merged image once this step is complete, and there are a few preliminary refinements that can be made—either automatically or manually if you wish. Then Mohrle makes several global adjustments to prepare the photo for the selective enhancements that follow to different portions of the scene.
These basic adjustments begin by changing the profile from Adobe Color to Adobe Landscape to increase overall saturation and make dark areas a little brighter. Mohrle then raises exposure, opens up shadows for more detail, and modifies White balance for more warmth. He also adds Clarity, Texture and Vibrance.
Now it’ time for the essence of the edit, with adjustments that are selective in nature. Here masking is the initial step to adjust exposure and other variables to different areas in the shot. Then Mohrle demonstrates the color grading technique he prefers to achieve the specific look he’s after.
With everything now looking really nice, Mohrle further refines the image with careful sharpening, a bit of dodging, and a quick fix to colors. You’ll also see how to correct any distortion that resulted from the merging process. Now the transformation is complete.
After watching this lesson head over to Mohrle’s instructional YouTube channel where you’ll find additional editing techniques for improving your outdoor photographs.
