Printing the Image - 2018.04.08 - Going Small

Given we were up in Portland photographing last weekend, and that we’re planning trips out  for next weekend and the fortnight after that (cross your fingers), this was a weekend to do prints.  While Ann and I discussed how to approach doing a massive printing marathon session to try out all of the sample papers we have, we decided the wiser thing to do was to make a couple of images using some smaller-sized 5” x 7” paper we picked up last weekend to see how smaller prints looked.

I decided to try two images that I thought would look good small, but that would hopefully still reveal qualities of the image itself.  I also decided that I wanted to take a step away from literal imagery.  Since we had most recently been to the Portland Japanese Gardens, I dove into my archives from that location to pull out one of the images I’ve been waiting to see in print.

I must be getting a bit better in my balancing of screen versus print because much of the character of movement, color and play of light one sees on-screen is in the print.  Interestingly, you can see the textures of the fish better in the print than on the screen.  The one aspect that is lacking is the sense of depth in the image.  There are some rocks on the bottom that show on screen that, while they appear on the print, don’t quite add that depth in the center of the image that I’d hoped.  The print is saved somewhat, by the swirls in the water on the outside of the frame, which does add depth to the image.  Very interesting.  

Another disappointing point is that the sun-lit spectral highlights on the surface of the water near the mouth of the yellow fish on the right don’t jump out like they do on the big screen.  I suspect that is the consequence of image size, given they don’t jump out at a smaller size on a digital screen as well.  It seems that, just like in printing, some things show up only when viewed big on a monitor as well.  The converse is also true, some images lose something when enlarged too big.  Yet another consideration one has to weigh when deciding how to print an image.  

The second image I decided to print was one from our first trip to Utah.  We were across a narrow canyon from Delicate Arch, waiting for the morning sun to break through the clouds when I walked over to Ann to chat and realized that the rock we were standing on had some incredible textures and colors on it.  So you know me, I went back to grab my tripod and camera camera, brought brought them over and pointed the camera downward.

This was one of my few compositions that I saw as a horizontal that actually works.  

And the print is splendid, with a three-dimensionality that the image doesn’t have on screen.  The white areas in the upper right and the thin veins that run throughout the image come alive in the print.  This is perhaps the first time that I think the print is better than the screen image.

Hmmmm, I wonder if it can do the same when printed bigger?  Much bigger!