Put your two cents in...

[Schewe]

On Monday and Tuesday, Michael and I will be shooting a Fine Art Digital Printing Tutorial together (here in Toronto at his gallery-I came to see Lolita in print form at his opening :~)

So...I think we have everything down in terms of an outline of what we are gonna cover, but...I thought it would be useful to post the outline and see if there was anything missing on importance...so, here's what we plan on covering (not saying EVERYTHING will make it in, but it's what we plan on covering)

•   A brief history of digital printing

•   The dominance of inkjet and why

•   Printer choices currently available. Sizes and purposes

•   Monitor calibration and profiling
     Importance of WYSIWYG
     Tools available

•   Getting the file right – in camera
       Proper exposure

•   Expose to the right

•   Preparing a file for printing
         Scanning transparencies and negatives
     Raw vs jpg
     8 bit vs 16 bit workflow
     wide gamut spaces (pros and cons)
     Camera Raw / Lightroom vs others
     Doing it all in the raw converter, and why
         The role of Photoshop when working with raw files

•   File organizing and management
     Storage strategies and file naming and management
     Drives, backups, CDs/DVDs
     Archiving strategies. Storing off site

•   Sharpening
    Unsharp mask
    Photokit Sharpener
        Camera Raw/Lightroom

•   Noise reduction
     Noiseware Pro
     Noise Ninja

•   Cropping
     The manufacturer’s frame vs. your own

•   Color
     The spectrum
     CMYK vs RGB
     Color spaces
         sRGB, Adobe RGB, Prophoto RGB

•   Why color management?
     The concept of profiles
     The concept of Gamut
     Show color spaces in ColorThink
     The working environment
     Viewing boxes and lights

•   Printer choices
     Models currently available
     Brands, pros and cons
     Sizes and needs
     Roll vs sheet
     Paper feed choices
     Dye vs pigment
     Ink cart sizes (costs / convenience)
     Archival characteristics
     Heads – permanent vs replacable
     Working with outside labs

•   Printer connections
     USB/FireWire
     LAN

•   Paper choices
     Matte vs glossy

•   Esthetic decisions and print uses
     Paper brands
     Whiteners
         Dynamic Range of prints

•   Printer profiles
     buying
     sources
     making
     tools and demo
     setting up no color management
     using
     locations
     ICC and ICM
     Loading

•   Printing resolution
     Ressing up and ressing down
     Bicubic vs third parties
     Photoshop vs the printer driver

•   Rendering intents
     Perceptual
     Relative colorimetric

•   Soft proofing
     Gamut limiting

•   Monochrome printing
     Conversion techniques

•   Printing environments
     CS2 (Print with Preview)
     CS3
     Lightroom

•   Printer drivers (settings)
     Mac vs PC
     Navigating the different menus

•   RIPs
     Pros and cons of RIPs
     The changing scene

•   Matting and framing

•   Sprays and laminating

•   Recommended books

WOW...and we're gonna try to get that shot in two days? Gonna be a couple of LONG DAYS...but hey, that's our job!

So, are we missing anything obviouss?

[wolfnowl]

I only wish I could be there, as do many others, I'm sure....

[Thomas Krüger]

What about adding Qimage to Printing environments?
This program is a real timesaver.

[David White]

It looks like everything is covered.  Lots of stuff for two days.  Hopefully we won't have to view movies of you guys jumping in the lake again.  

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Sounds fantastic. Please don't leave anything out!!!

Better have lots of coffee ready for those back-to-back 24-hour filming sessions.    

Good luck, and thank you both for taking this on. The menu covers everything I've struggled with since going digital.

[madmanchan]

Jeff, nice outline. One suggestion: optimal lighting conditions / viewing conditions for seeing the final prints, e.g., if hung on the wall in a gallery? Maybe this goes under the section of "viewing boxes and lights" or maybe near the end in "matting and framing" (since it's more of a presentation issue).

[rdonson]

So, are we missing anything obvious?

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That's a comprehensive list especially if you're going into any reasonable amount of detail.  To date, fine art printing has been something of a dark art practiced by those who speak in tongues (mostly color management).  Anything you can do to remove the mystery is welcome.

As has been mentioned previously a look at Qimage would be most welcome.  It has a sizable following and is the working man's answer to a full fledged RIP.  It uprezzes, does final sharpening, page layout, and much more for a very reasonable sum of money.

From a personal interest, anything you can do to shed more light on high quality b&w printing would be very welcome.  I have an HP Z3100 and I love the print neutrality but I'm looking for that final 5-10% to perfection.

[Dan Donovan]

I have 3 suggestions:

1) Smart Sharpen when discussing sharpening
2) Lustre paper when discussing paper surfaces
3) Aperture deserves a mention

Thanks!
Dan

[Dan Donovan]

One more thing...

What inkjet paper out there has the look and feel of B&W fiberbase paper used in the darkroom?  Of course the tonal range needs to be just as good or better, plus the prints need to last a long time.  And does this paper work better with some ink/printer combinations versus others?

Thanks again,
Dan

[KeithR]

WOW! Thats gonna be one heck of a tutorial! Just a few things to consider. In addition to Qimage(if you do), how about QTR and maybe contrast/compare it to the printers ABW, such as Epsons, for example. And about paper surfaces, in addition to glossy/matte/luster, why not discuss others like textures(heavily textured to semimatte). Just a thought. And to make it in two days? With what you two are going to try to cover, you might make it in two, but only if ya don't take breaks to eat, drink, sleep, etc.   Can't wait to see it.

[KeithR]

Could you comment on the various printing problems people are experiencing with reguarding the new CS3, LR, Vista.
And also comments/solutions on effectivly centering a print on the paper.

[azmike]

Jeff,  thanks for asking.

Your outline includes most, if not all, the tools and techniques.

What I'd like to see is a (concluding) discussion, with visual examples, of "good" prints vs "great" prints of the same image.  Most of us reading the Luminous-Landscape forum can make "good" prints, but really "great" prints are difficult as we have perhaps less knowledge of the limits of what's possible and when we're there.  Said another way, by way of example finished prints, help us in printing quality assessment.

Mike Coffey

[eyebeam]

Wow, lots of good topics.

Since you asked for comments - -

On softproofing, there is the category Gamut Limiting. I presume this will incude techniques for bringing colors that are out of the printer gamut into the printer gamut.

On printer profiles, how about a few words on evaluating how good the printer profiles are (both objectively and subjectively). This would also involve comments on "viewing boxes." Additionally, a critical review of printer profiling software would be helpful.

As a viewer, I would like to see less time spent on the first six bullets, as well as the bullets marked "cropping", and "printer connections" in favor of the other topics listed.

Good luck.

[rdonson]

On softproofing, there is the category Gamut Limiting. I presume this will incude techniques for bringing colors that are out of the printer gamut into the printer gamut.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=118749\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Great topic.  I'll second the request for dealing with out of gamut colors.  Something more than just use perceptual rendering.

[Mark D Segal]

Jeff and Michael,

I only noticed this topic just now, so I hope I'm not too late. The outline looks very ambitious and comprehensive. Hope you can actually do it all!

My comments are more about internal content. There are three things I would particularly appreciate seeing covered if you can manage it (or perhaps you already intend to, but I'll mention nonetheless):

(1) The appropriate order (if there is one) of making adjustments in ACR4 or in the Develop Module of Lightroom (since they are essentially the same except for the fact that ACR4 has that all-useful point curve which Lightroom doesn't have). The reason I mention this is that working between the Basic tab, the Curve Tab and the HSL tab, there are controls that do *apparently* similar things in the one and the other, and one can find oneself offsetting stuff unecessarily unless being logical and careful about how to proceed. Presumably there is a generally best order of tweaking what/when, with exceptions.

(2) Going back and forth between Lightroom and Photoshop. It would be good to see a review of how, when and why one does this, and what are the things to watch out for in the process.

(3) More generally, for image adjustments and printing, when is it preferable to use Lightroom, when CS3 - for those things which both can do (the answer is obvious for tools one needs that are missing in one or the other).

Best wishes for a great product in the making.

Mark

[richardm33]

I, too, think your outline is very ambitious.

Are the attendees going to be free to ask questions? If so, I
doubt you'll finish. You might want to rearrange your topics
so that less essential topics are placed at the end of each
day. That way you'll reserve time on day two for important
topics rather than still bogged down finishing day one topics. I
hope that makes sense.

Best of luck.

[dkeyes]

Great outline.

To help get it all in and not go into extreme detail in every area, you might supply web addresses to "online experts" websites for various areas of discussion. There are many in-depth sites that cover topics such as color space, up rezzing files, scanning, etc.
Good luck!
- Doug

[Chris_T]

WOW...and we're gonna try to get that shot in two days? Gonna be a couple of LONG DAYS...but hey, that's our job!

So, are we missing anything obviouss?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=118650\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It'll take me two LONG LIFE TIMES to absorb the list. I'm a slow learner. :-)

Kidding aside. I think that in general workshops should emphasize ONE thing that sets them apart from books and tutorials. That is to demonstrate how to evaluate an image (on monitor or in print) by laying out multiple versions side by side. Color cast, sharpness, etc. are very subjective and are difficult to represent and demonstrate accurately in print. But not so in workshops.

In my own digital learning experience, it is much more difficult to know WHAT to look for than HOW to fix it. Teaching students HOW to fix something is somewhat analogous to feeding someone a fish, teaching them WHAT to look for is like teaching them how to fish.

[Charlesu]

2 cents?

2 words.....

Road Show!

[Jack Flesher]

Sounds like a very comprehensive session, my compliments!

The only thing not specifically mentioned, but one I find most of my printing students don't know or use, is the proper application of a printing curve to limit tones to what the printer can achieve at both ends.  For example, on my Epson K3's with coated Pk papers, this usually requires a limit somewhere around 250 (98%) up top and 5 (2%) or so at the bottom -- but obviously this varies with profile being used so needs to be specific to it.

Best,