In this exercise I am asked to put together a quotation and comparison from three companies to get my images professionally printed. To get this done I will need to have a set of criteria to work to. I think that I must look at getting the print completed as big as possible so A3 or A2. I will look at C- Type printing and Giclee printing.

Before I put together the quote I think it would be useful to look at the difference to fully understand what is on offer from the companies I get quotations from.

C-Type printing or Lampda printing is much like a develop analogue print. Photographic paper is exposed to light to create a high quality print. It is almost a darkroom in a digital age. Quality photographic paper goes through the printer and is exposed to light. This light contains the data from a digital file. The source can be either LED or Laser light. After exposure it goes through a typical chemical process to fix the exposure. The paper can be Matte, Gloss or Metallic and the finished print is termed Archival and has a life of up to 40 years. The finished product will be of around 400 dpi.

Giclee printing uses a high quality printing employing 8 to 12 inks sprayed through a print head. This produces a high quality print however it will not be quite as detailed as the C Type print but will be of high quality none the less. The big advantage for Giclee is the number of papers available From Matte, Gloss, Super Gloss, Cotton, Textured and so on. You can combine this to create effects to bring the best out of you images. The finished product will be 300dpi.

Neither is better than the other they produce high quality prints we artists need to think carefully about what we want to say when we show our images. Using the right process can bring the best out of our work.

This first set of quotes is for C Type printing on A3 Matte paper with no mounting and no finishing coat. All prices include VAT. Paper weight is gm2.

Company	Place	Paper	Price	P&P
Spectrum	Brighton	Fuji Crystal Archive Matte	£8.88	£6.50
The Print Space	London	Fuji Crystal Archive Matte	£9.85	£4.35
Digital Lab	Newcastle	Fuji Crystal Archive Matte	£7.32	£6.95

This quotation is for Giclee prints the size is A3 Matte paper with a weight of around 310gsm. The great thing with Giclee is the number of papers available this allows us to create different effects. For this quote though it makes it a little difficult to create a level playing field. So I used cotton rag as a benchmark to create this level playing field.

Company	Place	Paper	Price	P&P
Spectrum	Brighton	Cotton Rag Matte	£12.48	£6.50
The Print Space	London	Cotton Rag Matte	£12.96	£4.35
Digital Lab	Newcastle	Photo Rag Matte	£34.00	£6.95

Next we were asked to prepare a print to the specifications the company require to obtain the maximum print quality for one of the companies. I chose Digital Labs to prepare an image for their process. Their website required the following.

• To get the best results please work in sRGB colour space ( please do not work in CMYK ).
• Files should be supplied in 8-bit mode. We use Noritsu 3701HD and 3704HD printers and a Chromira printer for large format prints and these will only handle 8-bit files. When working with 16 bit files please change to 8 bit as the last step of your workflow.
• All prints up to and including 18″x12″ (plus panoramic format prints up to 36″x12″) are printed on our Noritsu machines. Ideally these should be supplied at the required print size at 300ppi.(For good quality we advise at least 200ppi.)
• All prints larger than 18″x12″ are printed on our Chromira 50 printer and these should be supplied at the required print size at 300 ppi. (For good quality we advise at least 200ppi.)
• If you require large prints on our Chromira printer you can supply JPG files via our online ordering system or if you prefer to send TIF files please use the WeTransfer channel. When saved at a high quality compression setting (10-12) JPG files are perfectly acceptable in comparison with TIF files.
• If you do send TIF files for very large prints please flatten your images and do not use LZW compression.

In the final part of the exercise I am asked to consider if an inkjet print is a photograph. I thought it would be good to consider the meaning of the word photograph. The word derives from Greek and translates to light drawing. Collins english dictionary (Collins, 2019) gives the definition:

NOUN1. an image of an object, person, scene, etc, in the form of a print or sliderecorded by a camera on photosensitive material Often shortened to: photo

The process of allowing light to fall on a photo sensitive material is within my camera with light passing through a lens onto light sensitive material, the sensor. It is then store and manipulated digitally and finally printed using an inkjet printer at home.

I feel this is most definitely a photographic process which produces an image. What I must decide is how I want my viewer to see the image. Unlike a film camera I can decide to create a chemically produced image or I can use many different papers to create the look I want to get the best from my images.

Some photographic competitions wont allow inkjet prints but these are becoming fewer and fewer. I can understand why the organisers want to see chemically produced images however an inkjet image created with quality ink stands up just as well as a chemically produced image.

Works Cited

Collins. (2019). Collins English Dictionary. London: Collins Publishers.