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No, not that size, I'm talking about print size. I wrote earlier today about keeping images simple to be effective, but I have been thinking more about it and it seems to me that print size is an issue here. If the prints are small - say 6X8, a size I often print at on 8.5X11 paper, then the objects in the image are pretty darn close together on the print. Blow the same image up to 16X24 and it's a whole different game - now objects that practically touched in the small print are inches apart. They don't interfere with each other to anything like the same degree.
Perhaps this means that complex images need big prints. Of course, the other thing it means is that simple images perhaps don't hang together so well in giant prints, needing more to look at.
I'm going to do some experiments with print size, using my 7600 to make 20 inch by whatever prints for comparison.
Musings on photography, the art of creating images, technical talk, useful tips, rants and ravings of a published photographer of 40+ years experience.
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About Me
- George Barr
- I'm a part time working fine art photographer, full time family physician, and occasional model railroader.
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5 comments:
I can't remember where I read it, maybe it was on Dante Stella's site somewhere, but it was a quote that went something along the lines of "anything looks good at 20"x30", great images look good contact printed."
I not quite the point you were making, but it seemed relevant enough to me to be mentioned.
I've struggling with a tricy problem along these lines at present. I'm finding some images have sufficient fine detail to support 12" prints but the compostion and macro detail for someting larger (say 20"+) but lose the fine detail in the process.
Some of it is sensor resolution (technology limit), some of it is post-processing and some is technique limit (usually relating to handholding instead of tripod).
Somewhere there is a happy medium where the print is smal enough to supprot the detail present (and desired) but large enough to support the overall compostion and impact desired.
I think print size is something that says as much about the photographers style as it does the image content. Some like printing 8x10 foot murals, others 8x10 inch contact prints.
Smaller images invite close scrutiny, larger images are often best viewed from a distance for full effect. Would there really be much of a difference?
Of course, some photographers WANT to show as much detail as possible and shoot either very large formats or, as George, multi-image pans. In that case, larger prints may be the right choice.
For me, I prefer my images no larger than 11x17 as it allows sufficient detail without being too gaudy.
I can print 17x??? wide on the Epson 4000 but I have an art consultant that likes my work and keeps wanting me to print at least 24 wide on the short side. I did go to an outside printer and made some 30x30 prints from Holga negs. Those of you talking about detail may already be gagging, but surprisingly the fuzzy negs didn't look that much fuzzier at 30x30. In fact they looked pretty good and the four of them are hanging in a bank.
It seems to me that the current "style" or "fashion" is large images. I love small images I can hold in my hand. I've always said that a print on 16x20 paper was big enough. But....as I'm seeing some of these bigger images my eye is adjusting to them and I'm liking them too.
Maybe we have been constrained by the limitations of silver paper size and manageability to think smaller. Now we can print bigger so why not try bigger. It might not work for you or for all images but I think we will continue to see BIG images. Of course, for me, I still have constraints on bigger images....those darn printers get more and more expensive as they bigger. Oh, they use more and more ink on bigger images.
Billie's right, regardless of the 'right' size for an image, galleries do tend to push us to make big images. When you see photos of galleries with 8X10's on the wall and same with 36 X36 inch prints, there's no doubt that the eye appeal goes with the big images. Of course the other issue is cost - it takes the gallery as much effort to sell a small print as a large and the profit from a large image is dramatically and exponentially better (not to mention the profit from the framing job - which takes almost exactly the same effort to make a small frame as a large one).
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