One of the most satisfying things, is seeing my images come to life in the physical world. When they become hard-copy, I see so much more in them. Like sitting with a good photography book, there is a different kind of interaction that happens when I look at printed paper than a computer monitor.

Thank you everyone who bought a print or two from my recent newsletter offer. I like to offer specially discounted prints each time I publish a new set of images. I’m not sure I will do this all the time, but probably just when I feel like it. You see, it’s rather tempting to give myself an excuse to print them all out.

I rarely actually print any completed images until I have a purpose or aim for them. If I am preparing a new photographic book, or someone places an order for a print, then that is when I will actually print them. And each time I do that, I always see tiny things that need improving in the edit. I should really print everything I consider ‘finished’ because they aren’t really completed until that final sanity check is done. A computer monitor only goes so far.

It’s always good to use cotton gloves when printing. Any oils on your fingers will always get onto the paper. Also check the platen-gap of your printer as this is one of the reasons why you may see black ink marks on the paper. My Epson printer always defaults back to a standard setting for the platen-gap, and I tend to prefer to use thicker paper which requires the platen gap to be set to wide.

A good guillotine is worth the investment as well, and a decent desk with which to store your prints. Over the years, I have always encountered print damage if I have the prints stored anywhere but inside a set of drawers. The universe seems to conspire to make sure that prints will get damaged if placed anywhere else.