Making a Good Print Great / Resolve Photo Workshop

In these days of 4K resolutions, OLED displays and curved screens, there is still nothing that compares to a well printed photograph on carefully chosen paper.  Resolve Photo has been an integral part of my work flow for my fine art work since 2010.  When Costas at Resolve Photo suggested I take one of the Open Studio series of workshops in printing I jumped at the chance.  The process of getting an image to where I want it is an iterative process.  To make a good print great I follow this workflow:

1. First edit in Photoshop
2. Send file to printers
3. Printers make a test strip
4. Review test strip and mark up any changes
5. Second edit in Photoshop (rarely will the first edit be bang on)
6. Send newly edited file to printers
7. Printers make a test strip; or, if changes were minor, print the final work

All of this back and forth takes days or even weeks to come up with a finished result.  The workshop allowed me to fast-track the steps in one session with a few of my new images.  It also gave me some good insight into different paper types for future consideration.

The session starts out with picking and choosing a few images to work with.  Here is very talented photographer Royce Howland of Resolve Photo getting the editing station ready and showing me a few of his valuable Photoshop tricks.

Here is Costas of Resolve Photo (right) and Chris (left), another photographer going over his test strip.

Royce changing the roll of paper so we can try a different paper type.

Let’s start marking up the prints shall we?

It’s important to make note of what you like and what you don’t like in the test print.

All this work isn’t seen in the finished product but it is there. If you aren’t doing this then your images aren’t the best they can be.

More deliberation.

More print examples by Royce

Here Royce and Costas are deliberating and expressing what they like and don’t like from the three paper types we chose. Listening to two master printers deliberate over your work is quite nerve racking, but very useful!

In the end we all agreed a less glossy paper was best for my abstract series of work.

It was a fantastic experience, one that I highly recommend to any photographer who prints their work.  Resolve Photo holds these and other workshops throughout the year.  They are small in number so you get quality instruction time. It’s definitely worth the price of admission.  A big thank you to Costas and Royce!  For more information check out Resolve Photo’s website.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2015 at 4:58 pm. It is filed under Round Pixel News, TOPICS and tagged with art, equipment, how to, industry news, photography, photos, prints. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.