How long after you produce a negative do you print it?

[guitstik]

Wait, I'm supposed to print these things, wow what an idea.

 

[Wade D]

Wait, I'm supposed to print these things, wow what an idea.

LOL!

 

[moki]

Depends on the negative... if I really like a picture and I'm in the mood for darkroom work, it gets printed as soon as the film is dry. Sometimes I go out shooting in the morning, develop in the afternoon and print at night - now tell me one more time, that film photography is slow

On the other hand, there are a lot of negatives that aren't printed for months. They're not necessarily less important pictures, but less urgent. Some pictures also need a little time before I actually like them enough to print.

From time to time, I also like to browse through all my negatives and see if any are worth printing again... some pictures are so fascinating to me, that I can print them again and again months or years after taking the picture. As I do a lot of dodging, burning and contrast adjustements, the prints also turn out differently in different printing sessions. For example, I used to like a very high-contrast (always grad 4-5) look on glossy paper, but now I prefer more balanced prints on warm-tone FB paper and very intense dodging and burning (to the point were it becomes almost "painting with light") I also used to print 15-20 different negatives on postcard formats in one night, but now it's more like 3-4 big prints.
It's interesting to see the different results that can be obtained from the "same" picture just by changing the printing process... the print can't really be perfect right away. Some prints need years to become just right in my eyes and that's why I never put any negatives in the "printed and ready for final archival" folder.

If I ever become famous, art collectors will hate me, because there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of prints from the same negative, some with variations so slight, nobody but myself would even notice....

 

[yulia_s_rey]

If its for work I have to present final prints usually by the next day. espresso helps a lot. if its for my own, I usually scan then decide which are worth printing out on the weekend.

 

[swittmann]

It varies. Sometimes I like to print soon after taking the photo, when the image is fresh in my mind, sometimes it helps to let some time pass by to get a more objective view on the image, and sometimes I print negatives that I made/developed years before...
And sometimes I print a negative again, years after making the first print, having a bit more experience and knowledge now (hopefully ).

I do notice that the more I fuss with making a dozen prints of a negative, each print differing a 1/10th of a stop here and there, the more worthless the image.

Sounds familiar to me Yesterday, I spent the afternoon/evening printing one negative, over and over again, but none of these prints turned out the way I wanted. The image lost some of its "magic" due to this

 

[Steve Roberts]

For me it varies depending on the subject matter (and intended purpose) from the same day to never. I even set out sometimes to shoot b/w negs knowing that I will probably never print them because they are record shots of places or events. That category effectively sit in my archive where my flawless indexing system allows me to go straight to them (yeah! Right........) if ever I need to make a print.
Steve

 

[Usagi]

usually 6 month to years, but it depends. A photo taken of a friend or his/her children will be printed quickly as will some late negatives for exhibition etc.

I guess that average 'printing lag' is in years, though.

 

[vpwphoto]

Depends how cute the girl is!

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Depends how cute the girl is!

I agree!

Jeff

 

[vpwphoto]

I miss newspaper days... I would shoot a basketball or football game and have the film developed and printed within an hour of when I made the exposure.