10 things to being a better photographer
10 things to make you a better photographer
by Taran Morgan (aka yunfat)
I tend to talk a lot of smack on online photo forums, which is odd, because I am an expert in absolutely nothing… I have no formal education in photos or the fine arts, save the odd criticism class in University (I’m actually an english major). My photography training was, in effect, a baptism by fire… one day I was shooting nightclubs for fun and the next I was a stringer doing photocalls for the NY Post with Giselle Bundchen in front of my camera. It happens like that sometimes… I was lucky and unlucky at the same time. On the one hand, I had access to celebrities and made $500 a photo, on the other, I got involved in the seedy underworld of bourgeois photo agents who know it is unlikely you will find the photo of yours they just sold to People in Espanol or a German tabloid, a photo which you weren’t paid for (you can’t find the german tabloids at the local supermarket, ya know). Media is a strange place, and undergoing rapid and violent change. Photographers are largely treated as disposable objects at all but the highest levels, and sometimes a name is more important that being competent. Remember that… you could be the worst photographer in the world and still make a killing off your well marketed shots, you could be the best photographer in the world and still be anonymous when you are looking for gallery representation, that’s just the way it is. Be humble, be smart, and learn to value what you shoot, especially when it’s not an assignment.
That said, I would impart the following 10 things to anyone thinking about photography “seriously”. It is unlikely any of these things will actually help you generate income, however, they are the things that you should consider for the ultimate advancement of your photography in the “marketplace”. As they say before boxing matches: “Protect yourself at all times”.
1) IPTC captioning. A long time ago, my photo editor once said to me something which still resonates with me today. “A bad photo with a good caption is better than a great photo with a bad caption”. Within the publishing industry, IPTC captioning is the standard data field embedded in every photo. This metadata is handled by such programs as PhotoMechanic, Aperture, and Lightroom, to name a few. The reason why this is so important is because if you don’t put IPTC data into your photos, no one can/will pay you. No publisher will publish a photo that doesn’t have this information, because they simply cannot contact the photographer who took the shot. If there is no contact information, the photo is anonymous, and it won’t be published because the person publishing it doesn’t want to get sued down the road for printing a photo without proper accreditation. Your photos are worthless, no matter how good the shot.
2) Learn to “ingest” properly. Ingest is the operation that occurs when you transfer the photos from your flash memory to your computer. Photographers in the digital era deal with thousands of images. It’s not uncommon for me to shoot a wedding and have 2700+ images between me and my assistants. If you don’t stay organized, this will get confusing very fast. When I ingest a photo, about 6 major things happen.
1- images are titled with the name of the subject 2- images are dated 3- copyright and contact information is embedded in the IPTC 4- the photo is tagged 5- the photo is given a four digit numerical suffix 6- a folder with the name of the subject/event with a date is prepared to receive the photos.
This all happens instantly, with no work done by me save the title of the photo and the name of the folder. For example, if I were shooting today on the streets of manhattan, the photo name would look something like this: nyc street 6.16.091234, and the folder receiving the photo would likely be nyc street 6.16.09. This is scalable to millions of photos, I know, because I have millions of photos.
3) Learn to use an autofocus fixed focal length prime lens with a normal FOV and a fast aperture. For Nikon digital systems, this means four lenses only (as of this writing). In order of preference… DX- Sigma 30mm 1.4, Nikon 35mm 1.8, FX- Sigma 50mm 1.4, Nikkor 50mm 1.4.
Zooms are all the rage, and the quality and versatility of said “normal range” zooms is something many photographers could only dream of just 10 years ago. That said, they still can’t touch a good prime. The reason for learning one lens is simple, comfortability (yes, I know thats not a word). I am now @5 years with my sig 30. This means I can raise my camera to my eye and know exactly what I am going to get… I know where to place myself as far as photographer to subject distance, and I don’t have to think. Holding a d80 in my hand, there is little need for me to even look through the viewfinder. Even if the viewfinder of said camera is covered with electrical tape, I will still get a perfectly composed photograph, every time.
This is big, because there will be times (if you carry your camera around all the time as I do) when you need to do things unconsciously. Digital photography is more of a technical exercise than people think, the ability to reduce those variables that force you to actually think about what you are doing will pay huge dividends because you know you are going to get the shot, there will be no fumbling, no need to change the FOV, no need to turn anything… nothing. Point and shoot, be fast.
4) Replace the phrase “What should I shoot?” with “What can I shoot?” Going on safari in Africa with a nikkor 500mm VR is a good way to find interesting subjects, but few of us may ever have that chance. Learn to adapt to your surroundings and refine your sensibilities to the world in which you inhabit. The place in which you live may be boring to you, but not everyone lives there, and other people may want a peek, even if its bum fuck Idaho (I actually love Idaho, but I think you get my point).
A doorknob, a broken window, peeling paint, rust… shit like this is everywhere, but how often do we actually pay attention to such banal subjects? I recently saw photos in the $30-$50k range of womens mouths, heavily made up, stuffed with ornate jewelry (necklaces and such). They were splendid, and these editions were selling quite fast. I was looking at prints in the 40*80 inch range, bigger than most of us will ever print, nevertheless, the point is this… subjects are created as much as they are documented. Richard Prince sells $1 million dollar photos of magazine adverts he re-shot and blew up to extreme sizes. Call the guy a copycat bastard if you want, but his show filled the entire Gugenheim in NYC. The incredible foot traffic I saw at the Gug was testament to the fact that someone out there likes his stuff, knockoff artist or not.
My last tutorial on these boards featured 6” models I picked up at my local Target (big american retail box store). I was thrilled with the results, and happily created a nice series I am quite proud of and which was featured by Alien Skin software for their June newsletter. It’s not the Gugenheim, but it was well received. The ingredients list for this shoot: creativity, 30 minutes, and a $10 model. On this very forum I have seen outstanding stuff created with minimalist equipment, imagination is always the key.
5) Pony up for the full version of Photoshop. Lets face it, Photoshop is an expensive program, but it is still the industry standard, and will be for years to come. You can try to get around having it by using some of the newer products like Elements, Lightroom, Gimp, or Aperture, but the fact of the matter is, you will always be behind the curve. Photoshop is a complicated program, if you are intimidated, try and find a course at a local university or subscribe to Photoshop User magazine, this will speed up the learning process… better yet, find a graphic designer friend and try and sit in on some of their work, you will be flabbergasted at the things even a mediocre graphic designer can do with a photo.
More than that, thousands of tutorials are available in the public domain which help to make you a better photographer. The internet is a great thing sometimes, I say this because anything you are likely to do in PS, has already been done, and there is likely a tutorial available somewhere showing you the best way to do it. In addition to PS’s basic features, there are numerous plugins available that will make your workflow more streamlined and will enhance your photography at the same time. Some of these plugins cost more that PS itself, but they exist for a reason. To dismiss the robust tools available as PS plugins would be a serious mistake for any photographer. With enough time, you can do anything to a photo within PS’s core architecture, but some of the plugins available will make your job so much easier, you can concentrate on the creative process, rather than how to actually get there. What used to take me hours of fiddling and compositing can now be done in seconds, and the results are fantastic.
Plugins like Alien Skin Exposure and Nik Efex should be a required part of every photographers arsenal… why wouldn’t you want 30 versions of a good photo (it only takes me a few seconds of batch processing to do so)? Then, you can turn to your client, and ask them to make the decision. Variety is the spice of life. When you give your clients options for a photo that could only been dreamed of 10 years ago, you look like a genius. Sepia, cross processing, grain, BW conversions, they can all be handled with the click of a button. To think that your photos wouldn’t benefit from multiple versions is naive (I speak from experience) because you simply can’t tell when a photo is going to take to different tonality and color. Sometimes the effect can transform fairly banal subjects into something that really pops.
6) Forget the rules. If you think your photos are going to stand out because you followed the rule of thirds and read the book about classic compositions, you are in for a surprise, even if they are technically perfect and the light was “just right”. Landscapes would be a good example. I went to the Peter Lik gallery in Manhattan the other day (you can google him if you have never heard of the dude). Any classic landscape you intend to shoot, has already been done, by Peter Lik, better. Not only that, but Mr. Lik has the best equipment, the best printing and framing, and has the resources to wait for the best light for any given subject. These are facts… you won’t be able to touch his stuff, and the prints are 1 meter by 3 meters plus. This is not to say you should give up shooting landscape, far from it, but what you should really be considering is how to do the classics different, where they resonate personally, from a unique angle.
It’s a cliché, but get off the beaten path (unless of course you are in Laos, the Falkland Islands, or parts of the Golan Heights, where there are lots of landmines). There are a probably 100 million people in the world with decent cameras (of the quality we are used to here on NG), if they all shoot just one landscape a day, thats a 100 million landscapes. Some of these photos will be terrible, but some of them will be great, perhaps even the guy who serendipitously stumbled into the best light ever, his first day out with his d5000. I use landscapes as an example but it applies to all genres within photography… go nuts. If you decide to read the books on how to shoot, do it so that you can know what has already be done, and then go forward with the intention of breaking the conventions.
7) Take blurry photos. The first couple of years I had a DSLR, I was obsessed with getting sharp shots. Hand holding technique, breathing, and physical exercises were all part of a regimen I constructed to enhance my critical sharpness while hand holding in the field. At some point you may find that sharp shots are, well, boring. I was forced to go in a new direction… meaning there was little more for me learn with regard to technical proficiency. Instead, my new goal was to achieve sublime imperfection.
Shapes and colors are just as interesting as sharp shots, sometimes more so. If you take enough bad shots, eventually, something good will come out of it. You will find that a particular shot, because of its blurriness, instead of in spite of it, is compelling. Abstract forms, distortion, and motion blur have been the hallmark of some great shooters. There is no need to fear them, as they are as much a part of photography as the rule of thirds. Learn to mess up a shot, learn to be distinctive… this of course will take some time, but in the end, you may be surprised how many keepers you get employing “bad technique”.
8 ) People photography. When someone is in front of your camera, they will do what they are told, even if they are the President of the United States (he gets posed too), provided you have extreme confidence. This is as much psychology as photography, but it is worth mentioning because I see a lot of young photographers second guess themselves in the field. My theory is that as the photographer, you are the director of the action, just like in the movies. I have an anecdote for this, please indulge me…
I don’t remember where I heard the story, but I will rehash it here as best as I can recall. The story is about Stanley Kubrick (who just happened to be a great photographer as much as he was a great director). One day, on a movie set, a delivery was made… it was a pair of directors chairs, the kind with the cloth back and the crossed wooden legs. An actor on set saw both of the chairs and noticed they were identical, in every way, shape, and form. Both were emblazoned with the name “Kubrick” on the back rest. This famous actor (I forget which one) decided to perform a little experiment on Kubrick to see what would happen. He would wait until the director was on set, and before Kubrick could see the chairs he would hoist them both in the air and ask Kubrick to pick one.
So, as the story goes, Kubrick returns to the set and the actor lifts both identical chairs into the air, one in each arm, and in front of the whole cast and crew, asks Kubrick which chair he wanted. “Which chair do you want?” he said, “The left one.” Kubrick replied instantly. Sometime later the actor asked Kubrick why he chose the left chair so hastily, when upon any inspection the chairs were patently identical. Kubrick responded: “It doesn’t matter what decision I make, as long as I sound like I know what I am doing”. The moral of the story is this: you are the director… as a photographer, when you make a decision in front of a subject/client, do so decisively, the only person who knows it’s a shitty decision will be you, and you can always bin those photos… but, if you waffle in your decision making trying to make a superb choice, everything you do for the rest of the shoot will be questioned by the participants.
If I happen to shoot a CEO, or a supermodel, they are going to notice even the slightest trepidation in your approach, that’s what they do for a living. These are extreme examples, but the lesson should trickle down to everything you shoot. Nobody knows you are fucking up but you, and if you fuck up confidently enough, nobody will know at all.
9) Color management is complex. This is actually 3 suggestions:
1- Shoot RAW for the widest possible gamut 2- RAW files must go into the ProPhoto color space when translated by your RAW converter 3- Buy a hardware calibration device for your monitor and calibrate regularly.
There are numerous tutorials on all this on the web and books available in print, so I won’t belabor the point here, needless to say, if you don’t do these three things, your photos are piss in the wind. ‘Nuff said.
10) Learn to print with an archival pigment printer of a professional grade, and visit a master printer or take a digital printing course (printing is still so complex that trying to learn it by yourself will set you back years). The cheapest printer I suggest for this available right now is the Epson 4880 (I wouldn’t invest in an epson 3800 at this time due to the newer inksets available). Unfortunately, any book you pick up on this subject is already old news, because 16-bit printing has just reached maturity… better to learn from the Epson Academy, what you can glean from online forums, or attend a Michael Reichmann or Nash Editions seminar. An investment of a few hundred dollars up front will save you thousands of dollars of wasted media down the road (and it saves trees).
————
I hope you find these 10 things useful, I know personally that if I had known them “up front”, my photography skills would have been better from the start.
by Taran Morgan (aka yunfat)
I tend to talk a lot of smack on online photo forums, which is odd, because I am an expert in absolutely nothing… I have no formal education in photos or the fine arts, save the odd criticism class in University (I’m actually an english major). My photography training was, in effect, a baptism by fire… one day I was shooting nightclubs for fun and the next I was a stringer doing photocalls for the NY Post with Giselle Bundchen in front of my camera. It happens like that sometimes… I was lucky and unlucky at the same time. On the one hand, I had access to celebrities and made $500 a photo, on the other, I got involved in the seedy underworld of bourgeois photo agents who know it is unlikely you will find the photo of yours they just sold to People in Espanol or a German tabloid, a photo which you weren’t paid for (you can’t find the german tabloids at the local supermarket, ya know). Media is a strange place, and undergoing rapid and violent change. Photographers are largely treated as disposable objects at all but the highest levels, and sometimes a name is more important that being competent. Remember that… you could be the worst photographer in the world and still make a killing off your well marketed shots, you could be the best photographer in the world and still be anonymous when you are looking for gallery representation, that’s just the way it is. Be humble, be smart, and learn to value what you shoot, especially when it’s not an assignment.
That said, I would impart the following 10 things to anyone thinking about photography “seriously”. It is unlikely any of these things will actually help you generate income, however, they are the things that you should consider for the ultimate advancement of your photography in the “marketplace”. As they say before boxing matches: “Protect yourself at all times”.
1) IPTC captioning. A long time ago, my photo editor once said to me something which still resonates with me today. “A bad photo with a good caption is better than a great photo with a bad caption”. Within the publishing industry, IPTC captioning is the standard data field embedded in every photo. This metadata is handled by such programs as PhotoMechanic, Aperture, and Lightroom, to name a few. The reason why this is so important is because if you don’t put IPTC data into your photos, no one can/will pay you. No publisher will publish a photo that doesn’t have this information, because they simply cannot contact the photographer who took the shot. If there is no contact information, the photo is anonymous, and it won’t be published because the person publishing it doesn’t want to get sued down the road for printing a photo without proper accreditation. Your photos are worthless, no matter how good the shot.
2) Learn to “ingest” properly. Ingest is the operation that occurs when you transfer the photos from your flash memory to your computer. Photographers in the digital era deal with thousands of images. It’s not uncommon for me to shoot a wedding and have 2700+ images between me and my assistants. If you don’t stay organized, this will get confusing very fast. When I ingest a photo, about 6 major things happen.
1- images are titled with the name of the subject 2- images are dated 3- copyright and contact information is embedded in the IPTC 4- the photo is tagged 5- the photo is given a four digit numerical suffix 6- a folder with the name of the subject/event with a date is prepared to receive the photos.
This all happens instantly, with no work done by me save the title of the photo and the name of the folder. For example, if I were shooting today on the streets of manhattan, the photo name would look something like this: nyc street 6.16.091234, and the folder receiving the photo would likely be nyc street 6.16.09. This is scalable to millions of photos, I know, because I have millions of photos.
3) Learn to use an autofocus fixed focal length prime lens with a normal FOV and a fast aperture. For Nikon digital systems, this means four lenses only (as of this writing). In order of preference… DX- Sigma 30mm 1.4, Nikon 35mm 1.8, FX- Sigma 50mm 1.4, Nikkor 50mm 1.4.
Zooms are all the rage, and the quality and versatility of said “normal range” zooms is something many photographers could only dream of just 10 years ago. That said, they still can’t touch a good prime. The reason for learning one lens is simple, comfortability (yes, I know thats not a word). I am now @5 years with my sig 30. This means I can raise my camera to my eye and know exactly what I am going to get… I know where to place myself as far as photographer to subject distance, and I don’t have to think. Holding a d80 in my hand, there is little need for me to even look through the viewfinder. Even if the viewfinder of said camera is covered with electrical tape, I will still get a perfectly composed photograph, every time.
This is big, because there will be times (if you carry your camera around all the time as I do) when you need to do things unconsciously. Digital photography is more of a technical exercise than people think, the ability to reduce those variables that force you to actually think about what you are doing will pay huge dividends because you know you are going to get the shot, there will be no fumbling, no need to change the FOV, no need to turn anything… nothing. Point and shoot, be fast.
4) Replace the phrase “What should I shoot?” with “What can I shoot?” Going on safari in Africa with a nikkor 500mm VR is a good way to find interesting subjects, but few of us may ever have that chance. Learn to adapt to your surroundings and refine your sensibilities to the world in which you inhabit. The place in which you live may be boring to you, but not everyone lives there, and other people may want a peek, even if its bum fuck Idaho (I actually love Idaho, but I think you get my point).
A doorknob, a broken window, peeling paint, rust… shit like this is everywhere, but how often do we actually pay attention to such banal subjects? I recently saw photos in the $30-$50k range of womens mouths, heavily made up, stuffed with ornate jewelry (necklaces and such). They were splendid, and these editions were selling quite fast. I was looking at prints in the 40*80 inch range, bigger than most of us will ever print, nevertheless, the point is this… subjects are created as much as they are documented. Richard Prince sells $1 million dollar photos of magazine adverts he re-shot and blew up to extreme sizes. Call the guy a copycat bastard if you want, but his show filled the entire Gugenheim in NYC. The incredible foot traffic I saw at the Gug was testament to the fact that someone out there likes his stuff, knockoff artist or not.
My last tutorial on these boards featured 6” models I picked up at my local Target (big american retail box store). I was thrilled with the results, and happily created a nice series I am quite proud of and which was featured by Alien Skin software for their June newsletter. It’s not the Gugenheim, but it was well received. The ingredients list for this shoot: creativity, 30 minutes, and a $10 model. On this very forum I have seen outstanding stuff created with minimalist equipment, imagination is always the key.
5) Pony up for the full version of Photoshop. Lets face it, Photoshop is an expensive program, but it is still the industry standard, and will be for years to come. You can try to get around having it by using some of the newer products like Elements, Lightroom, Gimp, or Aperture, but the fact of the matter is, you will always be behind the curve. Photoshop is a complicated program, if you are intimidated, try and find a course at a local university or subscribe to Photoshop User magazine, this will speed up the learning process… better yet, find a graphic designer friend and try and sit in on some of their work, you will be flabbergasted at the things even a mediocre graphic designer can do with a photo.
More than that, thousands of tutorials are available in the public domain which help to make you a better photographer. The internet is a great thing sometimes, I say this because anything you are likely to do in PS, has already been done, and there is likely a tutorial available somewhere showing you the best way to do it. In addition to PS’s basic features, there are numerous plugins available that will make your workflow more streamlined and will enhance your photography at the same time. Some of these plugins cost more that PS itself, but they exist for a reason. To dismiss the robust tools available as PS plugins would be a serious mistake for any photographer. With enough time, you can do anything to a photo within PS’s core architecture, but some of the plugins available will make your job so much easier, you can concentrate on the creative process, rather than how to actually get there. What used to take me hours of fiddling and compositing can now be done in seconds, and the results are fantastic.
Plugins like Alien Skin Exposure and Nik Efex should be a required part of every photographers arsenal… why wouldn’t you want 30 versions of a good photo (it only takes me a few seconds of batch processing to do so)? Then, you can turn to your client, and ask them to make the decision. Variety is the spice of life. When you give your clients options for a photo that could only been dreamed of 10 years ago, you look like a genius. Sepia, cross processing, grain, BW conversions, they can all be handled with the click of a button. To think that your photos wouldn’t benefit from multiple versions is naive (I speak from experience) because you simply can’t tell when a photo is going to take to different tonality and color. Sometimes the effect can transform fairly banal subjects into something that really pops.
6) Forget the rules. If you think your photos are going to stand out because you followed the rule of thirds and read the book about classic compositions, you are in for a surprise, even if they are technically perfect and the light was “just right”. Landscapes would be a good example. I went to the Peter Lik gallery in Manhattan the other day (you can google him if you have never heard of the dude). Any classic landscape you intend to shoot, has already been done, by Peter Lik, better. Not only that, but Mr. Lik has the best equipment, the best printing and framing, and has the resources to wait for the best light for any given subject. These are facts… you won’t be able to touch his stuff, and the prints are 1 meter by 3 meters plus. This is not to say you should give up shooting landscape, far from it, but what you should really be considering is how to do the classics different, where they resonate personally, from a unique angle.
It’s a cliché, but get off the beaten path (unless of course you are in Laos, the Falkland Islands, or parts of the Golan Heights, where there are lots of landmines). There are a probably 100 million people in the world with decent cameras (of the quality we are used to here on NG), if they all shoot just one landscape a day, thats a 100 million landscapes. Some of these photos will be terrible, but some of them will be great, perhaps even the guy who serendipitously stumbled into the best light ever, his first day out with his d5000. I use landscapes as an example but it applies to all genres within photography… go nuts. If you decide to read the books on how to shoot, do it so that you can know what has already be done, and then go forward with the intention of breaking the conventions.
7) Take blurry photos. The first couple of years I had a DSLR, I was obsessed with getting sharp shots. Hand holding technique, breathing, and physical exercises were all part of a regimen I constructed to enhance my critical sharpness while hand holding in the field. At some point you may find that sharp shots are, well, boring. I was forced to go in a new direction… meaning there was little more for me learn with regard to technical proficiency. Instead, my new goal was to achieve sublime imperfection.
Shapes and colors are just as interesting as sharp shots, sometimes more so. If you take enough bad shots, eventually, something good will come out of it. You will find that a particular shot, because of its blurriness, instead of in spite of it, is compelling. Abstract forms, distortion, and motion blur have been the hallmark of some great shooters. There is no need to fear them, as they are as much a part of photography as the rule of thirds. Learn to mess up a shot, learn to be distinctive… this of course will take some time, but in the end, you may be surprised how many keepers you get employing “bad technique”.
8 ) People photography. When someone is in front of your camera, they will do what they are told, even if they are the President of the United States (he gets posed too), provided you have extreme confidence. This is as much psychology as photography, but it is worth mentioning because I see a lot of young photographers second guess themselves in the field. My theory is that as the photographer, you are the director of the action, just like in the movies. I have an anecdote for this, please indulge me…
I don’t remember where I heard the story, but I will rehash it here as best as I can recall. The story is about Stanley Kubrick (who just happened to be a great photographer as much as he was a great director). One day, on a movie set, a delivery was made… it was a pair of directors chairs, the kind with the cloth back and the crossed wooden legs. An actor on set saw both of the chairs and noticed they were identical, in every way, shape, and form. Both were emblazoned with the name “Kubrick” on the back rest. This famous actor (I forget which one) decided to perform a little experiment on Kubrick to see what would happen. He would wait until the director was on set, and before Kubrick could see the chairs he would hoist them both in the air and ask Kubrick to pick one.
So, as the story goes, Kubrick returns to the set and the actor lifts both identical chairs into the air, one in each arm, and in front of the whole cast and crew, asks Kubrick which chair he wanted. “Which chair do you want?” he said, “The left one.” Kubrick replied instantly. Sometime later the actor asked Kubrick why he chose the left chair so hastily, when upon any inspection the chairs were patently identical. Kubrick responded: “It doesn’t matter what decision I make, as long as I sound like I know what I am doing”. The moral of the story is this: you are the director… as a photographer, when you make a decision in front of a subject/client, do so decisively, the only person who knows it’s a shitty decision will be you, and you can always bin those photos… but, if you waffle in your decision making trying to make a superb choice, everything you do for the rest of the shoot will be questioned by the participants.
If I happen to shoot a CEO, or a supermodel, they are going to notice even the slightest trepidation in your approach, that’s what they do for a living. These are extreme examples, but the lesson should trickle down to everything you shoot. Nobody knows you are fucking up but you, and if you fuck up confidently enough, nobody will know at all.
9) Color management is complex. This is actually 3 suggestions:
1- Shoot RAW for the widest possible gamut 2- RAW files must go into the ProPhoto color space when translated by your RAW converter 3- Buy a hardware calibration device for your monitor and calibrate regularly.
There are numerous tutorials on all this on the web and books available in print, so I won’t belabor the point here, needless to say, if you don’t do these three things, your photos are piss in the wind. ‘Nuff said.
10) Learn to print with an archival pigment printer of a professional grade, and visit a master printer or take a digital printing course (printing is still so complex that trying to learn it by yourself will set you back years). The cheapest printer I suggest for this available right now is the Epson 4880 (I wouldn’t invest in an epson 3800 at this time due to the newer inksets available). Unfortunately, any book you pick up on this subject is already old news, because 16-bit printing has just reached maturity… better to learn from the Epson Academy, what you can glean from online forums, or attend a Michael Reichmann or Nash Editions seminar. An investment of a few hundred dollars up front will save you thousands of dollars of wasted media down the road (and it saves trees).
————
I hope you find these 10 things useful, I know personally that if I had known them “up front”, my photography skills would have been better from the start.