Blog Entry

Help me choose photos to print

So, a couple months back, I finally replaced my old CRT with a swank new NEC LCD2690WUXi. The condition of buying such a high-end monitor was I had to promise myself that I would use it to further my photography. Specifically, I needed to use it to retouch some of my best photos photos and make prints of them available for purchase.

As a first step towards bigger plans, I envision having an automated made-to-order printer online. This way, all the photos I make available for purchase will be available any time, any day, and no one has to wait on my procrastination, or unavailability due to excessive workload or travel. I've been doing research on various online printing / fulfillment services, and this goal seems feasible. The purchase options, customer service quality, and other such metrics can all easily be evaluated through my own investigation and reviews on forums. The bigger issue (for me) is ensuring that the quality of the prints is up to my often-obsessive standards.

Numerous test prints have been ordered from different vendors. However it's difficult for me to judge the quality of the print without knowing what the original photograph was supposed to look like. All I can do is compare the image on the paper to what I think the image should look like. Things I judge as deficiencies might simply be differences in how the photographer chose to depict the shot.

So, my first order of business is to establish a canonical set of images that will serve first as my test-cases to evaluate the quality of online printers, and later as the first photos available for purchase. I already have a number of them which represent a sampling of my work in mind, but I'm not technically the intended audience. It is you, dear reader, who matters the most, as I hope you and your ilk will consider purchasing copies of my prints. While I can only guess which ones you'd consider hanging on your wall, you know with certainty.

So here's the deal -- and where you come in -- to help vote on which photos will make it into this first set to be available as prints. So, between now and June 15th (incidentally, my birthday), head over to my Flickr Photostream and tag images that interest you. There's a thousand-odd images over there, but I don't think all of them are really appropriate for print (or at least not at first). I'm mostly focused on my landscape, architectural, and abstract photos at the moment. I'm not really considering any of my club/concert- or bike-related shots at this time, so please skip those. Your best bet is to check out the Potential Prints set I've set up to collect the ones I think are likely candidates, or my Most Interesting set.

Shamelessly stealing this idea (and next 2 paragraphs) from James Duncan Davidson, when you find a photo that you'd seriously consider hanging on your wall as a print, tag it. The tag to use is printmeplease.

If somebody else has left a tag and you really want to second (or third) the vote, then by all means do so by leaving a printmeplease1 tag (or printmeplease2 tag ... you get the idea). These additional tags are very helpful to me to indicate interest. It is abusing Flickr's tagging system a bit, but it works well enough.

If you don't have a flickr account, and don't want to sign up, you can also just email your votes at site+photo@matttrent.com and I'll enter them for you. Just, please, send me the URL of the Flickr page to make it easy for me. Don't try to describe the photo and leave me to guess exactly which one.

After that, I'll collect the top 10 to 20 of my and your favorite photographs. Each of these will be lovingly retouched, using the full capability of my new monitor to really tune the quality. These photos will then be sent to the various online printers to evaluate their quality. Printers that don't make the grade will be cut, as well as photos that don't measure up when viewed in print. Eventually it will converge to the final set of photos and the final service. Then, the fun begins, and the prints can start rolling.

I've gotta say, I've been putting this off for a bit. It's a bit nerve wracking to actually try and attach a pricetag to something you're so emotionally connected to. It's one thing if lots of people say they like your work, but a completely different level finding out if they're willing to say the same with their wallet.

So, here it goes. Please take the time to vote if you're interested. I'd really appreciate it.

Edit (2008-06-04): Seems some of the oldest photos uploaded didn't have permissions correctly set so everyone could tag them. Should be fixed now.

Edit 2 (2006-06-06): If your interested in tagging any, I set up a dummy account people can use log into flickr as:
username: account.blank@yahoo.com
password: defaultentry