Printing your own stuff is expensive. It is actually VERY expensive, but it gives you complete control.  If you have prints made they can also get pricy.  Here is what I do with prints I make and how I figured out how much it costs to print and mat [...]]]>

Printing can be for the birds

Printing your own stuff is expensive. It is actually VERY expensive, but it gives you complete control.  If you have prints made they can also get pricy.  Here is what I do with prints I make and how I figured out how much it costs to print and mat photographs.

I make a fair number of test prints when I get a new paper.  I also fire off a test print when I start a new roll of paper to compare it to prior tests.  I try not to print large  full-size prints as test prints as that gets to be really expensive. Test prints are just that and are handled roughly and written on and sometimes trashed. It’s also handy to have af ew lying around to show customers, telling them “handle it all you want, it’s a mistake print”.  I do keep color printer test prints around to compare them when I use a new paper.

I currently own an Epson 2200 which I used for 12×18″ prints on 13×19 paper but  I recently got a Canon iPF5100 which uses up to 17″ rolls of paper.  This printer is a big step up from the 2200.  I can quantify ink costs but a replacement set of inks for the Epson is 75 bucks whereas the Canon runs around 900 dollars.  I know this is an apples and oranges comparison and I know my actual ink cost per print goes way down.  The ink per print costs is only part of the overall print cost as I’ll discuss in a bit.

Papers are like wines, they each have special characters and the ones I use are based on my personal preference. I like the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Bright White 310 GSM (Grams/Square Meter) for color art prints on matte paper.  For a little more texture  I also like Somerset Velvet PE (Photo Enhanced)  Canon and Epson both market a version under their respective labels.  For a lot more texture I haven’t used, but I’d like to try the German Etching (310 gsm) or Museum Etching (350 gsm).  I like thick paper.  I like the feel of it in my hands, it is less prone to kinking, it flattens well.  I generally don’t have to mount it for sizes 16×20 and under.  For black and white work I’ve become enamored with the baryta papers.  I really like the surface and the slight smell when I open up a box reminds me working in old ‘wet’ darkrooms.

Once a final print is made it gets to dry for at least one day in the open or hung up (depending upon size).  I will sometimes interleave the prints with a sheet of  rag paper and place some matboard over them then some weights to help flattening.  Do not move rattle or shake the prints as they are very prone to scuffing – Not as much an issue on the baryta paper.   Generally once a week I will take all the prints out and give them coatings of PremierArt Print Shield.   This stuff seems to work and only adds a few cents(8×10) to a buck (20×30) to your expensive print.  It also helps flatten the prints which is a huge benefit when printing from roll stock.

After a few hours or a few days of storage flat in a storage cabinet I’ll take the prints add a piece of matboard or acid-free foamcore and bag up the print into a Clearbag. I only use the Bainbridge Artcare Archival foam board or Bienfang 100% Cotton Rag Foam Board.  I use both depending upon what I can get for a good price. You can use a 4-ply rag for backing, but that is both expensive and the foamcore is better because it is lighter and stiffer.

For matboard I greatly prefer the Bainbridge Alpharag boards to the Crescent rag board as I see small surface defects once in a while in the Crescent product.  If I have to buy a sheet or a few sheets of it at Michael’s or Jerry’s Artarama then I can inspect each board.  If I’m buying a case, which is what I normally do, then I get the Bainbridge.   I will only use rag (100% cotton) board as anything else isn’t archival.  Acid-free does not equal archival.  I’d suggest finding a local wholesale framing supply shop to get stuff.  The one in Austin will wholesale to photographers if you buy in bulk.  The best prices and biggest selection I’ve found for framing and matting supplies is UMS – United Mfrs Supplies at http://www.unitedmfrs.com I also use http://www.framingsupplies.com/ and http://www.atlex.com/

Just FYI: I use a cheapo Logan Mat cutter.  I have the older version of this one:
http://www.framingsupplies.com/Logan/Logan%20301S%20Mat%20Cutter.htm
While I buy blades in bulk (I go through a lot of blades cutting dense rag mats – you should too) it is nice to know that I can get blades for this cutter at lots of places.

I get bags from Clearbags.  They make a good product and prices are reasonable. They also sell lots of kits and products that make packaging work easy and good-looking.  I buy clear bags in 4 sizes.  8×10, 11×14, 13×19 and 20×24.  I use the 20×24 bags for 16×20 prints.  These bags are barely large enough to accomodate a 4-ply mat plus print plus 3/16th foamcore.   I find this is a great way to presenting prints.  Clearbags can be found here: http://www.clearbags.com/

What’s does this all cost?  About 10 bucks for each print that I mat to 16×20.

Here’s the worksheet:

Now the cost per mat/backing/spray/bag package is averaged over the entire run of 100 mats.  If you make 200 mats then it’s $8.50/mat,  500 mats cost about $7.60/mat.  I’m not sure how many mats I can get out of my inexpensive cutter but 500 mats seems like a lot and then I’ll need to replace it.

Getting mat and related supply prices is fairly straight forward,whereas determining your print costs is not.

Your print cost is more involved.  The best way to measure your costs it to keep a record of ink and paper purchases.  If you have a lot paper on hand then just inventory that and add to that list as you buy paper over a year. Note the amount of ink when you do inventory too.  Same story for ink.  Then at the beginning of each year figure out how much material goes through the printer.

Ink Costs.

I’ll say it runs about 1 cent per square inch of paper printed.  There are lots and lots of articles abut ink cost. After three hours researching and reading of articles on this I averaged lots of estimates I came to this approximate cost.  Yes, it is expensive.  Yes, it is HIGHLY profitable for the printer companies. People need to make a profit and selling printers for 30 bucks isn’t profitable.  They can give away the printers (razors) as long as you will keep buying the ink (blades).

Paper Costs.

This is much easier to quantify than ink costs.

I buy a roll of paper for 100 bucks. That includes tax and shipping.  The roll is 17 inches wide by  x 50 feet long. That is 10,200 square inches of paper and that works out to about 1 cent per square inch.  Hahnemuhlepapers run about 1.5 cents per square inch.  That’s a 50% increase in cost!

Let’s look at my ink and paper costs for running a roll of paper through the printer:

Canon Polished Rag at $110 for a 50′ roll ($110+ ($0.01 * 10,200) = $212

Hahnemuhle Fine Art Papers $140 for a 39′ roll = ($140 + ($0.01 *7956) = $219.56

Now divide the Cost by the the number of feet in a roll results in

Canon Polished Rag  $212/50′ = $ 4.24 / Linear Foot  or about  $3 sq.ft.

Hahnemuhle Fine Art Papers $220/39 = $5.64 / Linear Foot or about $4 sq.ft.

My favorite place to get paper is either at http://www.booksmartstudio.com/ or from the local camera store, Precision Camera.  Precision will order  anything I want.  Often, I can get it quicker from Booksmart Studio.  These guys also really know there stuff.

So what does a print cost?

Depends.

I’ll make some assumptions.

Instead of thinking about what I make it is easier for me to think about what I waste. As I waste less than I print (or at least I want to think so!).

you will waste between 15 and 25% of your paper.  This is edges of paper, test prints, left over pieces from rolls…you get the idea.

you can figure this a bunch of ways.  I’ll take a simple approach using a 25% waste factor

If printed Canon Polished Rag is  $3 sq.ft. before waste now after waste of 25% it is $3 for 3/4 sq.ft or $4.00 / sq.ft… 1/3rd more.

Printed Hahnemuhle Fine Art  $4.00 sq.ft. now becomes $5.34 / sq.ft.

Printing on HFA 11 x14 is 1.07 sq. ft., 1.07 * $5.34 =$5.71

Printing on Canon11 x14 is 1.07 sq. ft., 1.07 * $4.00 =$4.28

This does not include the cost of the printer so lets figure that in now!

Here’s the worksheet:

Now we know that

Cost per print at 500 prints   $ 9.00

Matting cost per 500 prints   $ 7.60

Print and Matted Cost   $ 16.60

More assumptions.

• All material costs stay the same over time.
• Depreciation  / Tax calculations are not considered. (a buck is not always a buck but fur us photographers it is)
• this is only 500 11×14 prints using a printer that should be able to print many thousands. The more you print the less your per print cost becomes as you are allocating the cost of the printer over all of the prints you make with that printer.

Some tips:

Always assume that costs are higher than you calculated (opps! we forgot to include the cost of electricity to run the printer!)

Always assume that profits are not as great at you think (oh yeah, we discount our stuff 20% at Christmastime)

BOTTOM LINE

Maybe you just scrolled here to see the results, okay, here it is.

Inclusive costs (fixed and variable costs)  in prints for:

• Cheaper paper 2.5 cents per square inch.
• Expensive paper 3.5 cents per square inch.

Matting costs are above.

You kill a kitten every time you post a bad HDR image.

Blog post should be succinct and limited in scope. I’ll try. No promises.

The Austin Photography Group holds a meeting the second Sunday of every month here in Austin. Their meetup website: http://www.meetup.com/photo-438/ I’ve been wanting to go for months [...]]]>

You kill a kitten every time you post a bad HDR image.

Blog post should be succinct and limited in scope. I’ll try. No promises.

The Austin Photography Group holds a meeting the second Sunday of every month here in Austin. Their meetup website: http://www.meetup.com/photo-438/ I’ve been wanting to go for months and I finally did. It was worthwhile.

Trey Ratcliff, fellow Austinite, HDR guru, the man behind stuckincustoms.com, author of a new book on HDR and all around nice guy presented HDR stuff at the meeting.

Until I saw this I was a firm believer that a kitten dies every time you make an HDR photo. Now, I just believe that a kitten dies every time you post a BAD HDR photo. I recall that Trey used the term ‘amped’ in his presentation. I’ll stick with bad. If it’s amped then I don’t like it because I find it bad and you have killed a kitten.

Bad photographs, whether HDR or not, will be bad, and good ones will be good.  The problem is HDR is in it’s fad state now and it’s pretty easy to take a bad-to-mediocre photo and turn it into an ‘amped’ up POS.  HDR has been around a long time.  The idea of compressing a full  range  image into a print  was codified by Ansel Adams and his zone system.

In a nutshell: HDR is a processing tool that can assist in creating an image that better represents what the photographer saw / envisioned in the scene.   Like any processing tool it can also be put to really bad use and take out lots of kittens along the way.

Trey has killed his share of cute furry creatures. There are probably some bad HDR pics in the book, I don’t know as I haven’t read it, but the book is for learning and it is important to share and learn from mistakes.

Just keep them off of Flickr.

If you are intersted in HDR photography then head over to stuckincustoms.com and read and practice using his free HDR tutorial.

Save the kittens!

I’ve been shooting all Nikon D3oo bodies last year.  [...]]]> Summary: I’ve added a new body to my street bag.  The color is different between body models.  While color-correcting images I found that the white found on a can of Lone Star Beer is a very convenient way to do a quick white-balance correction in Adobe Bridge.

I’ve been shooting all Nikon D3oo bodies last year.  A few days ago I traded up one of the bodies to a newer D300s. Now the RAW unprocessed color across the different models is different in a bad way.  I find my new D300s uncorrected RAW images to be a few points magenta and blue (purple).  This wrecking havoc on my workflow as I’m having to color balance all 70+% of my images in a way that is different from the 30% of the images I’ll shoot with an older D300 at an event.

If it were a few images I wouldn’t care.  However New Year’s Eve was my biggest shoot day ever only to be followed up with 10 days of Free Week Austin which will result in about 1200-1300 published images.  If I spend and extra 10 seconds on each image to color correct it then that is 3.5 hours of extra time.  You get the idea.

First thing was to change the color balance in the camera.  As I us AUTO white balance for most of my event work and it works well for the vast majority of pics.  I went in and made a small tweak the AUTO color balance to A1 / M1.  This pulls the automatic color balance away from the blue / magenta cast I was getting in skin tones.

Now I’m getting good results from the D300s that are comparable (yet not identical) to the default Auto setting on the D300 bodies.

Here’s the cool part…

As I was color balancing hundreds of photographs I found that Lone Star beer cans were a frequent common denominator – they were in lots of shots.  I started doing a simple white balance correction within Bridge using the top radiating white stripes in the can. I liked the results.  This really sped up processing time.

I decided to do a quick studio test on ‘Lone Star’ white.  These test were done setting the WB to Flash if only to lock down the camera and remove minor changes that can occur between two shots in AUTO.

Here is an images pulled out of RAW with no post processing other than resizing the image for this post.

I see the whites and greys shifting a bit blue and green.  Even on an uncorrected monitor you should see the image below is warmer.

Now If I white balance this print using a middle grey value in Bridge I get this:

White-balanced in Bridge using a middle grey (128) value

The middle grey at 115 is grey and the darker grey goes a little blue.  Note that the Green values do not change only Red and Blue change.  Now look at the values for hte ‘Lone Star’ White.  The ‘balanced’ images has a slight  reduction in blues and a larger bump in the reds.  This is fine as I don’t mind slightly warmer skin tones.

Now if I were to white balance a real world image using point #2 I would blue up the image a few points.  So I can take the uncorrected image in RAW and white balance it using ‘Lone Star’ White to get a fairly close white balance.  Almost as if I was shooting with a grey card in the scene.

Keep in mind that this is MY set up for shooting a SB-900 on a D300s

I haven’t tested it with a PBR but in practice I get similar results doing a whilte balance off of the white on a can of PBR.

Blah.  I even saw a post today about shooting the triangle.  Sure, it’s a compositional technique but it misses the point that it is one of many compositional and design techniques that [...]]]> Lots of sites seem to provide a short list of 10 or 8 or 15 things to consider when shooting, printing, visualizing, et cetera.

Blah.  I even saw a post today about shooting the triangle.  Sure, it’s a compositional technique but it misses the point that it is one of many compositional and design techniques that we use in photography.

I’m not against these tip lists.  They can be very useful to the new photographer working on a specific method such as macro or super-telephoto wildlife photography.

What all photographers need to do is become familiar with their equipment along with the range and  limitations of such.  Having a comfort level of equipment added to the photographer’s own comfort level of light, environment and building upon experience will allow the photographer to work within these limitations and that is where creativity can really flow.

The best example of this comes from my teaching underwater photography.  First, you have to be a good SCUBA diver.   Second, you have to be able to manipulate your camera with competence.  Then after these skills are developed you can then start to discover, frame, explore, look at photographic subjects and create frames.

So here is my list of ten four things you need to do to be able to take good pictures on a regular basis.

1. Understand how your equipment works. When someone hands me some point and shoot camera I still have to ask where the zoom and shutter release are.  While it would be good to know all about exposure comepnsation and focus methods for the particular camera I’m handed, it isn’t important for me to know.  What I bring to the creation of the image is my ability to compose.  That’s it.  I don’t have expressive control over anything else so I don’t worry about it.  When I shot with my gear I have dozens of options over the control of the image.
2. Understand light. Photography is the art and science of producing images onto a light sensitive surface.  It can be silver-based film or a modern digital sensor or even the base of a camera obcura.  Light is the basis for all we do as photographers.  Understanding how to post-process and print an image is an extension of this concept.
3. Understand and work your environment. As a photographer you work within your medium within a certain environment.  This can range from the safe confines of a studio to the battlefield.  Understanding the space around you and the abilities or features of your environment will allow you to create better pictures.  Do I have lots of control in a studio setting? or do I have to be careful about bullets and mortars.  Sure those are some the extremes along the environmental continuum, however what about someone begging for change, or that impending thunderstorm, or that gathering crowd, or that fading sunset, or that melting ice cream?  Your environment includes everything around you and you have little( or no) control over your environment.
4. Build upon your experience and study. The more you shoot the better you get.  Shoot lots.  The digital world allows us this luxury that used to be afforded to the professionals, the rich and the maniacs that would roll their own film and work in photo labs to get free processing (I’m in that last group).  Discover from your bad mistakes and revel in your good mistakes.  This is self-study.  Add to this by looking at other photos and reading or studying about photography, design, composition and whatever else you find interestingand related to photography. The more you shoot and study and the more you expand upon your experiences the better a photographer you become.

I see lots of top 10 or top 8 things to do type posts.  Yikes, I’ve even seen a 50-things-you-should-do post.  (Who’s going to remember those?) These can be useful to the neophyte but they need to be regarded in the larger sense of what you are doing as a photographer.

When I upload a 1x1px images I don’t get any errors. When I upload any other image from 50x50px to 5×7@300ppi (1500x2100px image) I get this error message:

Warning: imagecreatefromstring() [function.imagecreatefromstring]: No JPEG support in this PHP build in /export/home/davidw/weaver.net/wp-admin/includes/image.php on line 147 63

Is [...]]]> Right now I’m just testing to see when I get an error

When I upload a 1x1px images I don’t get any errors. When I upload any other image from 50x50px to 5×7@300ppi (1500x2100px image) I get this error message:

Warning: imagecreatefromstring() [function.imagecreatefromstring]: No JPEG support in this PHP build in /export/home/davidw/weaver.net/wp-admin/includes/image.php on line 147
63

Is the image too big? If I continue the upload process all the images display as you see above.

is this a PHP 4.x vs. 5.x issue?

[update 6/20/09] It seems to be an issue of not having the GD or comparable library of image processing files on the host. I’ve sent a note off to my ISP.

[update 6/30/09] The function call that creates this error comes from /wp-admin/image.php I still can’t determine if this is a PHP issue or something else. GD is installed and is currently “GD Version bundled (2.0.28 compatible)”. I’m taking a hint from this post (http://wordpress.org/support/topic/220694) to see if I can use the ‘Save for Web & Devices…’ in Photoshop CS4.

I’ve just run some tests. Changing the way the JPEG file is created and I still get the same errors. I also took the file down to a reasonable web size of 900px x 650px and saved it using the ‘Save for Web & Devices…’ setting in Photoshop, this also resulted in the error.

Looking at the image.php file I note that there is an extra linefeed after the closing ‘?>” in the file. I’ve corrected that and put the changed file, now let me try uploading a small images that has been saved for web from PS.

Rats. No change in errors. So now I’ll Google “No JPEG support in this PHP build”. Looking at phpinfo reports that I’m on 4.43

More info at this post http://bugs.libgd.org/?do=details&task_id=125

There seems to be a faily old version(2.0.28) of GD installed. It’s old enough that I should go looking for old posts on this problem.

AH HA! I’ve uploaded a 900px wide version of a file as a PNG-8 file and it worked without errors!
Now time to try this with a large PS image that has been converted to PNG-24.
I’m going to toss this problem back to my ISP and ask for an upgraded GD library until they can upgrade to PHP 5.x. This link may also be of interest to the server admin too: http://phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?t=10303811

SOLVED!  The problems was that there was no JPEG support in the php build.  This has been resolved by my ISP.

This question isn’t well answered at an event I’m working [...]]]> I get asked this question a lot when I’m out in the field shooting.  The A-List on http://www.austin360.com is a major customer of mine.  I wear a branded shirt at every event I shoot for them so I am readily identifiable as a shooter for them.

This question isn’t well answered at an event I’m working because…well…I’m working to get photos of  the event and I can’t really take the time to answer this – nor an I qualified.

My editors assign me to events based upon what they think is a good event for their site.  I have other clients and they assign me to events based upon their needs.  Think of me as a waiter assigned to a table: I will work to provide the best service possible for the assignment.

As a freelance professional, I don’t question my clients motives or purpose or the demographics they are seeking.  I take assignments.  I get paid for those gigs.  I’ll go shoot events aimed at any demographic and variations thereof based upon if it is an assignment.  It’s not that I don’t care what you do or where you are from, it’s a simple business decision – a client has an assignment and I there to fulfill it.   This is one of many reasons why I love my job, I get to go places I wouldn’t normally go visit.

As far as I can tell, the A-List events need to be in Austin or nearby Austin.  They need to fit their sociodemographic/reader-viewership profile.  This is true for all the publications I have shot for and is not specific to the A-List.

I shoot for other publications and business  too.  They (generally) want shots in Austin (because I’m…well…in Austin) and they have their set pf requirements.  I love taking gigs outside of Austin as I get to diversify my shooting territory.  at the end of the day I shoot what I’m assigned to shoot and I love that.
Back to the the question “What is an A-List event?” I’d suggest sending your recommendations and event notifications to austin360@statesman.com.   There is a slew of staffers/producers that read and digest and suggest recommended events that I and others might get assigned to cover for Austin360.com.  A little planning is certainly appreciated.  Asking your event to be listed the day before won’t generally work well.  Sending notice a month out then a couple weeks out then a week out seems to be a reasonable  PR/marketing strategy for event promotion.  That’s what I see some of the PR pros do.