But o, photography! as no art is

As Philip Larkin had it, once photographic images were faithful  - and may well have been disappointing. But digital technology has changed all that, having transformed the very way in which scenes and images are captured and recorded. The marriage of computers with graphic software presented the first opportunities for editing and manipulation to be carried out without using skilled, manual methods. These, in themselves, were limiting and costly to all but the expert and, whilst air-brushing was certainly possible and used for tidying up, removing and adding elements to an analogue print, manual retouching stayed outside the realms of many.
The improvements in scanners and their input resolution came about at the time that professional and home computers were undergoing their own metamorphosis by moving from number crunching devices to graphic and illustration tools in their own right. But it wasn't until some years had passed that digital cameras became serious contenders for producing good, quality results. As sensors became refined and equivalents in look and feel to conventional SLRs appeared on the market, so anyone with the resources to invest in hardware and software was able to benefit from the marvellous marriage of digital technologies in the photographic field.
Inevitably the sense of change affected the traditional photolabs which, hitherto, had specialised in working with conventional film products and analogue print production. When the Durst Lambda was introduced in the mid-Nineties, this opened a door to digital quality and extended to the output of displays and signs as well as photographic reproductions on a large scale. Professional photographers were able, for the first time, to rely on their production houses to supply larger sizes in a format that was repeatable and colour accurate.
Thus, for many who relied on quality prints, there was a shift away from the conventional darkroom scenario and a new freedom for experimentation with effects and results. Encouraged by the growth of computer programs such as Adobe Photoshop, users were able to start using the Macintosh and PC platforms as creative tools and reap the benefits of working on existing shots via software and screens rather then merely relying on the camera's capabilities and the talent of the photographer pressing the shutter.
Thanks to digital means, photography has now mushroomed to become an everyday activity for many who had never shown an interest as well as those who relied on it to earn a living. Convenience has played a major role, with low-cost cameras boasting a high megapixel count and, even, mobile phones offering a basic means with which to capture a moment. Boosted by the growth of the Internet, the use of digital images is now paramount in communications; pictures can be attached to e-mails, shared on social networking sites and produced almost instantly to provide news and up-to-date visual information.
At the end of the digital line, however, there is still the desire to have printed output and this led to the inevitable move by printer manufacturers to design machines which were able to reproduce, as faithfully as possible, photographs ranging from holiday and family snaps through to professional images and fine art prints. This sector has, in the main, kept its feet firmly in aqueous-based camp with high quality, long life inkjet inks now capable of outputting extremely fine detail along with archiving properties to ensure pictures don't fade.
Experimentation has been rampant amongst today's photography fraternity; effects have migrated from former analogue processes to digital methods and, for many, the removal of limitations in terms of even cropping, basic colour balance, levels and modest sharpening is enough. Others want to incorporate more complex and sophisticated editing and, with the help of software and plug-ins, it is now easy to render images in many different ways which are limited only by the program and the skill of its user. Some believe that these procedures tend to detract from the original photograph itself whilst others are happy in the knowledge that their original captured efforts can be enhanced to suit a particular circumstance or, even, mood. However, no-one can deny that the growth in technology during even the past five years has meant that a new tranche of users has emerged, many of whom have been remarkably successful despite never having trained formally in the darkroom. Most have chosen to ignore the polemic levelled at them by established photographers but this latter group has turned largely to digital, even if still devotees of film but using scanners, computers and inkjet printers for their eventual output.
Desktop inkjet printers soon began to incorporate the qualities needed for producing quality photographic results. Today, home users with little or no technical knowledge can purchase a perfectly acceptable A4 machine cheaply and let their computers handle the installation and set-up. These people sit comfortably with the knowledge that, for even a modest sum, a digital camera can remove most of the errors and take passable photographs which are suitable for uploading onto the Web, sending as e-mail and printing onto specially coated inkjet photo papers. Software can even be used to determine the size and resolution for internet-destined images, downsampling to 72dpi and auto-correcting exposure and colour balance.
Those wary of computerised processes don't even have to work with their digital images. Instead they can visit a high-street copyshop, photo outlet or, even, a chemist and use an automated solution which simply reads the data off the camera's card or a CD and prints each file to a selected size. With today's desire of instant results, users can receive their batches of prints within minutes instead of the days of yesteryear when films were carefully sealed and sent to specialist labs for processing.
However, for the majority of today's photography professionals and enthusiasts there is a far greater desire to handle all manipulation from shooting the original image and working with it on-screen prior to printing. Macintosh and Windows users have now moved closer together as software such as Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop offer identical properties and features whilst, for the latter, CorelDraw now has strong photo editing facilities and Apple's Aperture offers serious management options as well as editing capacity.
Moving up the scale, Rip developers for wide-format print have also acknowledged the need for products with greater emphasis on the photographic market. EFI's recently upgraded eXpress is designed to work with printers from A3+ upwards and Shiraz Software developed its Focus software so that it emcompasses and handles functions such as batching and nesting. These are two examples of how improved workflow can be tailored into specially designed packages to simplify the marriage of high resolution photographic images with today's digital printing technologies.
Digital photography has also benefited enormously from the availability of faster computer platforms and hard drives which can handle large file sizes and offer sizeable storage. Back-up options have also become more readily available at attractive prices and these are essential in an area where loss of data can be catastrophic. An external 1 TB USB drive now costs less than ?100 and even a sophisticated networked RAID storage solution, or NAS, is a low investment in return for the peace of mind it offers. Today's photographers can easily fill a 16 MB data card during a single shoot now that the limitations of film have been removed; once restricted to 36 frames on a conventional 35mm camera, the freedom to take hundreds of shots without having to change card has meant that many more images can be captured without cost or time penalties being incurred. But the necessity for secure storage has become increasingly important and, as a result, few rely on a single computer to hold all valuable data with a growing number of photographers opting for off-site, or cloud, options for additional back-ups.
Printer technology has had to acknowledge the higher quality and better colour accuracy expected from the photography sector and this has been achieved with the overall improvement over the years of print-head performance and ink standards. The principles applied to wide-format production have been fine-tuned to accommodate probably the most discerning market segment of all and manufacturers have endeavoured to match, and even improve, former analogue standards with their latest digital offerings.
Although there have been many producers venturing into the photography market, the three names which have reigned supreme are without doubt Epson, Canon and HP and all these have straddled the display sectors with solutions that are suitable for professional prints. It is hardly surprising to find Canon in this segment as the company with the USP of being both a camera and printer developer and manufacturer. Clever in its approach to digital photography, this company has enveloped all users from those who want a basic point-and-shoot model through a range of compacts up to dSLR bodies which offer the build and quality expected by professional users. Whilst Nikon and, to some extent, Olympus and Sony also are popular mainstream choices none of these camera producers has the unique marriage of that held between Canon's products. More specialist options, such as the medium-format Hasselblad and the highly rated Leica, also now sport digital options but in the mainstream the most popular manufacturers today are Canon and Nikon which are available with their own lenses or those from independent producers such as Sigma and Tamron.
The camera, of course, is not related to the printing process and the choice of output machine is down purely to individual preference. Whilst Epson has held the lead for many years with its Stylus Pro series, both HP and Canon have been nipping at their heels with models designed to tempt photographers in their direction. Many photographers might own an A4 or A3 printer but use a bureau for larger prints but the realistic pricing of A2+ and A1 solutions has been enticing for those who want to retain complete control over their production and final output. As a result, there has been a steady growth in popularity for these, and larger, sizes as their quality has improved and their overall operation has become easier and more cost-effective.
The growth of different ink technologies has also seen photographers and fine art producers experiment more with output no longer restricted to more traditional papers and canvases. Epson has managed successfully to combine additional durability with high quality in its Stylus Pro GS6000 low-solvent based wide-format printer, thereby negating the need for over-laminating many prints. Similarly, UV-curable flatbed machines have also found favour in this market, with rigid materials offering new creative capabilities. Additionally, prints can be produced on the reverse of clear acrylic sheet and backed up with opaque white ink. Provided that the generation of good quality dots can be combined with sufficient ink options to produce the standards needed, there are many options available using all of today's inkjet technologies.
In tandem with developments in cameras and photo-quality printers, materials have also been addressed by manufacturers and coaters with a growing range of papers and canvases offering a greater range of weights, sizes and finishes to users. Whilst many countries tend to favour the glossy finish, in the UK there appears to be a distinct preference for mattes and satins and this has been addressed by mainstream suppliers as well as third-party specialist providers. Papers which were popular for analogue photographers, such as those from Hahnemuhle, are now available for inkjet production adding options such as cotton rags and fine art surfaces to the digital spectrum. High value heavyweight products are now complemented by budget sheets and rolls and all have surface structures which have been honed to work with both thermal and piezo print-heads. Specialists in digital materials have also developed and produced media which can be used on solvent-based and UV-curable printers for photographic reproduction and this has led to an increase in popularity for outputting larger sizes - in fact, with today's technologies, there is nothing to stop widths of 5m being employed for superwide-format photographic and fine art prints.
Without doubt there has been little short of an explosion in the photographic market since the evolution of digital cameras. But this wouldn't have happened without the right software to enhance and prepare images for output and the right printers to handle what photographers expect in terms of quality and longevity. The past decade has witnessed the coming together of these three individual elements and this is a market which is not going to decline in the future. Convenience, quality and speed have all combined to make these technologies essential for all photographers, and the popularity of this medium has guaranteed its place permanently within the digital market. The other cogent advantage is the additional creativity which today's wide-format printing technologies are bringing to this sector, releasing restrictions on size and allowing interesting and lucrative experimentation as different materials come into play.