Nature Photography Photo Workshop

9.6. PRINTING YOUR PHOTOS

A fine nature photograph is never truly finished until it's printed. Making prints of your photos makes them tangible, meaningful, and significant. You learn a lot about your work and the technical process of digital photography by having your work printed. You can have your prints made by a service provider or learn to make them yourself.

For your best work, consider having the prints professionally framed and hanging them on your walls. When you look at a photo day in and day out, you learn new things about it.

9.6.1. WORKING WITH A PHOTO LAB

Most photographers start out having their prints made by a service bureau. You can work with a local lab where you drop off your files on removable media, or you can use a national lab that accepts files submitted online.

NOTE

Traditionally, photo labs processed film to make prints. Though they're still called labs, the process is now digital.

Although most labs use similar equipment to print your photos, the quality of printing from various labs varies widely. Order some small test prints before you have any large, expensive prints made.

The most important aspect of working with a lab is to find out about its color management policies and procedures. Many labs can provide a custom color profile to attach to your image files when saving them for printing; this simple step can often eliminate the majority of color ...