printing basics references

Epson Stylus Photo 2400 Specifications - Epson.co.uk

Paper size - Wikipedia

If I'm to print a full size A3 print on of of these printers, I can print right to the edge if I choose the right settings in the printer driver? Otherwise the margins are 3mm left/right, 20mm top/bottom.

A3 paper: 297mm x 420mm/11.7" x 16.5"

I'm not planning on doing this anyway but I think it's important to know the printable area when you start prepping for printing in Photoshop.

Ok, now I'm confused. Why is an A3 printer suggesting it can print a larger area than the surface of the paper? I'm going to make a new canvas in Photoshop, the size of an A3 minus the margins (assuming you have to do it for each 4 sides). That will be:

291mm x 380mm

I'm moving my images onto this canvas, resized for printing at:

35cm x 18.92, pixels, 2480 x 1341. Resolution of 180. 

Cross your fingers xx

the text reference list

This page will serve as an always updateable reference list. I will include recommendations, as well as things that I want to study, and things that I have studied. I haven't worked out the logistics of it yet but may sort by subject/author/date/status (recommended/read/want to read)... or perhaps I'll colour code in addition. Most other influences are noted as part of the blog but I guess I should list them here and perhaps link them to the original post? Open to suggestions :)

Recommended texts in The Digital Fine Print:

BIALOBRZESKI, P., RIBBAT, C. & HANIG, F. (2004) Neontigers : photographs of Asian megacities, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany; New York, Hatje Cantz ; [Distributors] D.A.P. Distributed Art Publishers. Amazon or RMIT 770.92 B576

BLATNER, D. (2004) Real world scanning and halftones : industrial strength production techniques, Berkeley, Calif., Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 686.22544 B644

BLATNER, D. (2008) Real World Adobe Photoshop Cs3 : Industrial-Strength Production Techniques, Berkeley, Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.686 B644

CAPONIGRO, J. P. (2003) Adobe Photoshop master class : the essential guide to revisioning photography, Berkeley, Calif., Adobe Press book published by Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.6869 A239

ELAM, K. (2001) Geometry of design : studies in proportion and composition, New York, N.Y., Princeton Architectural Press. Amazon or RMIT 701.8 E37

ENNIS, H. & NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA. (2004) Intersections : photography, history and the National Library of Australia, Canberra, National Library of Australia. Amazon or RMIT 779.0749471 E59

EVENING, M. (2007) Adobe Photoshop CS3 for photographers : a professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC, Oxford ; Burlington, MA, Elsevier/Focal Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.686 E93

FRASER, B. (2005) Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2 : industrial-strength production techniques, Berkeley, Calif., Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.6869 F841

FRASER, B., MURPHY, C. & BUNTING, F. (2005) Real world color management : industrial-strength production techniques, Berkeley, CA, Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 006.6 F841

JOHNSON, S. (2006) Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography, O'Reilly Media, Inc. Amazon

KISSELL, J. (2007) Real world Mac maintenance and backups, Berkeley, CA [S.L.], Peachpit Press ; Take Control Books. Amazon or RMIT 621.3916 K56

LONG, B. (2007) Real World Aperture, Berkeley, Calif., Peachpit Press. Amazon or RMIT 778.593 L848

MARGULIS, D. (2006) Photoshop LAB color : the canyon conundrum and other adventures in the most powerful colorspace, Berkeley, CA, Peachpit. Amazon or RMIT 006.686 M331

POGUE, D. (2007) Mac OSX: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition, O'Reilly Media, Inc. Amazon or RMIT (Tiger) 004.165M2 P746

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Benjamin, W 1968The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, from
http://fineartphotography.dsc.rmit.edu.au/?page_id=85

Berger, J 1965 Ways of Seeing Videorecording viewed March 2007

Bright, S 2006 Art Photography Now, First paperback edition, Thames and Hudson,
London.

Huxley, A 1936 Brave New World, Flamingo, London

Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (2003). Film Art: An Introduction, 6th ed. New
York: McGraw-Hill.

Cotton, C 2004 The Photograph as Contemporary Art, Thames and Hudson, London

Smith, L Photographic Theory from
http://fineartphotography.dsc.rmit.edu.au/?page_id=85

Stathern, P 2002 The Essential Kant, Virgin Books, London

Wells, L 2000, Photography: A Critical Introduction 2nd Edition, Routledge, London

Westbury, M 2007 Not Quite Art ABC, Television Series viewed on air 2007 ( and
some new art show on ABC tracing the history of the evolution of art, and its effects).

Gomes, L 2008 Why We’re Powerless to Resist Grazing on Web Data, Wall Street
Journal Online, viewed march 2008
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120527756506928579-
3wNdJRXhkpLqY4EDBt4j3ly1foo_20090312.html?mod=rss_free

making the digital fine print

Yesterday evening I headed into the city to meet up with Clover to print our photos for reviews this week. Neither of us had ever used the printers at uni before. I didn't have enough money to buy inks & paper so Clover said I could use hers, and next time she can use mine. Incredibly generous.

However, the evening did not get off to a great start. When I got into the city, I realised that I left the slide of megan at home. 40 minutes in the other direction. So even though my 5:30 class was cancelled I still didn't get there until 7:30, but that's what we had originally planned so that was ok.

When I arrived I couldn't find a slide holder for any of the scanners. Kelvin (what would anyone do without him!) told me to just remove the piece of film and pop it into the 35mm film holder. Brilliant. Open Nikon CoolScan and hit 'preview'.

And that's when I realised I had no idea what I was doing.

It's not like I don't know anything about this stuff. I was just blank. I've got a shitty memory, haven't scanned film for a long time (oh, how I love Raw), and I really had no idea what resolution, size, etc to do everything, let alone what order to do it all in. I popped on the net and downloaded Shane's notes on workflow from a recent class. It wasn't the solution to all my problems but it made a big difference just to have some sort of instructions to refer to; even just to jog my memory. I had much less confidence than I was expecting.

I scanned it in at 16 bit, resolution of 240, the same as the other file I was using from the 400D. I mainly just did some exposure adjustments before trying to clean it up a bit more in Photoshop. And then, again, realised I need to give myself a big refresher course in Photoshop and digital imaging. Which is why Shane recommended this references list for us. After a few hours of preparation in Photoshop, Clover and I built up the courage to print our test strips. I opened the file on the desktop by Les about printing. It was like a walk-thru for CS2 but we were now using CS3 so the interface was different. We couldn't find the same dialogue boxes but basically followed the instructions as best we could. I printed my test strip. It was incredibly fast. And then I realised, again, that even though I felt reasonably confident this time, I had no idea what I was doing. The print looked terrible. It had lines (like when your print heads are dirty), but these were brand new inks, and the last person to print was Kelvin; he would have told us if there were any problems to look out for. I was convinced that somewhere I had forgotten to apply the Ektaspace profile, or perhaps I should've been using the Illford Smooth Pearl profile... but Clover ran a test strip and got the same results. The colours were completely fucked. I kept having flashbacks to this cubish shaped series of colour spectrums that Shane showed us last year when explaining colour profiles. And how if you don't sync everything up, you can potentially shave a very big chunk of your colours out, and force them into being something else. Just extremely bad, sickening.

We didn't know what to do. We looked on the fine art photography site for help. We looked around the DD looking for the notes that were up around the printers last year. We found them... there was a blown up versions of Les' walk-thru, and some info on custom profiling. We then searched the computers for clues... we searched every option in Photoshop, over and over. Or so we thought.
I had already admitted defeat by the time clover realised that we needed to tell Photoshop to colour manage for us, but to make sure to tell the printer not to (as well as tell the printer about what surface we were printing on and which option of quality we would like). And somehow we realised that those options were in the dialogue box after the one we'd assumed to be the most important. I think that was because in Photoshop's dialogue box, the last option you can take is to hit 'print'. But later I realised it actually said 'print...', which in essence means, 'print with options'. I feel like such and idiot in retrospect but I really just assumed that it would be best not to mess with anything in the printer dialogue. But I have to remember I'm traing to be a proffessional, I cant get anywhere being intimidated by little dialogue boxes!

Well I've definitely learned a few big lessons. Which is the point of uni... but the biggest is that I really need to get these big time-consuming things out of the way much earlier in case of any other big lessons I need to learn. My prints didn't come out exactly as planned... some resizing issues came up when we finally began printing. I'd saved my images to A4 size with a white border... but I forgot the printer wouldn't know that my white border was nothing, therefore didn't exceed the printable area. Next time I need to know what the size of the printable area is! Obviously! But everything like this is obvious in retrospect, so I guess in that respect it's very helpful. I'm not likely to forget in a hurry. So, Clover and I had finally finished up. Her prints were really incredible. I was really happy for her (and I won't deny it, jealous!) But then we realised the clocks were wrong, due to the delayed change to daylight savings, so it was actually more like 4 am... I was too tired to care anymore. But then something good happened. We were walking down Bowen Lane, when I noticed a lot of paint cans in a construction dumpster. I've recently started cleaning out my garage to make my own digital studio. I would probably have finished by now but I ran out of paint. And money. But now I have paint, and got to saved a bit of extra landfill going to waste! Thanks, RMIT!

the first step in the process of elimination (or on making a decision)

I made a decision today. Out of all the potential subjects I could shoot for my final year I have decided on portraits; most likely headshots. It started after learning a bit about lighting in Darren's class, and just realising how much I want to explore more in that area. Today I went to a lecture by Les, it was based on digital light and the pitfalls of Photoshop, but also about colour, luminance and tone and the great painters and how right they got it. That reminded me of when I studied portrait painting at Deakin, how much fun it was playing and making colours, and investigating skin tone and making it work. They had us go to the NGV International and sketch studies of some of the great historical painters. One I remember was Hercules and Antaeus by Peter Paul Rubens. I will never forget how incredible it was to wander into the modern art section after spending several hours looking at much more conservative and 'realistic' portraits. The first one I saw was Picasso's Weeping Woman... the freedom, and extremities was just so incredible, and it worked! Who knew we had so much green and purple in our skin! And just to be able to communicate so well using techniques that you might assume would create the opposite effect... I love that. I love it when people are true, it's brave. And it works. His work is so him, which is why it can mean something to us. It's real.

Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman, 1937, oil on canvas 55.0 x 46.0 cm, NGV International

Around the same time I borrowed some books about the works of Lucian Freud and I fell in love with his work, and his style. I'll have to look into him more.

Lucian Freud, Sleeping Head, 1979-80, oil on canvas, 40.32 x 50.48 cm, Private Collection

*Edited a minute or so later to add...

I was just looking at the Weeping Woman and I remembered that during the first week of uni I considered an idea that has stayed with me in the back of my mind... I was feeling depressed and listening to Claire Bowditch, and I had the same feeling I get when I'm depressed and watch Six Feet Under or Season 6 of Buffy. The feeling of really relating, connecting to someone, the creators and artists in these works. And then I thought about taking portraits of people crying. It would be hard, and depressing, but I think I like it. More on that later though its late an I wont go to bed if I continue.