Are Pricey Monitors the Answer to Good Prints?

One of my good photo friends emailed me today with a question about whether or not "people without access to pro-level gear are more or less fucked" when it comes to making decent prints of their photographs. My answer to this is yes and no. Yes, if you don't want to learn how to print. No, if you are open to learning certain techniques in Photoshop that will help you bypass the lack of fancy equipment.

The article which he was referring to can be found here. In this article, the author describes why LCD monitors make photos appear to be brighter and suggests some equipment to purchase in order to correct this problem. First, I would like to applaud this author for bringing up one, very important, truth about LCD monitors: Most (and I mean like 95% ) of them are absolute shit when it comes to color. Unless you are willing to spend $1k or more on a monitor that is specifically made for serious photographers, you are not going to be able to rely on your monitor for printing. Cheap monitors need tweaked. That's where the calibration hardware and software come in (and to be honest, they only really work on monitors that have color controls).

So, the author is right about the monitors and calibration. However, it's all about how educated and experienced you are when it comes to printing. The more experienced you are, the shittier equipment you can work with.

How you avoid spending 1k on a monitor and $100s on various software and calibration hardware is knowing how to color correct by numbers in Photoshop. Using the info palette and knowing a thing or two about color numbers will get you good color even on a laptop monitor. In terms of brightness/darkness? Use your histogram people! Create a curves layer and go from there. All this information is in the actual file itself. So, I guess, what I am saying is, you don't need your eyes. When it comes to making good prints from a crappy monitor, it's like using braille. It takes practice and is a bit of a pain in the beginning, but after some time, you won't need fancy gadgets to get good prints. You will be able to print from anything!

Also, the actual out-put is important. You need paper profiles that are made for the type of paper and printer you are using. I have a very fail-proof technique for applying these profiles that I may flush out in another post if there is enough interest.

Don't forget maintenance. Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance. Always run a nozzle check before you begin printing. Make sure that your POS printer is in good running order before the first print goes.

Test print! Make small prints.This is all about getting precise color, so you need to really get to know how your printer is printing in order to get a good grasp on the color in your prints.

I have an Epson 2200 that is about 4 years old. It has survived several moves and been banged around quite a lot (it was bought second hand). I still get prints out of it that blow people away. In a critique I had with Lind Connor, she told me my print quality was great. I printed that portfolio on my 2200 from an Apple Cinema Display I bought off of craigslist and, as we know, has no color controls built into the monitor.

Regardless of how much technology comes out to make printing easier for people, in the end, it's an art. Printing is an art and every art takes practice.