Professional Prints and Art | Kim Forrester Photography

So you had your photography session… now what? Chances are, if you invested in a professional photographer, your vision was not to have a collection of photos sitting on your iPhone (and if you did, this article might not matter to you LOL).

In this digital age, it’s easy to lose sight of WHY we take photos. Is it for bragging rights on social media? For me, it’s for creating personalized art to make my home feel more like home.

I get many prospective clients asking for the digital files from their session, which I totally understand (and is why I offer digital files as well). They commonly say “I’ll be getting my own prints later”, thinking it will be cheaper, or they would rather not make this decision yet.

After educating my clients on the value of purchasing prints from their photographer, they almost always go this route. Well today, I’m sharing some inside secrets with ALL of you, so you can see exactly why my clients so often make this decision!

So WHY is it better to get prints from your photographer than your print lab down the street?

1) That print lab down the street might not exist any longer. Photo labs like the ones at Walmart and Costco are closing down. These labs have traditionally existed for consumers to print casual everyday photos, but in the age of smartphones and social media, fewer people are interested in printing these photos, which leaves these photo labs without a client base to serve.

2) Your photographer works with a professional print lab that only services photography businesses that have registered an account with them. These printers produce a quality that is vastly different than the basic printers available at your local photo lab. I could go on about tones and colour depth, but for simplicity, my analogy is this: imagine you ask an artist to create a painting out of their extensive set of quality paints and the medium that works best with those paints. Now ask them to do a second painting using only your kid’s school supplies. No matter how talented the artist, one painting will look better than the other.

3) Your photographer’s monitor is calibrated to the printers at the lab they work with. This means no surprises in orange, shiny skin tones or neon green grass when you were going for a soft, airy style. I for one am very picky about skin tones, using natural light to softly fill in faces rather than show too much detail in pores and wrinkles (or under eye bags on new parents). My lab partnership allows my vision and effort to be transformed into a finished print that looks as beautiful as (if not more beautiful than) the digital image.

4) You will notice a bigger difference in quality with larger prints. Your only experience in printing might be in getting 4x6s of your own photos, but most of us want larger sizes when investing in a professional photo session. The bigger the print, the more important it is to ensure a quality print that only your photographer can provide for you.

5) Your photographer knows their stuff. Such as the fact that a canvas will lose a large portion of the edges to the wrapped canvas edges, or which labs are the best for which products. This will save you time and ultimately money in having to source your own prints and possibly have them redone or replaced.

6) Your photographer will save you hours of time on design. Before my photography days, I could easily spend a day or two creating a family photo album, and never would have been able to use Photoshop to extend the edges for a canvas or crop to preserve composition. Your photographer will take care of these steps for you.

7) How often have you had prints made, and left them laying around waiting to be put up? Your photographer will likely help you plan where to put your photos, so your walls will be filled with love and memories not too long after your photo session. I love to load photos of my clients’ actual walls into my software, and show them how their photos will actually look on their walls! Every time, they are beyond appreciative for this service.

8) I got my wedding photos at a local lab, and they have already lost their colour or are sticking to the frame and peeling. Professional prints boast longevity - my fine art prints have a 200-year archival life. Yes, 200 years! We don’t just get these photos for ourselves, but to pass down for generations. Never lose sight of that!

9) Large wall art is EXPENSIVE, no matter where you source it. But professional photo prints will actually cost you a lot less than commissioning an artist for a painting or purchasing a large one of a kind piece. The best part is they are art made out of the people and memories that matter most to you. There is something so special about a beautiful image on gorgeous archival paper, with stunning tones and colour depth, that will be in your home for many more years than a digital file that will get lost on an old laptop.

10) So you still want to make your own prints. Ok let’s see it! Will you actually get around to it? Before my print photography days, 9/10 former clients had never gotten around to making their own prints. Most new and busy parents just DON’T HAVE TIME!

Photographers, have I missed any important points here? Consumers, what else is stopping you from getting prints from your photographer? I want to know! COMMENT BELOW!