How long before prints are redundant?

FlyTVR said:
One spilt coffee and a print is ruined. Dribble IMHO :)

Back on track please guys - thread was not meant to be amount storage.

Put your tomorrows world hats on and think different mediums.
Click to expand...

It IS entrirely on track! :cuckoo:

Digital will never replace a physical product for the reasons I stated. That's my answer so it's not OT.

I know a lot of people who have lost data including photos. We may be more careful as photographers but not everyone is as paranoid as us and easily lose photos in digital format.

Another observation would be wedding fayres. When I do a wedding fayre I have both on show. I have a digital slide show and a pile of albums and nobody ever stops to stroke the screen.
 
Prints always look better than a screen, I have an Apple 24" HD display here for editing on and it is a lovely monitor. But make a print and it will have bigger wow factor IMHO. I did a couple of pics for a friend and sent him some high(ish) res images (about 8Mp) he said they looked really good so I ran a single print off in 9X12" of his favorite and his response when showing him it was great, he just stopped to look at it for about 3 mins and said wow, you cannot do that with online images IMHO.

digital photo frames and online image sharing are here to stay though, the majority of people and FAR more interested in convenience than quality, a blocky little image on face book will be 'better' than a high res print to a lot of people, same as a low bitrate MP3 to a CD or vinyl.
 
FlyTVR said:
Looking forward, online storage will be the only way. Fact. Stop looking in the past. You don't store cash under the mattress anymore!!!
Click to expand...

Not under the mattress, no but I do keep cash around rather than paying to save it... As long as inflation is above the interest rate, it costs (in real terms) to save.
While I do have a few pictures on FlickR, they're there to be hosted, not as a form of storage.

I was lucky to be able to save my Father's pictures from the digital recycling bin - another family member was going to clear the HDD and wipe out all his digital photos as well as the cherished older family ones he had scanned over the years.

Prints Rule!
 
FlyTVR said:
One spilt coffee and a print is ruined. Dribble IMHO :)

Back on track please guys - thread was not meant to be amount storage.

Put your tomorrows world hats on and think different mediums.
Click to expand...

I have a small dyesub printer and prints from that (only 6x4) are waterproof and fairly indestructible as soon as they emerge from the slot.
 
AliB said:
It IS entrirely on track! :cuckoo:

Digital will never replace a physical product for the reasons I stated. .
Click to expand...

That's a very broad statement? Just look at the music industry - digital downloads are surely outstripping CD sales.
 
FlyTVR said:
That's a very broad statement? Just look at the music industry - digital downloads are surely outstripping CD sales.
Click to expand...

Agreed they are...

but its not a good thing for the industry, its leading to a public acceptance of low quality media. like giving pro togs point and shoots and presenting everything in 600x800jpegs. would make things cheaper and quicker but is it REALLY the way you want the industry to go.
 
I can't see prints disappearing anytime soon. People like to have photos around them, on walls, in or out of frames etc.
 
puggie said:
Agreed they are...

but its not a good thing for the industry, its leading to a public acceptance of low quality media. like giving pro togs point and shoots and presenting everything in 600x800jpegs. would make things cheaper and quicker but is it REALLY the way you want the industry to go.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying I want a particular format to be the trend for the future. I personally prefer prints - and of course sell more prints to my clients than digital copies.

However, what I prefer is irrelevant. This is to a degree true of quality. Vinyl is better than cd. Cd is better than mp3. However, which will win?

I am trying to keep an open mind. I think it is narrow minded to assume prints will be the preferred format FOREVER.
I (like everybody else) do not own a crystal ball.
 
FlyTVR said:
That's a very broad statement? Just look at the music industry - digital downloads are surely outstripping CD sales.
Click to expand...


Single tracks yes, but full albums CD still out perform downloads, even vinyl LPs are seeing market growth.

FlyTVR said:
However, what I prefer is irrelevant. This is to a degree true of quality. Vinyl is better than cd. Cd is better than mp3. However, which will win?
Click to expand...

That's a very good point, I wonder if anyone offers phone size prints for sale along with hi-res and prints. Would be interesting to see how well they sell.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
whiteflyer said:
Single tracks yes, but full albums CD still out perform downloads, even vinyl LPs are seeing market growth.



That's a very good point, I wonder if anyone offers phone size prints for sale along with hi-res and prints. Would be interesting to see how well they sell.
Click to expand...

Yes mate. many of us do. Sell nicely for Facebook types :)
 
CaptainPenguin said:
I have about 20 picture frames around my house that every so often get new prints in them,what would 20 digital frames up to 20x16 cost me
Click to expand...

Fair point.

How long will it be before digital pic frames are cheap enough / sufficient quality? I can't answer that. For a second, imagine they were technically up to the job?
 
FlyTVR said:
Fair point.

How long will it be before digital pic frames are cheap enough / sufficient quality? I can't answer that. For a second, imagine they were technically up to the job?
Click to expand...

They do already, mount a plasma tv or lcd on the wall. £700 for a 50" frame now that is a cheap frame lol

Give me a quality framed print or canvas wrap any day. I want to enjoy it in my home and don't care that it is not portable. I can take a picture of it on the mobile to make it portable.
 
I've been watching this thread with interest. I think that the favoured medium is already digital!

How many people who aren't photographers actually print their images, not many. I've just asked someone who shares the office with me and the last time she had a photograph printed was 2005 (and she had to think long and hard about that) yet she has taken "about a 1000" since! I know this is a straw poll of 1 and cannot be considered conclusive but I'd be prepared to bet that I'd get a similar answer if I asked other non-photographers.

I think it's fair to say that asking a forum of photographers will get a different response to the public as generally photographers tend to care about images like image quality and other technical stuff so I think we'll stick to prints for a long time to come. As other people have said modern technology can't quite reach the same quality level as a large framed print yet and even if it could the cost would be prohibitive, and I think will be for a very long time.

I also think that whilst the numbers of professional photographers selling digital images will continue to grow quickly over the next few years I think it will be a very long time before the main things we sell will be digital. Firstly it's down to economics, a digital image on a memory stick costs many times more to produce than a mounted image yet the customer expects it to be cheaper. Secondly a digital image only stimulates 1 sense (sight) where as a printed image can stimulate up to 3 (sight, touch and possibly smell). That second one may sound a bit airy fairy but I understand that its been shown that the more senses you stimulate the greater the positive / negative response in the individual and the better able it is to trigger the memories, which is what professional photographers are really trying to sell. Thirdly a physical image will give a client instant gratification as the client can see the image immediately and admire their purchase whereas a digital product there is a delay between handing the product over than the gratification of viewing the product they've bought.

So in summary, digital is already the favoured medium for photographs but I think it will be a long time before the majority of Professional Photographers sell a mainly digital products.
 
FlyTVR said:
That's a very broad statement? Just look at the music industry - digital downloads are surely outstripping CD sales.
Click to expand...

Just look at paintings then, been hanging those on walls for centuries :lol:
 
AliB said:
Just look at paintings then, been hanging those on walls for centuries :lol:
Click to expand...

I totally agree. As I've already said, I prefer prints. I love opening the box and admiring the finished product. But what I enjoy as a tog is not necessarily a reflection of all others.

If I did have a crystal ball, I'm pretty sure it would render a healthy future for the print. However, I'm open minded enough to consider the fact that we just don't know what technological advances are around the corner. Such advances 'could' kill the print.

Outside of technological advances and alternative medium, you as an experienced wedding tog already know that there is a drive to providing the 'day' on disk. Who knows what the client does with those images. Maybe they are used as desktop backgrounds, facebook, etc. Question is, how many of those images are actually printed? With all your experience, I'd appreciate your input on that Ali.

Cheers.

Dav :thumbs:
 
I actually take along an old floppy disc when I see couples :) ask them if they would like wedding images on it. It just makes the point that just because CD/DVD has been with us for some time that it does not make it the best choice in providing some longevity. Printed material does.

I do also provide images on digital media, will happily use DVD/hard drives and even a tablet if they want to buy one but I just advise them to have both. I'll even resize images for facebook if they want me to do that. One of my options is also a digital slideshow to music and I'm currently investigating adding video clips to that so I'm pretty OK with living in the digital age. I just see it as a more transient product in comparison to a printed medium.

I have done two shoot and burn weddings this year and both couples came back and asked for albums afterwards. I don't pressure them to do that, just advise them and allow them to make their own (better educated) decisions. :)
 
Sadly in view of the short term nature of many weddings these days is longevity of media an issue. That said I'm glad I have B&W prints of my wedding and my parents all part of family history, besides digital wasn't even a twinkle in Bill Gates eye back then :)
 
artyman said:
Sadly in view of the short term nature of many weddings these days is longevity of media an issue.
Click to expand...

You Synic :D


artyman said:
That said I'm glad I have B&W prints of my wedding and my parents all part of family history, besides digital wasn't even a twinkle in Bill Gates eye back then :)
Click to expand...

I think that's where part of the problem lies in this discussion, we photographers recognise the value of real printed photographs rather than an onscreen image for both the asthetic and the historical value. However, the public on mass do not, I think most wouldn't think twice about throwing away an old computer without looking at the hard drive to see what's on it, yet most people wouldn't throw a box away without looking inside first. I think that future generations will look back and wonder what happened at the turn of the millenium!

I will repear what I said earlier and that I think digital is already the medium of choice for photographs, just not for Professional Photographs.
 
I think that, as long as people keep printing things (including letters etc) then they will continue to print photos if they need to. Whether there will always be a market for photographers to sell prints is another matter and we may well see the day when they don't even offer them anymore as the vast majority will want images on disk and will be quite happy with the quality of their home printing (as per Simon's point above).

As for the argument of current image formats possibly not being readable in 50 years? Highly unlikely to be fair. If formats do change that drastically, it won't be overnight and you can be sure that there will be plenty of software options for converting them.
 
FlyTVR said:
That's a very broad statement? Just look at the music industry - digital downloads are surely outstripping CD sales.
Click to expand...

thats an analogy that doesn't really wor, you could easily argue that downloads are easier, and sound better then cd's exactly as CD's were better then vinyl on most measures.

If you want an analogy, look at electronic books, which haven't taken off
 
fabs said:
As for the argument of current image formats possibly not being readable in 50 years? Highly unlikely to be fair. If formats do change that drastically, it won't be overnight and you can be sure that there will be plenty of software options for converting them.
Click to expand...

Does your computer take floppy discs Marc? They were around only 10 years ago and yet you would struggle to find a PC capable of reading them now. The legal profession are suffering from this as contracts pulled back from archive are unreadable in their digital format and we end up having the original documents scanned again and put onto the newer format. :cuckoo:
Our PC's dont have slots for the old floppies any more so we can't use the discs at all. Hate to think what will happen in 50 years but I won't be around to worry about it! :p
 
AliB said:
Does your computer take floppy discs Marc? They were around only 10 years ago and yet you would struggle to find a PC capable of reading them now. The legal profession are suffering from this as contracts pulled back from archive are unreadable in their digital format and we end up having the original documents scanned again and put onto the newer format. :cuckoo:
Our PC's dont have slots for the old floppies any more so we can't use the discs at all. Hate to think what will happen in 50 years but I won't be around to worry about it! :p
Click to expand...

My old 'puter has a floppy slot and I'm getting it sorted soon. Pretty sure you can get USB readers for them too, so no real need for the time and expense of re-scanning for a newer format (but then again, when has the legal profession ever tried saving money?)
 
AliB said:
Does your computer take floppy discs Marc? They were around only 10 years ago and yet you would struggle to find a PC capable of reading them now. The legal profession are suffering from this as contracts pulled back from archive are unreadable in their digital format and we end up having the original documents scanned again and put onto the newer format. :cuckoo:
Our PC's dont have slots for the old floppies any more so we can't use the discs at all. Hate to think what will happen in 50 years but I won't be around to worry about it! :p
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about media though, I was talking about the image formats (jpeg, tiff etc). If I had anything I wanted to keep long term, I would store them on hard drives with back ups
 
Nod said:
My old 'puter has a floppy slot and I'm getting it sorted soon. Pretty sure you can get USB readers for them too, so no real need for the time and expense of re-scanning for a newer format (but then again, when has the legal profession ever tried saving money?)
Click to expand...

There is when it's been in a box for ten years and you can't read them!

I've seen WAY too many instances of things like this happening and the legal profession rely on original signed PAPER documents for a very good reason. When it's a £475 million contract the cost of having the whole contract scanned is a mere drop in the ocean.

So no, I won't ever rely totally on digital media.
 
Maybe its not a fight between prints and digital, more a collaboration.
Even though the average joe is happy with low-res facebook pics, i think everybody to some degree is still impressed with a good print, and always will be. The only reason everyones mad for digital is because its convienient and allows everyone to take and share pics easily. It doesnt have mean its bad for prints, because you can make a nice print, then ten years later if its looking tatty or gets eaten by the dog, you can just print off another one from your 20mb digital backup.

Seems like we've got the best of both worlds tbo. Digital imagery is gonna grow better and better (i.e more bandwidth + cheaper servers = bigger, better files being shared) prints will always be there and hopefully become better and more cost effective too.
 
DekHog said:
People are so accustomed to seeing photos only on a screen these days, that when you hand them a framed 12" x 16" or similar, their jaws literally drop.... no chance of prints vanishing any time soon.... or probably any time at all.
Click to expand...

Totally agree and this reason probably makes large prints more valuable than ever!

I reckon online has probably effected smaller prints like 6x4 but large stuff for the wall still rocks!!! :D



FlyTVR said:
Most of us are happy with the banks looking after our money, so with regards to images and storage is there any difference?
Click to expand...

I would suspect that there will be hardcopies made as a backup (not to mention digital backup).
 
People are always going to want something to hang on the walls...
 
I've noticed a big increase in the number of prints I've sold over the last few months. I upload watermarked, low res images to Facebook for friends and family of the people in them to see, and then they choose which they want printing. The odd person will try copy the images & print them, but most local printing places won't print them with my logo on and it can't be cropped out
 
I much prefer prints to screen viewing, I have over 200 on my walls and enjoy looking at my work that way. If its not worth printing its not kept. Just what I prefer.
 
for me the thrill of photography is seeing your creation printed large hanging on the wall.
 
Last edited:
I will always get photographs printed, just like I will always buy a paperback book. I can't see myself moving to digital display units anytime soon.
 
Nod said:
My old 'puter has a floppy slot and I'm getting it sorted soon. Pretty sure you can get USB readers for them too, so no real need for the time and expense of re-scanning for a newer format (but then again, when has the legal profession ever tried saving money?)
Click to expand...

Fine up until the point you realise the originals were in WordProc 14.2 (or whatever was the industry non-standard at the time) and you realise you a) don't have the software anymore, and b) don't have an operating system that would run it even if you did. And that's before you remember that up until the mid-90's bespoke non-standardised software was the norm for many business applications. It's a serious problem, and if any profession could just USB in ane xternal floppy drive they would.

Somewhere I have the disks for DOS 3 through to 5, but I have no idea if the necessary drivers even exist to run it without finding a period PC. Mind you, I'm pretty sure I can also lay my hands on an old 286 laptop (gas plasma screen - perfect for frying your breakfast). There are also a couple of computing museums that specialise in maintaining old computer hardware, operating systems and applications.

The major advantage that slides, negatives and paper prints have is that they are neither hardware or operating system dependent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top