And you might assume that the professionals are much smaller in number and would favour the fine art printers who know how to handle high-end work. The vast swathe of amateurs, meanwhile, you may think look for the cheapest, quickest and easiest web-to-print option out there and don’t tend to judge quality too closely. 

To resort to such binaries, however, would be to do both groups a disservice and would also be inaccurate. There are far more shades of grey in the photography market than even Pantone could classify and one particular group being missed could be a potential goldmine for both fine art printers and mass-market W2P operators able to tweak their offering: the aspirant amateur photographer. 

“I care what my photos look like when printed,” explains Dean Lord, a designer who spends a great deal of his spare time taking photos using professional-standard kit. “I care about the colour, the finish and the quality. I take pride in my work, so I wouldn’t just upload it to a website to be printed and hope for the best.” 

The likes of Lord are not uncommon. Advances in technology have meant that professional quality camera equipment can be in the hands of amateurs for less money than ever before. Digital SLRs from the likes of Canon and Nikon start from as little as £300 and you can pick up a secondhand camera a professional would use for around £700. Lenses are also affordable, opening up the possibilities for amateur photographers to get even more creative with their photography. Professional standard editing software such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom have come down in price, too: you can get them for a low-cost monthly subscription.

In short, the lines between a professional and the higher-end of the mass market are not just blurred, it’s debatable whether there is a line left there at all. 

“What you have with the higher end of the amateur market is people in jobs earning good money that have photography as their chief hobby,” explains an analyst on a leading technology magazine (who doesn’t want to be named). “As the technology has grown cheaper this group has grown larger and you now have a substantial-sized population of aspirant professional photographers – using pro-standard kit – stuck as amateurs. 

“They desperately want to be professional but have too much responsibility – family, mortgage, etc – to make the leap. Or don’t want to try it until they have built up the work – something incredibly difficult to achieve as the pro photographer market is saturated. But they still want to live the life of the professional – to play at it – and that is where printers could capitalise.”  

Aspirational artists

These photographers exhibit in small galleries or their own homes, they try to sell their photos online and also attract commissions. Many fall into wedding photography, too. As such they want a high–end product. Currently, though, it is not easy to find a printer that actively seeks out this market. There are plenty that take aim at professionals and a plethora are after the cameraphone wielding mass market, but there are few in between. 

One of the printers that have actively sought and served this market is DStudio in Essex.

“It’s a small proportion of the work that we print, but it is an area that’s growing,” says print studio manager Martin Lucas. “Amateur photographers who are looking for prints for themselves, or copies of their images for sale, have increased over the past four or five years. The rise of technology to produce good-quality photographs, the iPhone and smartphones have given people a good-quality (not a high-quality) camera in their pockets and the rise of Instagram, Flickr and other photo sharing sites have given people an audience for their images. All of this combined has started to give people confidence in being able to take photographs they’ll be happy with and ones they want to print.”

Serving this market requires high-quality kit. Lucas runs Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900 printers to produce archival quality prints. 

“They have a very wide colour gamut and use archival quality inks,” he explains. 

He adds that just as important is the paper range available to customers. 

“We print on a range of photographic papers, fine art papers and canvas. As we stock papers for artists, some photographers like the idea of producing prints on papers away from the look of a traditional glossy lab print – so cotton based artist papers such as Hahnemühle’s Photo Rag 308gsm and Hahnemühle German Etching 310gsm are popular for people wanting something different from a photographic print.” 

Both quality and paper choice are key issues for amateur photographers looking for a professional finish. Julie Lawrence is a teacher from the Wirral who uses all her spare time to take fine art photographs (see box overleaf). She says being able to choose from a range of products and being advised on new products or papers are things printers in this market need to offer.  

She uses Metro Imaging in London where Kate O’Neil, marketing and partnership manager, says talking amateur photographers through the various paper options is a key part of the printer’s role.

“We are very keen to educate all photographers on the different papers and media they can print on, encouraging them to test and experiment until they find the method and medium that suits them best,” she says. 

David Anderson, of BPD Phototec, which also serves the amateur photographer market alongside its professional photographer clientele, says that a broad range of products is also essential. 

“We offer prints, canvases, box frames, block mounts, acrylics... All are true photo prints on a range of surfaces (apart from the canvas), and then for the products they are mounted and heat sealed for UV and moisture protection and constructed on site,” he says. 

What else do printers looking at this market need to bear in mind? Lawrence says print quality, customer service and an understanding of the photographer’s work are essential. Lord agrees, adding that this group of people are willing to pay to ensure the product is right. 

None of these things will be too much of a stretch for printers at the high end of the market already used to providing such services, though the more mass-market W2P companies may have to adapt to the increased contact time with customers. 

While potentially lucrative, though, this market is not without its unique difficulties, as Lucas explains.

“One difficulty for a customer is when they don’t have the knowledge and expect something that’s not possible from their image,” he explains. “It’s usually the size of print. As an extreme example we get some people wanting really large prints from a photo taken with the front facing camera of a smartphone. They don’t understand that enlarging an image in print will compromise the quality of the print.”

Anderson agrees: “The biggest difficulty is file quality and size format. Rather than ploughing on with an order, if there are issues it is always better to contact the customer to talk through any problems with the image and resolve if possible, this takes time but it’s worth the effort as it eliminates disappointment.”

Another difficulty is price, says Lucas. He says clients sometimes compare the cost of his prints with those of the mass-market printers and question why there is a difference. 

“We’re not expensive within our own market, but it’s hard to explain the jump in quality from a print we produce and one that Lidl produces. For comparison, Lidl will print an A4 for 32p, we charge over £3,” he explains. 

Knowledge gap

This highlights another potential issue: knowledge of the print process is not universally good in this market. For every Julie Lawrence who fully understands what she is doing, there is another person with no knowledge at all. 

“There is a fair amount of hand-holding but a good percentage are very knowledgeable,” says Anderson.

Lucas adds that these clients tend to be less demanding, but just as profitable, as professional photographers. “They’ll usually skip our proofing process and are happier to take a risk of not seeing a proof first – I think their expectations of what their image should look like after printing is not as clearly defined as a professional, ie specific colours and tones within their image should look like in print when compared with what they see on screen.”

Some of the printers spoken to, however, say this market is not worth pursuing as the amount of hand-holding required often clashed with the lack of repeat orders and the relatively low value of the work. While admitting this can sometimes be the case, though, both Lucas and Anderson say it is a market well worthwhile investing in. 

“Some orders are low value and may seem fiddly and some are high value with no issues, but you cannot cherry pick,” says Anderson. “From seemingly insignificant orders you can secure a customer for life, therefore I think it is a good market to be involved in.”

While much of the work is currently going to high end fine art printers lowering their sights slightly, there has also been a move from the larger W2P operators to corner these customers. For example, Photobox has, for some time now, run Pro accounts, offering customers the chance to store and display their work (hosting online galleries) and to sell it. 

These extra services are increasingly important as the competition increases. Lucas, for example, explains that his business offers other services, which is proving a key selling point. 

“We’re also a picture framers; so for people wanting a copy of their own image, this is a popular option and like the canvas print, gives them a finished and ready to hang product,” he explains. 

Existing skills

And there are other services printers could offer at relatively low expense as much of the expertise will be in-house already. Lord suggests printers run workshops for photographers so they can take photographs with the end product in mind. This is already a popular side-business for many letterpress and screen printers and you could see how, if done properly, it would work in this market. 

Likewise, training in the use of photoshop or colour management could also be a source of income and a route to differentiation from rivals.

Printers could also brush up on their knowledge of the various photo sales websites. The likes of iStock and Alamy can be lucrative for amateurs if they can meet the submission criteria and know what sells. Printers can play the role of guide through what can be a difficult process. 

While many of these additional services may not result in print directly, they are added-value revenue streams and ways of ensuring repeat custom for print products. 

And while not everyone is sure the market will expand, Lucas thinks there is plenty of potential in the amateur photographer market if printers can persuade more to get their photos off their harddrive. 

“Print companies need to work out how to get to these people and their photographs and then to make it simple for them to order, pay for and receive prints of their work, to get people into the mindset of doing something with their photographs and producing a physical product.”  

Case study: Julie Lawrence

Julie Lawrence has been taking her photography seriously since 2008, when she completed a masters degree in fine art. She exhibits and sells her work and takes the printing of it very seriously. 

“At the moment, I consider myself a semi-professional non-commercial art photographer,” she explains. “I exhibit mainly at fine-art rather than commercial galleries. My degree focused on the relationship between painting and photography and that is what my photographs still try to engage with.”

Her day job is working as a teacher and art and sensory co-ordinator for children with special educational needs, but she says her passion for photography dominates her free time. 

“It really takes up all of my spare time,” she explains. 

To get the right end product for her photographs, she uses London-based Metro Imaging. 

“I have tried a number of different services, but have stayed with them because there is a really excellent personal service, and the quality of the prints are excellent,” she says. 

“Because a lot of work goes into the photographs before they are printed, I would always go for a service like this. The personal service in getting the right ephemeral quality to my work, the right quality of paper and the right printing process to suit a particular piece, is very important.”

Julie has more knowledge of the print process than many others in this area of the photography sector and she ensures she gets the end-result she us after. 

“I really am happy with all of the prints - I have had particular success with the recent Giclee prints on photo-rag paper,” she explains. “The colour quality and the paper surface suits my work perfectly. Equally the black and white ‘C- type’ prints have worked well and I have been really happy with the quality of the blacks and tones of these.” 

Lawrence says that finding the right printer that can offer multiple options and a hand to hold to guide and assist through the print process where necessary can be tough. 

“Three things that would turn me off a printing service: lack of care, an impersonal service and limited printing and service options,” she says. 

To succeed in this market, then, printers need to concentrate of a few key areas. 

“I think that the most important things would be the service and advice, and the quality of the prints, which I exhibit in a wide range of fine art galleries. An understanding of the aesthetic purpose of my prints would also be key. The ephemeral and tonal quality is particularly important in my case. Regular feedback and a range of different service options including direct-to-media printing, would be good too – the latter is something I am interested in but have yet to try!”

Lawrence, who is based on the Wirral in Merseyside, is planning to expand her work next year. You can see more of her work at www.quieterritory.com.