Whether you engage in photography for work or fun, it’s always great to have a final product you can be proud of. While more and more photographs are online and rarely printed, some subjects call for special handling. That’s where wide-format printers come in. While usually considered business tools (producing advertisements, plans, blueprints, and the like), wide-format printers are excellent for preserving photographs in high-quality prints. But they can do more than that. Here are four ways to use wide-format printers in photography.
Print Large-Scale Images
The first and most obvious way to use a wide-format printer in photography is to produce big images. Depending on the model, wide-format printers can turn out images anywhere from 36 inches to 100 inches wide or more. That goes beyond a simple framed photo. Print out posters or even wall-sized images, giving larger subjects like landscapes and close-up portraits a bigger canvas—literally! Large prints don’t lose their details with wide-format printers, so they look beautiful.
Create Coffee Table Books
Books of photographs, however well-printed, lose something if you don’t size them up. A paperback-sized collection of photos lacks the oomph of a coffee-table book. With a wide-format printer and bookbinding materials, it’s possible to create commemorative special editions of photographs that others can appreciate.
Make Posters and Promo Materials
Not all photographers can make their bread and butter by taking family pictures and shots of sporting events. If you have a photography business, start a side hustle of producing images, advertisements, event signage, and other advertisements incorporating your work. Wide-format printers can support plenty of amazing ideas involving murals, window decals, and the like. Including your website and contact information in a piece is also a great way to promote your work.
Design Personalized Gifts
A photograph is fine on its own, but when combined with something else, it becomes a desirable commodity. Use wide-format printers to create useful things like calendars, puzzles, wrapping paper, and personal portraits in different formats and on different kinds of paper. You can make vinyl banners or use glossy rolls to produce lovely prints to give as gifts. Personalization is a great way to get people interested as well. Turn out multiple copies of the same image with personalized messaging and markings to create a greater connection with the recipient.
Those are just four ways to use wide-format printers in photography. Add one to your repertoire as a photographer, and watch your work improve in quality!
