Printing/displaying from digital images

[PaulB]

Following on from the RAW Vs JPEG argument.

How many of your film negatives did you have printed above standard enprint (6"x4").
How many went up on the wall at display sizes?
(discount own family portraiture).

How many of you shot in transparency film - did you ever have them printed as above?

Has digital changed this?

Do you just tinker with the images and leave them on the H/D?
Do you send them off for printing/do it yourself on an inkjet?
What sizes do you get done/do yourself?

[SteveCliff]

I don't shoot that much - probably averaging out at around 50 frames a week.

I tend to keep a lot on hard drive (building up my collection for use in my Web Design business) but pick out 3 a month for display in my gallery (err, dining room!). These are printed out on my Canon S9000 at A4 and A3 resolutions.

The only other time I print is for other people - if it's a lot of prints then I tend to use an online printing service (provided it's A4 I print them myself.

Have got around 20Gb of photos over the years. And boy do I wish Adobe Photoshop Album had been out 3 years ago .... ;-) I'm just starting to categorise everything .... it's going to take a little while!

[Longwatcher]

In answer to questions
Before 1980:
I printed about one per roll at 8x10 on average, usually myself. Very few went on the wall. Once or twice I shot slide film.
1980 - 2000:
I Sent all film I did take off to lab, which auto printed 4x6. Just occasional memory shots, none sent back for enlargement. I have since scanned in a few family pictures.
2000 - Digital:
Starting with the Kodak DC4800 I bought to take some product shots, I have taken about 15000+ images.

What has changed is...
- I can take quarterly inventory shots of the junk in my house, instead of once in awhile.
- I have done some model shoots (some for company, some for self). I can take photos in vast quantity concentrating on getting what I want, not worrying about waiting for the right moment (this is good and bad thing as I tend to forget to slow down and actually compose the shot)
- I can just go out and shoot whatever I feel like with out worrying about cost.

I usually look for the jewels in the raw and if I see one I like, then I work with it, but the vast majority get archived onto CD-R just in case I ever have more time to re-review them.

I usually print most photos out on my Canon S9000, but have recently taken a couple of my better ones to a local printer to have made into 16x20 and 16x24. [Mostly as an experiment, but I have about 10 photos (out of 15000) that would make good wall art and as soon as I can confirm my color matches the printer color then I will have some more done and framed] The local printer can do 40" x whatever (scaled would be 40"x60"). Only 2 of the 10 would look good in that size.

The short is the cost of film was a limiting factor, while digital gives me the freedom to experiment without that limit and taking pictures is fun again.

[Barb42]

Question: if you have the S9000, why did you send your 16x20s out? The S9000 can print up to 13x19. Do you think the out-sourced prints are better?

[I use a 10D and G2 and have printed images from each a large sizes.]