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Feb. 3, 2006
When I first got serious about taking pictures, I ran into my first obstacle—getting prints made that matched what I had seen. Sure, a few exposures were off now and then, and obviously my fault. But that didn't explain why even properly exposed negatives often yielded prints with flat colors, strange colorcasts, weird skin tones, lousy shadow details, high contrast, or all of the above. To be fair, the prints I didn't like often improved dramatically after I complained about the quality to the store manager, but I wondered why the job wasn't done right the first time. So I began my quest to find a photo-processing lab that gave me better prints, but didn't charge pro prices.
A few years later, the quest finally came to a surprising end when I made my first black and white print in a community-college darkroom. Actually, it took quite a few tries to get that first print right, but when I was finished I had an enlargement that no one could improve upon (as far as I was concerned). I was so inspired by the process that I bought a second-hand enlarger, trays, filters, and b&w chemicals at a garage sale. But I wanted to make color prints, so I also splurged on a brand new Kodak Ektaflex system for making color 8x10 prints (about $200).
The Extaflex system was revolutionary (for its time), and allowed me to make color prints at home without investing in an expensive color processing setup. It consisted of a big box with manually operated rollers and a single processing chemical. In my low-budget darkroom—a bedroom with several blankets taped to the windows and doors to block out light—I would expose a sheet of Ektaflex film in the enlarger, slide it into place in the processor, and wind a crank that pulled the film into the chemical tank for about 30 seconds. A few more turns on the crank, and the film would be sandwiched to a piece of coated white paper. After a minute, I would turn on the lights and peal the two apart (similar to making a Polaroid print). Viola! A color print was mine, made by me, and up to my standards—again, after a few mistakes and fine-tuning.
This simple device helped me break free of the lab technicians and processing machines that could only guess at what I wanted in a print. And it also introduced me to the craft of color printing, which of itself can be separate from the craft of photography. Sadly, nearly all of those Ektaflex prints I made over the course of three years (and mostly framed for my family as gifts) have all faded horribly or turned into off-color nightmares. Guess they weren't really dye-transfer prints, which last forever by comparison. But the excitement and the benefits of making my own prints have remained etched in stone.
My total investment in my first color darkroom was only $300—about what you'll pay in today's dollars ($500) for a fine quality ink jet printer capable of making up to13x19-inch prints. But why buy such a printer and make your own “digital” prints when there are now so many options to have them done elsewhere? You can use a photo store in any mall and a photo-kiosks in a wide variety retail stores. Or you can upload images to a dozens of online processors, and either pick them up at a local lab or have them mailed to you. Plus you don't have to buy inks and paper for your printer.
That said, there are three main reasons why I still print at home: Freedom, the Ultimate Image Quality, and the Longest Lasting Prints! Making my own prints gives me freedom to make prints when I want them, and it gives me the freedom to use unusual paper surfaces or make off-sized prints. Plus, I maintain the freedom to print whatever subject material I want without someone else determining the color balance, final look, or political correctness.
The ultimate image quality? Yep. I've found that several sub-$500 printers from Epson, HP, and Canon deliver stunning images that exceed the color gamut, saturation, and overall print quality of any silver-halide process (typically used at online processors and in digital minilabs) or dye-sub printer (used in kiosks). Plus I can make high quality prints on textured surfaces, such as canvas, or even black and white prints from color photos that can't be matched online or by a kiosk.
Unlike those early Ektaflex prints, the enlargements I'm making from my HP Photosmart and Epson Stylus Photo (R-series) printers will last far longer than I will without fading. And according to predictions, they'll last three to five times as long as the ones I'd get online or at a digital lab. Ok, in the long run I end up making mistakes that raise my overall price per print, but that's a price I'm willing to pay to remain a craftsman.
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