6 steps to stunning fine art portrait prints

How do you inject genuine artistry into fine art portrait photography? It's a subject close to the heart of professional portrait photographer and Canon Ambassador Martina Wärenfeldt, who had childhood dreams of being an artist, but turned to photography, and now judges international printing competitions.

There are photographic prints, and then there are fine art photographic prints. But what sets the latter apart from a standard high quality print? And what can give you the edge when it comes to printing fine art portraits specifically? As always, it starts with a well-composed, professionally-lit image, but there are other considerations too, which include the retouching approach used, paper choice and finish, hard-copy proofing and printer choice and settings. Finding the best way to combine multiple elements, fine-tuning your workflow and approach and maintaining control over the entire process from start to finish are critical when it comes to producing a high quality final product.

Martina uses a Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 printer to create stunning prints of her fine art portraits, describing it as her "workhorse" in the studio. "The combination of printer and fine art paper produces a really beautiful print," she says. Here, she shares tips for every stage in her creative process, and reveals why the A2 desktop photo printer is such an important part of her workflow.

For Martina, the print is always the final part of the process and the goal she's working towards, but everything starts at the shooting stage. For the past three years, Martina has been using a Canon EOS R5. "I'd always thought of a camera as just a tool, but I have a real attachment to the EOS R5," she explains. "It's like we've become best buddies. It's compact and user-friendly, and the high-resolution images work really well for retaining texture, detail and tonality in my large-format printing."

Martina's go-to lens, while not a prime, is a firm favourite among portrait photographers. "I bought the camera during the Covid-19 pandemic and the only lens that was available was the Canon RF 24-105mm F4L IS USM. The retailer actually apologised about that but I don't generally need a tight depth of field for the way I shoot and the lens suits me really well. I also use a Canon RF 50mm F1.8 STM, which I love for its compact, lightweight build. It's very inexpensive but I'm really impressed with the quality. I once rented a studio in Los Angeles and shot portraits for two clients using just the 50mm lens, and came away with great images.

"It's important to keep the print in mind when you're planning your shot," Martina adds. "I'm into the painterly look, so I have to work with lighting to make sure there's a lot of detail in shadows and highlights, and that I get a wide range of tonality. Texture is really important too, so I'm careful when choosing clothing and ensuring that texture is visible."

Martina starts her workflow in Adobe Lightroom and moves to Photoshop. "I don't do much in Lightroom – maybe correct a little, open up the shadows, bring down the highlights a touch, and perhaps put a slight curve on it. It's really just to give me digital images that I'm happy to show to clients, so they can choose photos for printing. When I'm editing for print, I start in Photoshop and don't use any of the automatic or new AI tools. It has to be my eyes, my fingers and entirely my work when I'm creating a fine art print.

With the best will in the world, digital images can sometimes need some serious editing to in order to produce quality prints. "I try not to let settings get in the way of the creative flow when I'm shooting, but I'm meticulous at the editing stage. I really want colour, detail, texture, shadows and light to look their absolute best. I always work in 16-bit, as this gives much more scope for subtlety and overall tonal range."

Naturally, it's important to use a calibrated monitor when you're editing images for print. Martina uses a self-calibrating screen and is happy with the level of accuracy. "If I can rely on the equipment to calibrate itself, it means there's one less job for me to do."

When it comes to soft proofing, Martina says it's really important to use the correct ICC profile for the printer and the exact type of fine art paper that you're using to make the print. "I need to do this every time so that what I see on-screen in Lightroom and Photoshop will look the same in print." Canon's free Professional Print & Layout (PPL) software, which works as a standalone program and as a plug-in for both Adobe products, has soft- and hard-proofing options, offers easy control over layouts, and also enables the creation of 'pattern prints'. These can be useful for creating fine art prints, as they feature a variety of versions of the image, with subtle differences in tone and colour, so you can pick your favourite before making the final print.

Martina has gained a lot of experience in how to print photos on a Canon printer. "I used to have a different brand of printer but the nozzles in the print head kept clogging up, which wasted a lot of time and ink," she says. "I started getting my prints made at a lab, which was OK up to a point, but when I started wanting higher volumes to submit to exhibitions and competitions, it got really expensive. Prints often came back that weren't quite how I wanted them, which became a real problem. The thing that really sold me on the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 was that a colleague had one and said it was really reliable. That's been my experience too, it just works every time. The A2 paper size is also perfect for almost all of my work and I know that if I make multiple copies of prints, they're going to be completely consistent time after time."


A fine art portrait print on high-quality paper transcends the digital image, as far as Martina is concerned. "When I hand over a print to a client, it's a physical entity that they can hold in their hand," she explains. "They can literally feel the quality as well as see it. It gives them the security that not only are they paying for a high-level portrait, but also for an archival quality print of the highest standard."

All in all, Martina has found that expressing herself through fine art printing has made her a better photographer. "The tactile quality of a print is something you can't replicate digitally. There's also so much freedom of expression when creating a print. I can tailor the final product to completely satisfy myself and my clients. The fact that I'm creating the print adds a personal connection to the artwork, elevating everything. For a photographer, I believe fine art printing is the ultimate proof of craftsmanship."

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