Tag Archives: digital

It’s certainly something I have noticed and as the audience for this blog is mainly digital photographers I expect you have too. We rarely have our photographs developed nowadays. Out of the hundreds, probably thousands, of photographs I take, only a tiny fraction ever make it into the real world.

In fact the vast majority of the prints I do make go to relatives. We do have picture frames, and they are digital prints, but long gone are the days where we would have full albums of prints. Our last significant photo album probably dates back quite a few years, to the peak of my film slr picture taking.

Digital photography buffs looking to new uses for prints

In the lucrative print business, the number of digital and film images converted into conventional prints has been slipping since 2000 and could dip another 5 percent to 25 billion this year, according to Photo Marketing Association International, a trade group whose annual convention opens Saturday in Orlando, Fla.

Overall revenues are rising, however, as alternatives blossom, from putting computer reproductions of images onto posters, postage stamps and postcards to T-shirts, chairs, wallpaper and bronze plaques.

“Images are no longer good enough in a frame on the wall,” said Mitch Robison, 46, whose Sierra Custom Design studio in Bishop, Calif., transfers photos onto ceramic tile to add sparkle to Jacuzzi rooms, restaurant murals, tabletops and fireplace mantels.

“It’s functional art versus just decorative art. People like to touch it. It’s a little more personal.”

While film processing generated just $3.9 billion last year, compared with $6.2 billion in 2000, digital printing — including consumables used at home — churned out an estimated $3 billion more in sales, said Dimitrios Delis, research director at the Jackson, Mich.-based Photo Marketing Association.

In addition, putting images on wood, stone, plastic and metal as well as paper of all kinds — birthday cards, calendars and storytelling photo books that “people actually use instead of just keeping around for storage or display” — brought in an extra $1.5 billion, Delis guessed.

I agree with the author of that piece, it is now more important to me that I don’t just have the standard 6×4″ prints. Those were for passing around to show off. We do that on the television, on DVD, using Flickr, there is no need for it. My next prints will be for hanging on the wall. In fact I would love to have a couple printed onto canvas.

The novelty ideas I am less enamoured with but I guess they do have a market.

That all being said, there is a convenience aspect both for and against prints. It is nice having physical photographs and I do worry about the ephemeral quality of digital. Arranging prints over the internet is a cheap and convenient option, Damian uses a supplier that charges around 6p a print, and I expect when you order a lot more it’s not even that expensive. When Flickr rolls out their print program to the rest of the world I expect there will be a lot of takers.

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