Printing your Photo’s
Until recently I had never printed my own images. As crazy as that sounds its totally true. Part of it was the fear of my images not being good enough and not knowing how they would come out. The other reason was well what am I going to do with them all?
At the back end of last year 2023 I started meeting up with a colleague from work who I'm now pleased to call a friend. He showed me his portfolio of printed images in lovely A3 binder that he purchased at Springback Binders and I was absolutely gobsmacked how well they looked printed. I instantly knew I needed to start printing mine so I picked his brains as to how and where he got them printed and was amazed when he said he invested in a printer and printed them himself.
After a lengthy discussion regarding the cost of a printer, paper and ink cartridges I decided to look into online printing companies to test what my images would look like printed before I delved into purchasing even more equipment.
Loxley Colour
After some research I stumbled across Loxley colour a professional photo printing company from Glasgow and was pleased to discover their very competitive prices they offered. I soon created an account and ordered my first prints.
They offer a wide variety of sizes and products to have your images printed on but I started off with the basics and got mine printed on Fujicolour Professional DP II Lustre photographic paper with Matt finish, 230gsm thickness.
The delivery is super cheap with UK Delivery (excl. Northern Ireland) Royal Mail First Class - £5.37+ VAT per order. I have been super impressed with how quickly they process the and deliver the order.
The day they were delivered I was scared to open the package just in case I was disappointed. However it was the complete opposite, I was really impressed how they looked.
8 Months on and I have continued to use Loxley Colour to date.
Tweaks
Now I’m not going to lie and say all my images have come out perfect, which is no fault of the printing company. Once I started testing larger prints I started to notice a few dust spots or lens smudges on my printed images. Easily fixed by going back into Lightroom and removing them by using the clone tool. But as you can imagine it gets a bit costly if your discovering this once your images are printed. So I now spend more time fine tuning my images in the editing process to check for these before exporting my images to print.
Financial Difference
So what’s the financial difference between owning a printer or using online print services you ask?
Well I’m no money saving expert but obviously you need to weigh up the cost of purchasing a printer and equipment and how much you would use it to get its full potential. Here are some examples of what it would cost to purchase a professional printer and accessories.
Mid range professional A3 printer - Canon image PROGRAF PRO-300 - £699.99.
professional quality print paper which can start from £40 and up.
My friend worked out that each time he prints an image in A3 it costs him approx. £7.
Now I can order an A3 print from Loxley for £5.50 plus VAT and delivery so you do the math.
My Recommendation
So to recap I would seriously recommend printing your images if you don’t do so already. You will definitely appreciate your images much more seeing them in the flesh. If you’re not sure where to keep them or you haven’t got the room to hang them up on the wall then don’t hesitate to purchase one of the binders from Springback Binders or something similar.
I would also suggest using a professional printing company initially to give yourself an idea of the quality of your images before shelling out on your own printer.