Printing Large

For the past few days (and the past few weeks for that matter) I've spent the majority of my time working on printing for my latest photography project. (See bottom for pictures of finished results!)

Usually for my photography class we print at 17x22 inches. For this project I choose to print much larger, at 37x49 inches (approximately 3x4 feet). I'm thrilled with the result, but the cost and time and problems took a lot of patience to deal with.

The end result is beautiful. Unfortunately, most people will look on this and say "Oh.. Harmony had it so easy, she just took blurred pics and then had someone print them." For any of you that may think this, I'd like to share some of my journey through this project. There were lots of problems, lots of solutions, and LOTS of learning. If anyone ever decides to print big, I hope my experience can help you avoid some problems.

My original intent was to print 5x7 feet. However, one issue is that with printing large you must have something to mount it on, otherwise you have to roll the prints, which will destroy them in the long run. There are a few options for mounting. You can use foamcore, matboard, chipboard, or frame your print. Foamcore is by far the cheapest option, and also the lightest, which makes it easier to transport. However, you can't get foamcore in 5 ft wide. The largest size foamcore that ANYONE in the US makes is 48x96 (and there is only one manufacturer of this size). At this size you can purchase one sheet from a local vendor for upwards of $100 per sheet. Or you can buy 10 sheets from the manufacturer for $600. Needless to say, I cannot afford to buy this size of matboard, so I had to shrink my size. After I decided to print smaller, I still had an issue of where to buy the foamcore. The university has the best price ($13) per sheet, compared to around $35 per sheet at local framing vendors.

Once I had decided on my size, I had to find a way to properly resize an image to fit that size, while preventing pixelation and gradation of colors. The problem is that when you start with an image around 13x19 inches and then ask the computer to add pixels to resize the image to 3x4 feet, you end up with a lot of madeup pixels. In order to help them phase and blend in well I had to do lots of test strips. I tried doing two layers overlayed on each other, with various opacities and then shifted only a few pixels. I also tried doing slight blurs, adding slight noise, and a combination of the two. Once I discovered which one worked the best, my next step was to print large.

Printing at that size means I cannot use the printers in the photography department. Instead, I have to print at the University's Datalab. This means I have less control over the print, and have to walk the person doing my print step by step through the settings I wish to use. Thankfully, most of the staff in the library has been more than helpful, reprinting multiple times when the error has been in their end. But this takes time. First there was banding, so they had to realign the printheads. Then the colors were rendering incorrectly, so they had to fix the color settings. Next, the ink heads started spitting out dots of ink all over my print, which would have meant we'd need to do a head cleaning, but it magically stopped. Also, instead of printing, every so often the printer begans spitting out blank paper (up to 15 feet) rather than printing. Wednesday, I was at the University printing until 10:00 pm!! I didn't get home until around 11 pm. We were able to print all four prints, but all of them needed to be reprinted due to the library's error. Thursday, I went in around 3:30 to commence the reprinting of my 4 prints and didn't leave until around 7:00 pm. However at 7:00pm I had 4 perfectly rendered prints with no visible technical flaws. Thursday went much smoother because they basically let me sit in the driver seat. (I got to sit down and apply all the correct settings while they watch over my shoulder.)

Next came the issue with mounting the print. There are many options for mounting prints. You can use spray adhesive (which tends to yellow after a period of time), Coda Mounting tissue (kind of like big expensive sheets of doublesided tape - extremely permanent, but if you catch any piece of your print on it before you're ready then you're in serious trouble.), hingemounting, or archival linen tape (like double sided tape). The University's foamcore comes with a slightly tacky side and then is run through a laminator to try to mount it. Unfortunately, although this works to some degree, this also results in many bubbles and warping of the foamcore. Thursday morning I bought some fancy doubled sided tape from Michaels. I did a couple tests on scrap foamcore and then a full test with a scrap print on cardboard, and this seemed to work pretty well. I met with both of my photography professors and discussed the various methods that would work best. By far the best option is to use coda tissue, however this requires lots of practice and time, neither of which I have currently. Using tape at the top and bottom edges is not always the best option because it can wrinkle your print and also cause it to wrinkle more over time as the print contracts and expands with temperature and climate. I choose to go with is to use archival linen tape, doing a full strip across the top edge and then three tiny dots or squares in the lower corners and middle to secure the print, while still allowing it to breath. Thursday evening I picked up some thinner archival mounting tape from NV Fine Art. It was much tricker to use than the tape from Michaels because it was basically a thin layer of glue. [When I say thin.. I mean like almost pulling apart from itself.] Because of it's lack of thickness, it was very difficult to lay down evenly and flat. I did many practice tests with the thin linen tape from NV FineArt and decided it was the way to go. It is super thin so it doesn't leave any bump on the edge of where it has been laid. Plus it is super strong! I finished mounting my prints Sunday evening. I managed to mount all four prints and only cause one tiny (and unfortunate) kink in one print.

After weeks of troubleshooting and learning, I'm finally finished! This was probably one of the hardest project's I've done, despite its facade of being easy. It was a rough and troubling road, but I learned a lot, and I've grown as a photographer and printer. I'm thrilled with the result and hope you are too!

[updated 04/11/2009]

Here are the actual images. I will post an image with me in it for relative size soon.