Pioneer Spirit

Fine Art Printing for Pho­to­graphers is not an encyc­lo­pedic printing ref­er­ence. It is how­ever one of the few ref­er­ences avail­able that treats the pro­cess of cre­ating ‘exhib­i­tion quality prints’ comprehensively…

Propped–up, just behind the laptop that I am typing this review on, are a range of Pho­toshop books, magazines, and DVDs (and there are plenty more at home). On the shelves above these are lit­er­ally hun­dreds of print–outs (and there are more in the filling cab­inet to my left), devoted to all aspects of digital ima­ging. I read a lot/I have got a lot of stuff that needs reading! Why do you care though? Well, I have had this book sit­ting on my desk for the last few months, and—having already read it cover–to–cover twice (I read the first edi­tion, too)—I am turning to this title more fre­quently than to any other. This book is so useful that I am making sure that it is always within arms-reach.

In terms of what it seeks to cover, you will find — amongst other topics — the most com­pre­hens­ible dis­cus­sion of printing tech­no­lo­gies (inkjet/dye–sublimation/lightjet/offset, etc) that I have seen; print per­man­ence and archival; colour man­age­ment; using a RIP; and file pre­par­a­tion, prior to printing (sharpening, soft–proofing, etc). Overall, having fin­ished the title, you will feel con­fident that you have a fairly com­pre­hensive appre­ci­ation of the entire process.

If you are con­sid­ering pur­chasing this title, you may be won­dering whether it is worth the expense. Is this the kind of book a good read? Can you read it cover–to–cover? What does it offer that you do not already know? Will you return to it?

Firstly, per­haps the biggest sur­prise is that you prob­ably will read it (almost) cover–to–cover (first time round I skipped a few pages that dis­cussed printing tech­no­lo­gies that I do not use — though I did find myself returning to that sec­tion for curi­os­ities sake). Unusu­ally for a tech­nical book, this is an engrossing read, and it can be dif­fi­cult to put down! 

In terms of its con­tinual value, I can assure you that you will return to it. I have read both edi­tions of this text, and will con­tinue to pur­chase new edi­tions as they are pro­duced. Why? Approx­im­ately one–third of the book is devoted to new material (printer/paper reviews, and soft­ware inter­face changes). I have found that it is pre­cisely this inform­a­tion that has kept this book con­stantly within arms–reach since I received it. Indeed, although this text does not deal exhaust­ively with the fine art printing pro­cess, it is com­pre­hensive enough to ensure that it is the first place I check when I need information.

You may think that one reading would be enough, and cer­tainly one reading of this title is suf­fi­cient to grasp the entire printing work­flow (as recom­mended here). The result? You will imme­di­ately begin to pro­duce better prints of your images. How­ever, as your print quality improves you will return—again and again—for the details. Which paper is most suit­able for your images? How should you pro­tect your prints over time? These are the ques­tions that you will find your­self returning for answers to. And, as you return to its pages, this title will con­tinue to offer useful information.

I have men­tioned though, that this title is not exhaustive. This is not to its detriment—it would be dif­fi­cult to lift if everything was covered in depth! You may find how­ever, that over time you need to look else­where to fill in the gaps. In my opinion, the fol­lowing resources are great places to con­tinue your journey of understanding:

• To sup­ple­ment this title’s colour man­age­ment chapter, visit Joseph Holmes website.
• For paper reviews, and an excel­lent video training title (which duplic­ates much of the inform­a­tion of this book, but may suit your learning style better), visit The Luminous Landscape
• For more com­pre­hensive inform­a­tion regarding image sharpening tech­niques, cur­rently the best source of inform­a­tion is Deke McClelland’s ‘Pho­toshop CS3 Sharpening Images’ training video, avail­able on ‘Lynda.com’.
• Finally, for a sim­ilar book to this one, aimed spe­cific­ally at black and white printing, you cannot go wrong with Amadou Diallo’s excel­lent Mas­tering Digital Black and White.

This post is tagged Printing, Resources, Reviews