Prints or Digital

Prints will always have that special look to them that can't be duplicated on a computer screen not to mention the many ways you can display them. And prints can be viewed with no power, no electronics and last at least 75 to 100 years, possibly longer when properly cared for.

So the question is, what images should be printed? The simple answer is, which ever images you want in print. However most people shoot far more pictues with digital than with film, so the number of images sitting on the memory cards and hard drives can easily grow into the tens of thousands for an avid shooter. It has become impractical for most digital camera owners to print all of their photos.

So does one decide which photos to print and which to leave in storage? Here's some tips that may make the decision easier.

Before deciding what to print, it's a good idea to organize the photos in some way. There's a number of software solutions for this that work very well, if you take the time to setup everything and put in the information needed to properly use them. I like to keep things simple and usable down the road on pretty much any computer or operating system I might be using. So I chose the very simple approach. I create a folder called "Images" or "Photos" and then I create subfolders for each photo event that includes the name and date in the folder name. Then I put all the photos from an event into the appropriate folder. An event might be a few hours or a two week vacation I took over the summer. The idea is, I can very easily look through my folders and find the event or point in time I'm looking for. This method is free, it works in Windows, Mac OS, Linux or any operating system that lets you create folders. Backup is easy and there's no need to enter a bunch of data for you images. I do recommend backing up events to CD or DVD and label them by the event and date just like the folders.

Now with the storage and backup figured out, I look through my images and determine which ones to print. I usually create a temporary folder to copy the images I want to print to so it's easy to send them to the lab or put them on a CD to take to the lab.

To determine which images I want to print, I usually consider a few things. Is this a special moment, memorable or important? Something that I would want for a keepsake regardless of how good or technically correct the photo may be. If so, I will want a print.

Is this image a must have as a print for any other reason? Doesn't really matter what the reason is, just that I really want a print.

Finally, I will consider images based on how good they might be to display in an album or frame. For this I will usually look for the best images because I will have likely shot a number of similar images and I want to choose the best one. I may spend some time cropping and working on the selected images to prepare for printing so I got the best print I can. When selecting images like this I will also consider other things as well:

- Why did I take this photo?
- Is the subject of the image obvious?
- Does the image tell a story?
- Is the image sharp and in focus (or at least the subject)
- Does the image have a good exposure or it or parts of it too bright or too dark?
- Is the overall quality of the the image good?
- Is the image something I'd like to see in an album or framed and hung on the wall or sitting on a desk?

These are just some things I like to use when choosing my images for prints. Nothing is cast in stone, but like most, I can't afford to print tens of thousands of images, and I wouldn't have taken that many with a film camera. I do think it's very important to have some of my images in prints and I recommend that everyone do the same. Hopefully, these tips will encourage you and others to make prints too! And finally, keep in mind that just because you don't make a print of an image now, doesn't mean you can't come back at a later time and print it.