The Essentials of Street Photography by James Maher

Author:James Maher [Maher, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Matt Weber, New York City, Photography, Lee Friedlander, Bruce Gilden, Street Photography, Garry Winogrand, Blake Andrews, camera, Mike Petets, Dave Beckerman, Photographing People, Conceptual Photography, Richard Bram, Fine Art Photography, Leica, Henri Cartier Bresson, art photography, Portraiture, Jay Maisel
Publisher: James Maher Photography
Published: 2012-12-04T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28: Color Correction and Printing

Proud To Be American, 2012.

When working with digital photography you need to have a system that is color correct. It is a necessity. Otherwise, you are pretty much working blind.

You need a monitor that is color calibrated and that is able to show the correct color, brightness levels, and shadows. Let’s pretend that your monitor represents colors as less saturated than they really are and you are unaware of this. As a result, you will end up compensating for this by increasing the saturation of the photo. However, when you display your photos on other screens or monitors, they will appear over saturated.

Fortunately, this can be avoided by color calibrating your monitor. This is a straightforward process and all you will need is a color calibrator. I use Xrite’s i1 line of calibrators. The process itself takes approximately 5-10 minutes and it is recommended to calibrate your monitor every few weeks. Also, a good quality monitor is important. I use the NEC MultiSync 2690 and highly recommend this line of monitors.

Unless you are sending your photos to a printing service, it is not enough that the colors look correct on the screen. If you are printing digitally yourself then you need to make sure that your prints match how they appear on the screen. Digital printing is a science in its own right. However, printing is quickly becoming a dying art due to the rise of photo-sharing sites and inexpensive printing services. Technologically advanced monitors, screens, and tablets are everywhere and so many people just do not feel the need to print their photos anymore.

I may have traditional sentiments when it comes to photography, but I do not feel or consider a photograph to be a complete work until it has been printed and framed. Whether you print your work yourself or outsource it, I believe that printing is important. When comparing a spectacular fine art print to the same image on a computer monitor, the effect is like night and day. The impact, the message conveyed, and the emotion evoked from viewers when seeing a print is more powerful than when viewing the image on a screen. It is for this reason alone that you should print your best work.

In addition, I do not think that you can learn to truly retouch and color correct at a high level unless you are printing your photos to see how the final print appears. Something that might look fantastic on the monitor can look terrible when printed. It happens often, especially with grainy street photos. Printing helps to develop your eye.

Eventually, after you have printed your work enough times, you will learn to better understand what a photo will look like before it is printed. Even though I have printed thousands of test photos, I often still need to print something to see how it truly looks. However, I now waste much less ink than when I started.

Many people think that printing is just about pressing File—>Print and being done with it, but there is much more to it.

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