[brewmaster15]

I was thinking on what the end point of my photography was and realized I rarely print anything anymore. I have a million (aka alot) of images from film days that were printed up as was the way of the time. I can sit down on couch with family and friends and look at these. If I want, I can hold the picture in my hand decades after I took it.
Once digital images became the norm I initially kept up with printing them as it was habit but gradually I got into viewing them on digital screens because it was easier and cost effective. I have years worth of these images now archived on hard drives, posted on websites, on a digital picture frame(I never turn on).
I feel like I have lost these images. I know I have them somewhere but to what end? I recently posted a thread asking how you store and keep track of your thousands of digital images. In that thread there was little mention of printing...though I am sure others do.It just got me thinking of how little I print now and wondering if I am missing something intrinsic to my photography hobby by not printing. I feel I am. This was brought home by an image posted by a forum member,Dewman, of his now grown son as boy and his dog.
I'm currently going through my images trying to organize them better and have decided to go back to my roots a bit and start printing them again. I know it will take more time and cost money but having a physical hard copy of that moment in time is something of personal value to me...Ive missed it in the digital age.
Do you print your images much? at all? not as much as you used to? Why or why not?
If you do print them where do you, at home or commercial business?

Al

[biz-engineer]

So you took a great picture, Now what?

I evaluated a few photo labs for large prints 24x36" and more, with a variety of papers in print tech. Now I resolved to print at least a half-dozen poster sized print of selected photos, each year. I found that it's best to wait for at least a year to decide what photos to select for printing, and it is more cost effective to print a set of photo as a batch, sharing shipping costs. I've also make an acid free card boad type folder 32x48" to keep large prints out of light and dust. I really enjoy displaying those prints, it's not the same as looking at an LCD display, a print is a physical object that has a value of its own. Digital has the advantage that we can be critical, delete photos, at no cost, and this is especially good to be more selective for the prints we do. Staying digital is only 90% of the photograph process, not 100%.

[microlight]

I have four enlarged prints displayed on various walls at home, but otherwise haven’t had anything printed for years. My best travel shots end up as part of my rotating computer desktop. My camera of course out-resolves the HD display by many times; but there you go. It was the same in the film days with a packet of small prints from the chemist’s.

[pschlute]

I have two freestanding frames on my desk and a larger wall frame that takes 24"x16" prints. I get prints done every three months or so and put new pictures on show.

[KiloHotelphoto]

I do a lot of 20x30 metal prints and have them hanging in my home. I switch some out from time to time to change things up but have a couple that I like so much they stay up all the time.

[EricBT]

About fourteen years ago, after getting my first digital camera (a Fuji Finepix), I made a photobook of a trip my wife and I did to Canada and the US. I really enjoyed the process of creating the book so I have done this on subsequent trips we have taken. I then started thinking about all the other photos I have taken that weren't part of holidays.

So for the last five years I have put together a photobook of what I think are the best pictures I have taken that year. It's quite a challenging process because you are limited by the number of pages you can put in the book. I have to decide which picture deserves to take a full page to itself and which can share a page with others. The yearly books are both a mix of what we have done together that year and a selection of my more creative shots.

While I like being able to browse photos through my computer, there is nothing quite like taking a hardback album off the bookshelf and sitting down together and going through the memories.

I should add that I don't limit the books to photos taken with a DSLR. Photos from my phone and compact camera can also scale up quite nicely to A4.

[Chris_K]

As a part of pursuing my photography hobby, I take lots of "family" pictures - kids, etc. I'm sure everyone does it to some extent. These pictures I print (in the lab) and put into albums, so in some years I'll have it collected and stored in some order. I use albums accommodating 300 pics 10x15 cm and I fill one album in about 2 years (it takes some discipline to keep that limit). From other pictures, my favorite landscapes, nature, street, and whatever non-family type, I print and put into frames on the wall (let's say a few every 2-3 months). These are periodically replaced.
It is not the perfect solution, but it has worked for me in the past few years and is not that expensive.

[LensBeginner]

I enjoy them on a profiled TV.
I often go back and look at pictures from past trips/promenades, but even more relevant, I harness the power of keywords in order to find smartphone pictures I took of some DIY, some odd job at home, a dish I prepared in a certain way... or "proper" camera pictures inside museums, especially if I happen to see another work from the same author after some time.

[Madaboutpix]

I rarely printed in the long years (I now feel) I wasted on slide photography, as even the best Cibachrome prints didn't quite do them justice. In the waning days of film, I discovered and appreciated the quality of Fujifilm laser prints (from Fujicolor negative film), but they were a cost factor that didn't go well with a family budget if you wanted to print regularly.

After the jump to digital, I soon stopped printing regularly, as the default mode of sharing images in the family became viewing them together on a PC monitor. It was also the time when I started to upload some of my keepers to places like Flickr, the Pentax Photo Gallery, and 500px (none of which I use any longer). Today, sitting around a PC monitor with the family has become a rarity, given that most of humankind's preferred mode of appreciating photographs, alas, has become flicking through them on ridiculously-small mobile devices. My upload site of choice is now my SmugMug account, capable of showing off my images in their full glory, provided people view them on a serious photo editing monitor (like I do). With some regularity, my dad depresses me by proudly announcing that he has printed a drab screengrab image of mine, invariably adding that he "can't see a difference" and that the quality is "just perfect" for his purposes.

For my own prints, I have learnt to appreciate the incredible value you get from images printed by our leading drugstore chain here in Germany, dm-drogerie markt. When small-and-quick prints do, the ones from their self-service printers are altogether decent. And for printing big, I have ordered awesome-looking up to 60 x 90 cm prints from them, which, laminated on MDF board by a local frame maker, are now adorning white walls in my home. It's just about the first time on my photographic journey where I'm genuinely happy with big prints of my best images. Of course, wall space is limited, and my wife does want a little space for some of her own paintings as well.

For mobile sharing, I use SmugMug's Android app, both for showing off in personal conversation and for sharing as regular WhatsApp Status updates.

[tvdtvdtvd]

Whether or not one has actually taken a Great picture, the necessity to print that image has certainly changed since the dawn of digital photography.
I have printed very little for the past 15+ years, largely because I have other options for viewing my completed images beyond inferring the potential
of a negative strip taped to a light table. Admittedly, digital has yet to offer a truly satisfactory solution for viewing a photographic image with the
same personal engagement that a physical print can offer. Instead, digital has given us 'reach', the ability to quickly share our images with a potentially
VERY large audience, but only for a fleeting moment before the image disappears into the dusty cracks of yesterday. Only very rarely does an image
achieve any sort of permanent life in the digital realm, though it's arguable whether that has any connection to its 'Greatness'.

Many attempts have been made to simulate the engagement of a physical print in the digital realm; slideshow apps, digital frames, vanity sites, online
photo album sites, social media, etc. But no solution has yet to offer that direct engagement that a physical print can offer. Nonetheless, I do think
such a solution will eventually come forth.

The thought of printing again does intrigue me from time to rare time, but most often if feels like a backwards step as having a print is strictly speaking
no longer necessary. So it then comes down to vanity, and yes, occasionally I capture an image that I feel is Great enough, or at least interesting
enough to desire to hang it on the wall. But that really is a tiny drop in the bucket and quite frankly, I'm glad I no longer have to wade through boxes
and albums of negative strips to suss out that Great image.

[aslyfox]

most my photos are " lost " in the digital world

either the cloud or external disk drives or these forums or flickr.com

so I understand the OP

the few that are printed are usually done by my local brick and mortar photography store

on large stretched canvas and placed at my wife's place of employment either in her office or conference room

they serve the purpose of " ice breakers" for her visitors

nice, where was that taken, is there a story behind it, who took it etc, etc, etc


we have few visitors at our home and I cannot convince myself that the cost of getting any for the home is worth the price

[tvdtvdtvd]

the long years (I now feel) I wasted on slide photography

I'm intrigued by this comment. Do you regret that you shot slide over negative? Or do you regret that you weren't born later and grew up
with digital for the get go with no time spent in the analogue years? Or do you simply regret that you didn't discover Fuji Laser prints
sooner? I don't know a lot about the history of Fuji Laser prints but I suspect they are a much more recent development than slide film
and thus wonder what other options did you have, way back when slide did appear to be the best option but now in retrospect you
consider otherwise.

[Mot11]

I have a gallery on a staircase leading to my attic study where I display large prints that I have printed on my 13" printer. I have also assembled collections and printed them in book form through online company. I heard a story about an actress in the 60's who would bring a camera on set and take pictures. One day someone asked to see some of the pictures and the actress said that she did not put film in the camera but that all of the pictures were in her mind. I take pictures for me and as such I am content to leave them on a hard drive after I've played with them.

[Madaboutpix]

I'm intrigued by this comment. Do you regret that you shot slide over negative? Or do you regret that you weren't born later and grew up
with digital for the get go with no time spent in the analogue years? Or do you simply regret that you didn't discover Fuji Laser prints
sooner? I don't know a lot about the history of Fuji Laser prints but I suspect they are a much more recent development than slide film
and thus wonder what other options did you have, way back when slide did appear to be the best option but now in retrospect you
consider otherwise.

Happy to oblige. Yeah, I guess there is some measure of regret in this, that I decided to shoot slide film rather than negative film. At the time, it seemed reasonable since I liked the breathtaking size and brilliance of the projected image. But over the years, I tired of the sheer effort of setting up the projector and screen, darkening the room, etc. Also, the other people in my life, who would have been my audience (beyond myself), no longer fancied analogue slideshows either.

As a result of my "fateful" decision, my old slides - some of them, for instance, covering my only family holiday in England - have sat largely untouched in their boxes for years (decades?). Digitalizing them has never seemed a compelling-enough option, as the time and money that I would have to spend on any serious solution, and the results I could expect, just don't match with my digital-age quality standards.

Had I gone with negative film, I could still get some decent looking prints today and in the future.

The slight regret does not amount to a grudge, though. To begin with, the film years of my photographic journey, frankly, didn't produce all that many images that I would consider really accomplished today. At the same time, I have also come to view growing up with film, and only then moving on to digital, as something of a valuable asset. In the sense that shooting film has taught me a lot about careful framing, nailing exposure, and a host of other things (both technical and image-wise) that have likely made me a better photographer.

Unlike some, however, I have little nostalgia for film, and little desire to return to it. If anything, digital has liberated me and my photography. Whether it has made people at large more appreciative of accomplished photography is another matter. (Phew, this has been a pretty deep walk down Memory Lane. Feels almost like a confession. )

[csa]

I only print the ones that stand out in some way in my eyes. Also enlargements that will compliment space on one of my walls. Other than that, I simply enjoy taking them!