HOT TOPICS IN LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

What does the landscape photographer need today?

In the past, landscape photography often was about format; this has changed as you’ll see in the following articles. Digital photography and technologies have dramatically transformed what’s possible. Film is still important to many photographers, but realistically, that media is rapidly disappearing as a force in nature photography. Just try to find any choice in film at outlets that used to sell all sorts of film, if you can find it at all.

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Inside A Big Lab Print
Discover what your lab needs to give you the best-looking, extra-large images.
By Dave Willis

If you’re printing large, it’s more than likely you’ll have to deal with a lab. Most home printers don’t have large print capabilities, and labs can print big, really big, and they can do it on a variety of materials.

“We can print anything,” says Rich Seiling of West Coast Imaging. “It’s not really what we need that matters. It’s what expectations the photographer has. I’ve seen 30x40-inch prints made from 35mm film, photographs that are astounding. They don’t have the detail or resolution that we can make from 4x5 film, but the content of the scene is there.”

As with anything big, though, size matters. The more data you have, the higher the level of resolution you’ll get when printing. For a 13x19-inch image at 200 dpi, for example, you’d need about 2600 x 3800 pixels (13 x 19 x 200), which divides down to 9.9 MB.

“For most files, you need about 200 dpi of real resolution to keep the image optimum,” says Seiling. “We’ve seen really great prints from 150 dpi images, but at some point it just starts to lose the tactile qualities that you should expect from a print.”

Remember, too, that your print will end up a lot bigger than your LCD screen. Correct focus is paramount. You may get away with a slight blur at normal sizes, and even correct it a bit, but the larger the size of your print, the more the flaws will show. If you can, use the included features of your camera to check for correct focus and blown-out highlights. Some cameras even shoot exposure bracketing automatically.

“When you go big, every flaw and every mistake is magnified,” says Seiling. “If things are out of focus, you can get away with it in a small print. The same goes for depth of field, and any camera shake is really going to show up. Having clipped highlights becomes much more evident.”

When you’re spending money for prints this size, it’s a good idea to do test prints, as well. Labs can do any number of adjustments to color, density and contrast, and this is the time to experiment. Also, there’s a variety of reasons that images may not print correctly, from monitor calibration to human error, and it’s wise to have a physical preview.

“When I print my own photographs, I make multiple small proofs,” Seiling advises. “Once I get the small proofs the way I like it, I’ll make a final proof, at a final size, let’s say at 20 x 24 inches, and I’ll still consider that just a proof.

“The question is what’s pretty good? It’s not an easy thing to define with words. You have to look at prints that are at certain settings, make a baseline for yourself and then ask yourself if you like that or not. And then if you like this file that you made at 100 dpi, you know in the future you can print your stuff at whatever size you can get at 100 dpi. But if you say, boy, I hate it, then you have to add some more resolution, and print smaller essentially, so that you’re not spreading out the pixels so far and use that as your standard.”

Adds Seiling, “Printmaking in general is a lot more like cooking than it is a science. And we’re mixing different ingredients together to get the dish that tastes just the way the photographer wants it to. That’s what we’re here to do—we understand the ingredients, and if we talk to the photographer, then we can understand what the photographer wants it to taste like in the end, and we can mix up the right recipe that will get them that perfect five-star dinner that tastes exactly like they want.”

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When Does Digital Match Film?
Full-Frame vs. Small Frame Digital (Does It Matter?)