In the past, zooming in on iPhone images led to disappointing results because it just an enlarged low resolution photograph, kinda like zooming past 100% in Photoshop or past 1:1 in Lightroom. When you sync a high pixel count image to an iPhone, iTunes “optimizes” images for the phone by lowering the pixel count and re-saving a unique JPEG for the phone. This process can lower the image quality and sharpness significantly thus many pros have been disappointed with image viewing on previous iPhones. It felt low resolution to begin with and even worse when zoomed.

With the release of iOS4 came a new iTunes image optimization routine designed to improve image viewing especially on the iPhone 4. From my tests it appears that iOS 4 now stores images at 1920×1280 pixels with a medium amount of JPEG compression. If images are even just slightly larger than this pixel count iTunes will resample images which results in a loss of image sharpness. If images are lower than this pixel count they will appear pixelated when you zoom in on them.

For photo geeks wanting to get the very best image quality on their iPhone 4, I suggest preparing your images at no greater than 1920×1280 pixels with high screen sharpening. The resolution as defined in ppi is irrelevant since the pixel count is the only thing that matters on the iPhone. I normally cringe at excessive sharpening but I find high sharpening to be quite agreeable in this situation. If you are exporting images from Lightroom, for example, the Export dialog should look something like this:

You can either sync this folder of images to the phone directly in iTunes or you can drag them to an iPhoto album. Either way it will re-save them as a new JPEG. I’ve suggested saving an initial JPEG at the 100% quality level so that when it’s re-JPEGed by iTunes artifacting won’t be a problem.

Understanding the iPhone’s image viewing behavior
You can zoom into an image on the iPhone by double clicking on the image itself. You might have noticed that when zooming in on an image viewed while the phone is in the vertical position, the image appears sharper than zooming in on an image viewed while the phone is in the horizontal position. Ever noticed that? Try it right now if you haven’t seen this. Zooming while the phone is in the vertical position zooms to 1:1 or 100% where every pixel in the file is represented by one pixel in the display. Zooming while the phone is in the horizontal position zooms past 1:1/100% which results in a bigger but less sharp image. Rotating the phone while zoomed in doesn’t change the viewing ratio so be sure to test this by activating the zoom while in one orientation and then the other.

For optimal image viewing, be sure to zoom in while the phone is in the vertical orientation. Rotate for horizontal viewing after zooming, if appropriate. Geeks will appreciate how much better images look when zoomed in this manner. The common consumer will not, but if you’re reading my blog you’re probably not the common consumer.

One final observation is that the iPhone anti-aliases the “fit to screen” image you initially see prior to zooming, but *doesn’t* anti-alias the same image once you zoom back out. So after zooming out on an image you might notice some jagged edges that you hadn’t seen before – that’s normal.

What about the iPad?
I hadn’t done exhaustive testing on the iPad yet, but Apple engineers tell me that images are resized to 2048×1536 (twice that of the iPad’s 1024×768 pixel count). Since the perception of image sharpening is tied to the resolution in ppi of the display (not the pixel count) a lower sharpening amount is recommended for the iPad’s 132ppi display relative to sharpening for the iPhone4’s 326ppi display.

Update (7-21-10)
I had some good email conversations with two Apple engineers today because of this article. I was able to get these suggestions to the ear of the guy in charge of image resizing:

1) Incorporate a “Bicubic Sharper” interpolation method when optimizing images for idevices to maintain image sharpness. The current use of bicubic definitely degrade image sharpness.
2) Set the zoom to zoom to 1:1 when the device is in either vertical or horizontal orientation. The fact that the zoom is currently greater than 1:1 when the device is in the horizontal position is undesirable.
3) Restore the antialiased “fit to screen” version when an image is zoomed back out.

We’ll have to wait for iOS5 to see what improvements are in store. If Apple were to implement those tweaks they’d really be on top of their game, and everyone’s images would benefit.

Before I begin, I should say that I get my hands on a huge variety of printers in my work traveling around as a color and workflow consultant. Not only do I own Canon, Epson and HP printers in my own studio where I print my artwork that I show in galleries, I oversee a large base of clients all over the world that use everything from Durst silver halide printers to 20 foot wide Scitex solvent printers. I’d like to think I’m in a decent position to have a bird’s eye perspective of the industry as a whole and I strive to be as unbiased as I can with my observations. I choose to appreciate the differences between different products and try to avoid the type of brand loyalty that seems so common in our industry.

New inkset improves gamut substantially
The most significant improvement with these printers lies in Canon’s new Lucia EX inkset that increases the color gamut by about 20%. All 12 of Canon’s inks are newly formulated with smaller pigment particles and increased polymer encapsulation. The smaller pigment particles reduce reflection scatter which, in turn, increases saturation. The polymer encapsulation increases media adhesion and provides impressive scratch resistance. The polymer encapsulation also decreases gloss differential, bronzing and helps maintain precise, small dots that don’t bleed on paper.

x100 versus x300 gamut comparison on Canson Photographique Baryta paper

High Precision Photographs Option
This option implements a new advanced screening method and changes the order that the inks are laid down. By putting the light inks down after darker inks, color saturation is increased and gloss differential is reduced even further. This involves very complicated processing that slows the printing process. Small type and fine graphic lines become extremely sharp with this option due to increase dot placement accuracy. Printing with this mode doubles printing times but, even so, the x300 printers are faster than Epson x880 and Z3200 printers on their highest settings. This mode also places the head closer to the paper surface which potentially makes it problematic with papers that don’t lie perfectly flat. This is definitely an option for geeks with high resolution cameras and fine image detail and not for the masses wanting to do basic printing. The “High Precision Photographs” mode is available as a checkbox in the driver and via the “Highest (Max. No. of Passes)” mode in the printing plug-in.

High Precision Photographs mode as found in driver and printing plug-in

New buttons on printer and improved menu navigation
The new printers now have dedicated “load” “feed” and “cut” buttons which is nice. The printer’s screen uses the same B&W LCD as before but the user interface of the menu has been redesigned for more intuitive ease of use.

printer interface with new buttons

improved scratch resistance, lowered bronzing and lowered gloss differential
Canon claims that their scratch resistance is now far better than the other brands. From my testing this appears to be true but it should be noted that the paper itself also has an influence on scratch resistance. Matte surface cotton rag papers, for example, all have incredibly fragile surfaces regardless of the ink that lies on top of it. The increased polymer encapsulation further reduces the already low amounts of bronzing and gloss differential found in the previous inkset. While the improvements in scratch resistance are significant, it’s my feeling that gloss differential and bronzing are not important issues like they were a few years ago. See the photo of these tests and my conclusions in the “Comparison to the competition” section near the end of this review.

Custom media
The Media Configuration Tool for the new printers allows users to add custom media types that show up in the printer driver, printing plug-ins and on the printer itself. These custom media types include total ink limit values, media thickness, head height, vacuum strength and cutting preference. The process of setting up a new paper type is very easy and once completed you’ll see something like “Scott’s Fiber Base Paper” added to the list of media found in the drivers, plug-ins and on the printer itself. Of course, you’ll probably want to name your custom media types “Canson Photographique Baryta”, “Hahnemuhle Fine Art Baryta” or as needed.

Even better than this is the ability to download media configuration files and ICC profiles direct from paper companies that use the preferences that they have determined to be optimal for their paper. For example, Moab/Legion Paper company has released their MCT files at http://moabpaper.com/icc-profiles-downloads/canon/ The Media Configuration Tool will not allow older printers to add custom media types. This new feature only works with the x300 printers. Unfortunately MCT files made for the 8300 don’t work with the 63×0 and visa versa – each require unique files.

Being able to add a media type with the name of your choice and have that show up in the driver, plug-in and on the printer is great. Users can also choose to hide the media types they don’t utilize (in the driver, plugin, and at the printer console), which makes for tidy, short, customized media lists.

media menu with custom papers as seen from the driver

Despite these improvements, I look forward to the day when we can stick a new piece of paper into the printer and have the printer itself determine the optimal total ink limits and linearizations based on actual measurements from the media. Those of us that have been doing this for years with high-end RIPs see the limitations to Canon’s, Epson’s and even HP’s custom media approach, but also recognize the simplicity of their solutions.

Advantages to using the Photoshop Printing Plug-in
If you haven’t used Canon’s Printing Plug-in, you’re really missing out as it significantly streamlines the whole printing workflow. Printing with the plug-in simplifies things by showing everything in one dialog box and unlike the traditional print method, it always remembers the previously used settings. The custom page sizes are easy to use and the roll paper preview shows your image exactly as it will come out of the printer so there is never any question as to what the final orientation will be. The plug-in has includes a variable (0-500) print sharpening feature that, like Lightroom’s print sharpening feature, sharpens images at their final print size and resolution. The plug-in also allows for extremely long print lengths that exceed the capabilities of drivers and many popular RIPs. Surprisingly, the soft proofing in the driver is superior to Photoshop’s. Canon’s plug-in does a better job displaying images as they will appear when printed, particularly when it comes to delicate shadow detail. Mac users will also appreciate the fact that the plug-in is immune to the Colorsync issues we’ve been struggling with in recent years. The plug-in makes Photoshop’s printing method (with all of it’s different dialog boxes) look pretty antiquated. Canon users love the Plug-in!

Changes with the new Photoshop Printing Plug-in
The Plug-in has always used it’s own CMM (Color Management Module) which is responsible for the improved soft proofing and lack of Black Point Compensation with the Relative Colorimetric intent that some have complained about in the past. For the x300 printers, the plug-in let’s you choose to use the AdobeCMM if you like and utilize their Black Point Compensation for the Relative Colorimetric intent. The plug-in now allows for press proofing complete with paper simulation if you choose. The Plug-in uses Canon’s internally developed rendering engine (instead of relying upon the operating systems rendering engine). Canon’s rendering engine is very fast and is supposed to have some advantages when it comes to fine lines and patterns. With it your images will get to the printer faster so it can start printing with minimal delay. It’s notable that Mac 10.6 and newer printer drivers can also use Canon’s rendering engine by checking the “Fast Graphic Process” checkbox. It’s poorly named but super fast – I see no reason not to use it. Version 4 ICC profiles are no longer supported unless the Adobe CMM is installed. Lastly, the annoying dialog that shows up when you exit the plugin (“Are you sure you want to quit?”) can now be permanently dismissed.

dismissible close dialog (a small thing I know)

Improved internal media settings, linearization and round trip values
Canon has developed iterative techniques for developing the media linearization LUTs that are built into each media setting. Color geeks that perform round trip exercises (in GamutVision, ColorThink, Monaco Profiler, etc) will find the Delta E results to be closer to 0.40 rather than the 0.60-0.70 results we used to see with the previous generation. This translates into smoother gradations and profiles that don’t have to work as hard to get optimal results. Because of this, I’m seeing the smoothest Bill Atkinson 1729 targets and granger rainbows that I’ve even seen off of any printer.

Using new inks and print heads in older printers
In the past, users of Canon’s older printers have been able to install Canon’s newer inks and print heads without any repercussions. All users had to do was flush out their old inks using the “Move Printer” function, pull the plastic teeth on the new cartridges and install them normally. While the new x300 cartridges can physically fit and be installed in the same way, Canon discourages people from doing so because the new ink formulation with finer pigment particles and increased polymer will clog older head designs. The new PF-05 heads found in the new x300 printers are custom tailed for these new inks and aren’t compatible with the older printers.

Other details

• Operation is a little quieter than the previous generation.
• The printer’s menu and desktop printer spooler now display the remaining time needed for each print.
• Ink tracking now reports with accuracy to 1/1000th of a milliliter.
• When loading sheets, the printer figures out the paper size instead of asking.
• Gigabit Ethernet built into all models.
• New roll adapters accommodate both 2″ and 3″ rolls.
• 8300 and 6350 models include a hard drive which aides spooling and stores jobs for workstation-free reprinting.
• The printers remember the last three papers loaded and present them for quick selection when loading paper.
• New PF-05 heads are more affordable (~US$450), have more precise dot placement and produce cleaner lines, text and photographic detail.
• The chassis has increased rigidity which reduces vibration and allows for more accurate carriage placement.

prints made for evaluation and comparison

Comparison to the competition
I’ve been doing lots of side-by-side tests on the Canon 8300, Epson 9900 and HP Z3200 printers over the past two months and love all of them for different reasons. Canon and Epson are clearly running neck and neck with the pinnacle printer technologies in their x300 and x900 printers. These printers have a larger gamut and better dot placement than HP’s Z3200, and the Canon x100 and Epson x880 and x700 printers that are also available. The x300 and x900 printers are the fastest large format printers out there, have the most sophisticated screening technology and the largest color gamuts. They are clearly the top choice for demanding fine art printmakers. Overall their color gamuts are very, very similar. Epson’s HDR inks provide slightly greater saturation in many of the lighter colors, but the Lucia EX gamut is larger when we examine some of the deep, darker tones. Dark magentas and purples are particularly advantageous on the new Canon printers, and the night photographer in me lights up when I see these results. Depending on the type of imagery you work with you might find one to be preferable over another but we’re really being nit-picky here – Canon’s Lucia EX and Epson’s HDR inksets are very similar and are clearly the best on the market today.

Although I compared gamut differences on a variety of fiber base, RC, and cotton rag papers, I’ve chosen to use Canson’s Photographique Baryta paper for all of the illustrations in this section. Here are some gamut renderings from the Canon 8300, Epson 9900 and HP Z3200 printers on this paper.

highlight gamut comparison

midtone gamut comparison

shadow gamut comparison

Below are the profiling targets printed on Canson’s Photographique Baryta from the Canon 8300 (left), Epson 9900 (middle) and HP Z3200 (right). Although it’s not particularly important, I like to note how smoothly some printers reproduce this target.

profiling targets prior to scratch test

My informal tests suggest that Canon’s latest inks have the best in class bronzing, gloss differential and scratch resistance. What was really surprising was how disappointing HP’s Z3200 inkset faied in these tests regardless of the presence of their gloss optimizer. I’ve photographed the three targets catching window glare so as to illustrate differences in gloss differential and bronzing. For the scratch resistance test I’ve simply laid the prints as you see them and dragged the back of my fingernails across all three prints several times.

gloss differential and bronzing comparison

scratch resistance comparison

Epson’s x900 printers have a surprisingly quiet operation and an elegant color LCD display. Epson’s straight through printing path allows for thick media and excellent cut sheet handling that’s superior to Canon’s handling with a curved path. Canon’s printing plug-in streamlines the printing workflow from Photoshop, the driver has built in nesting and layout capability and the on-board calibration process ensures dead-on consistency over time. Canon models with a hard drive allow for job storage and reprinting without resending files from a computer. I’m told that preliminary testing suggests that Canon’s newest inkset will have very similar longevity and lightfast ratings as compared to their previous inkset (which fared better than Epson’s but not quite as good as HP’s). Some Epson x900 users continue to struggle with clogging, ink cartridge chip recognition and minor quality issues on their printers while there have been almost no x300 Canon printer problems to date (albeit, these printers haven’t been out long).

While Epson provides excellent profiles for all of their media and clearly labeled media settings, Canon doesn’t provide profiles for all of their media and the media options themselves can be confusing as they don’t match the names of the available media. Demanding printmakers using Canon printers should plan on determining optimal media settings and making custom profiles for all the papers they use. On the other hand, Epson now requires users to adjust the Color Density slider in the Paper Configuration area of the driver to achieve optimal results with their profiles on several media types. So I think both parties could simplify the process for a new user wanting to achieve superb results. It would be nice if each manufacturer provided clearly labeled media options, excellent profiles for all of their own media and the ability to add custom media all without extra fiddling and research. In my opinion, these printers are currently for advanced users that have the knowledge and patience for this research, fiddling and custom profile creation. For the most demanding printmakers, the results will be worth it.

HP clearly does the best job providing clearly named media types, custom media types and custom profiles on-board. This is truly something Epson and Canon could learn from and is a huge ease-of-use advantage for HP. Should HP release a faster, refined printer with an inkset to match Canon’s Lucia EX and Epson’s HDR inksets, they could have a winner on their hands.

Canon x300/Epson x900/HP Z3200 US street pricing after rebates is currently $2500/$3600/$2900 for the 24″ and $3700/$5350/$4400 for the 44″ versions. Epson sometimes offer rebates that drives their pricing down – they currently aren’t offering rebates this month. Obviously there is no clear winner here, just healthy competition and a strong drive toward print excellence.

Summary
Canon’s new x300 printers aren’t just the same old printer with a new inkset. Everywhere you look, from the buttons on the front of the printer, the display, menus, print heads, chassis, driver options, plug-in options, and improved final print quality, you’ll find lots of refinements. Casual users may not see big differences in their prints but demanding printmakers with loupes, experienced eyes and difficult images to reproduce will appreciate a range of improvements. With these affordable and solid printers, Canon is going head-to-head with Epson for the best fine art printing technology on the market.

Austin American-Statesman photographer Jay Janner recently made this portrait of Dan in his Driftwood, TX studio – the first of it’s kind in front of Dan’s handcrafted photo booth in his Driftwood, Texas studio.

FLYP magazine published a great article on his work and career. Highly recommended viewing. Included in the article are two videos where he talks about his devotion to photography and what makes a great portrait.

If you haven’t already I’d encourage you to spend some time at Dan’s website. Better yet, order his book Periodical Photographs from Aperture.

All of these displays use an LED backlit lightsource, IPS LCD panels and eco-conscious materials. These first two technologies are crucial for demanding professionals. The LED lightsource provides consistency across the screen, a boost in color gamut, power savings, lower heat generation and can achieve the lower luminance (brightness) levels that print professionals need. The IPS LCD panel provides a wide viewing angle so that the viewer doesn’t experience the density shifting that’s become so common with laptop and most LCD displays today that use the less expensive TN LCD panel technology. A lot of companies (like Samsung and Dell) used to offer good value IPS displays before the recession but have since lowered the quality of their displays by abandoning IPS technology. Interestingly enough, Apple (and to a lesser extent NEC) is one of the only companies that’s currently increasing the quality of their displays while lowering their pricing.

The NEC MultiSync PA241W display includes internal 14bit 3D LUT calibration hardware, a matte surface and a 4 year warranty that the Cinema Displays do not. NEC displays are not compatible with 3rd party calibration packages like Color Eyes Display Pro and instead require the $280 NEC SpectraView calibration system that’s sold separately. Apple’s LED Cinema Displays have built in speakers, camera and laptop power connections that lead to less clutter on the desktop. Both brands include an internal USB hub and several USB ports for convenience. Apple hasn’t actually announced the 27-30″ LED Cinema Display but it’s widely expected to come to market within the next few months. The already announced NEC MultiSync PA241W is expected to start shipping in the US in a few weeks.

Calibration
We can’t talk about high quality displays without also talking about calibration. After all, any display isn’t going to perform as desired until it’s calibrated to match the lighting in the environment that the user’s eye has chromatically adapted to. A well calibrated display will show white as matching paper white. When viewing a white Photoshop document, for example, it shouldn’t look cooler (bluer) or brighter than a white piece of paper as viewed a few feet away. Customizing the white point color temp and luminance setting via display calibration software to match print viewing or ambient lighting is a must. While the NEC has to be calibrated with NEC’s excellent Spectraview calibration package, I recommend Color Eyes Display Pro for calibrating displays that don’t come with calibration hardware (like the Cinema Displays). Color Eyes Display Pro’s iterative calibration process does such an impressive job smoothing out gradations that you won’t miss the calibration hardware that far more expensive displays include.

Commentary
A lot of people, (myself included) have had a knee-jerk reaction to Apple’s highly reflective glossy displays. I have to say – it’s really not that bad – especially if you have excellent, well placed lighting in your work environment. If the display makes you think about improving your lighting that’s not such a bad thing. After all, it wasn’t that long ago when we all worked behind glass faced monitors. I’m seeing a number of demanding clients using Apple’s new LED displays and, reflectiveness aside, they all have great things to say about them. I too have put them to the test and found that they perform admirably. Better than the previous generation for sure.

Photographers use lenses and display prints behind “museum” glass that have highly effective antiglare coatings. If Apple were to bring the same antiglare, museum glass coatings to their Cinema Displays, the cycle would be complete. Glassless, matte surfaced displays have become a regular option for MacbookPros so it’s not out of the question that they might come out with glassless matte surface LED Cinema Displays. Apple does have options for lowering the reflectivity on their Cinema Displays and I look forward to seeing what solutions they come out with in the future. This is definitely something to watch, and the existing 24″ LED display and 27″ iMac are both pretty nice in the meantime for the price.

As long as we’re talking about Apple’s “Pro” products, I think Compact Flash card readers should be built into these Cinema Displays, as well as MacBookPros and MacPros. Professionals, after all, use Compact Flash cards, not the consumer oriented SD cards found in smaller cameras.

Don’t get me wrong, I love expensive Eizo, Barco, and Quato displays (and NEC’s other displays). My clients and I have enjoyed them for years. But not only do most of their displays use the older CCFL backlit technology, the cost difference just doesn’t justify the difference in quality like it used to. Imagemakers like myself have to ask if the difference in cost might be better spent, say, on a new lens or printing equipment.

Update (7-27-10)
As expected, Apple just announced the 27″ LED Cinema Display for $999 and lowered the price of the 24″ LED Cinema Display to $799. For those on lower budget, the Viewsonic VP2365wb 23″ is an IPS 1920 x 1080 DVI display that performs surprisingly well for $300.

“If you want a fully color managed workflow I don’t think any silver halide process will provide that” – anon

Safe to say I’ve implemented fully color managed workflows with every silver halide machine on the market. It’s totally doable and has been for many years, but unfortunately some exceptional know-how can be required. Some lab owners don’t have the patience to get there and settle with “good enough”.

“Having tried soft proofing with our Lightjet & Noritsu printers, it just doesn’t reflect what the finished print looks like” – anon

Getting an excellent screen to print match is harder than just buying a calibration package and hitting the calibrate button. Understanding which calibration package to get, the intricacies of the process and grasping the role of high quality lighting all go into this. High quality lighting is the most commonly overlooked aspect, IMO. Some brands of profiles really do allow for better print to screen matching than others. One of my long-time clients (15 years), digitalprolab.com is bold enough to have a print to screen match guarantee and supports it with on-location lighting and display calibration training for their customers.

As for profiling silver halide machines there are several unique challenges that aren’t found in other printing processes. Achieving optimal linearity prior to profiling, black point handling (which varies per profile creation software), front end integration (with products with Labtricity and DP2), machine color handling variations (different model Noritsu’s manage color differently for example), and process control are all issues to understand.

>In addition, some silver halide machines implement a Grey Component Removal (GCR)-like technology in their RGB profiles, believe it or not!! To elaborate a little; if you expose your red laser at it’s max calibrated level you get at great red without light bleeding. If you expose maximum RGB light to achieve max black there is so much light that it bleeds which results in color fringing on prints (especially with less expensive thinner papers). For this reason some manufacturers use a RGB version of GCR technology to cut back on light exposure in the shadows, but not for solid colors. This one issue has been my biggest challenge for many years now as there aren’t any profiling packages on the market that will implement this (currently). I use a technique on Noritsus where I insert my own profile and let Noritsu apply the RGB CGR on top of it.

Let’s look at achieving optimal linearity prior to profiling. One would think that you could just perform the printer’s on board calibration (linearization) process and then print your profiling target. Some machines actually have several ways of performing a calibration and some are better than others. On some machines if you perform this process several times in a row you’ll get a better calibration than it you had run it only once. These systems create curves to neutralize the grayscale and while some processes simply tweak the previously made curves, others start from scratch to make a fresh set of curves. Understanding these differences can make the difference between being able to make gorgeous, perfectly natural looking B&W prints and making disappointing ones. It’s essential that one get an excellent calibration prior to the printing of profiling targets. If an iterative profiling process is implemented it’s important to work quickly before the machine starts to drift.

Some silver halide systems calibrate for maximum black density sacrificing black neutrality, while others prioritize black neutrality over density. DIfferent profiling packages handle what I call black point handling, differently so one’s choice of profiling software can produce surprisingly different results in the shadows and blacks. ProfileMakerPro and EyeOneMatch use a relative black approach which doesn’t attempt to neutralize the blacks at all, which can be a problem for silver halide processes that have a colorful DMax. MonacoProfiler (MP) will attempt to neutralize the blacks, sometimes sacrificing density. MonacoProfiler can only go so far with this black correction so sometimes profile editing (as much as I hate it) can be in order. There is new profiling tech that isn’t to market yet that will handle this better and help avoid editing (thank goodness). For now, Monaco Profiler’s RGB profiling process the real champion for silver halide profiling. Their perceptual rending is particularly notable as it renders better skin tones than PMP/EOM’s pink skin tones, and the gray balance is a tad warmer which I found to be universally preferable. Monaco Profiler lets you choose between a 1 step or iterative 2 step profiling process and it’s important to know when which process should be used.

As for front end integration, this is where the color management handling comes in. Most of these systems rely on front end software like DP2, Labtricity, Darkroom Pro, or their own custom software to perform color management. While some newer Noritsu systems will do this internally, older Noritsu’s won’t. Putting a front end between your customers files and your silver halide machines has, for a long time, been the answer to implementing color management in a photolab. Having your customer convert their images to print space profiles in Photoshop before sending files to the lab is a lousy workaround that’s loaded with problems! So, it’s important to be familiar with these front end solutions and know when to recommend one over another.

Understanding machine color handling variations is another issue to look at. Noritsu’s have historically have two modes: QSS mode and Net Order mode. The QSS mode allows operators to stick a memory card or CD directly into the machine and make prints. While this process wasn’t color managed with ICC profiles it did implement some pretty impressive color corrections to the image with served the same purpose and worked surprisingly well. Unfortunately, checkboxes like “apply digital camera correction” often confused operators and the final results weren’t always optimal. NetOrder mode is the mode one puts the machine in when a front end package is sending files to it. NetOrder mode doesn’t alter the color at all as long as the channel corrections are zeroed out. NetOrder mode turns off color management and color correction so that the front end package (DP2, Labtricity, etc) can handle the color space transformations. Todays Noritsu’s have a new front end called EZ Controller that has it’s own ways of handling color management that I won’t go into here. Newer Noritsus can also make their own ICC profiles onsite by printing out color patches and reading them. They are pretty complex and extremely smooth profiles that include this RGB CGR tech. Although the tech usually does this, anyone can do this. They also have a second set of files that are called “profiles” that shouldn’t be confused with ICC profiles. Their real ICC color profiles don’t use the ICC or ICM extension but my NDA prevents me from saying more about them or where they are located. Noritsu understandably doesn’t want their customers hacking around and calling them for help when they mess up their system. If you haven’t worked with a newer Noritsu, you’d be impressed with how much work they’ve done recently. They have two way communication with 3rd party front end software that tells it what paper is currently loaded in the printer so that the software can select the appropriate profile. Noritsu has some “big deal” stuff in development right now that’s going to make lab-wide color management a lot easier for a lot of labs soon. And FWIW, Fuji minilabs are now just repackaged Noritsu machines.

Process control is the last aspect to address. Silver halide machines are subject to drift due to temperature, paper and chemical variation. All of these systems have a built in calibration process that corrects for this drift but not everyone is good about knowing how often it needs to be performed. One simple process control method is to print an evaluation print immediately after profiling. I encourage labs to store this “reference print” for future comparison. If a new operator prints this same evaluation image at the interval of his or her choice, s/he can can compare it to the reference print and get a feel for that device’s drift characteristics and timeline. With this knowledge s/he can determine how often they need to calibrate the machine. With process control one can profile once, and calibrate often to maintain consistency. For those that don’t like the thought of process control, calibrating silver halide devices every 8 hours is a decent rule of thumb.

Those are some of the issues I’ve learned to address when color managing silver halide machines. As you can tell the “color management landscape” is complex here and it’s understandable why a number of labs don’t have the patience or expertise to tackle these challenges. It can be done though, and the results and print to screen matching can be fantastic. Labs can have dozens of different silver halide machines printing to different papers and color management can be implemented to manage it all automatically. Inkjet’s can also be made to match the silver halide gamuts when needed.

Knowledgeable color managed labs can accept files in any color space and will handle the print space conversation at the lab. There is a growing number of labs that are at this level and the knowledge is there to help the rest, as long as their customers request/demand it.

2 ) Ignore the midtones when adjusting Exposure and consider only the white clipping point. One must ignore the midtones as they will be adjusted via Brightness later in the workflow. If some whites are clipped at 0, option/alt drag the Exposure slider to the left until all colored pixels are removed.

3 ) Skip or be modest with Clarity. While lots of clarity creates a look that’s trendy right now, you might be surprised at how poor it can look when printed and compared to other images. I find that small prints (4×6, 8×10, etc) don’t need any clarity but larger prints (20×24, 60×94, etc) benefit from greater amounts. It’s worth considering scaling the amount of clarity with the size of a print.

4 ) In HSL, adjust Luminance first, Saturation second and Hue last. Be modest with adjustments and zoom to 1:1 looking for problems along edges.

5 ) Don’t skip correcting for Chromatic Aberration in the Detail panel! Chromatic Aberration is one of the most overlooked features yet it can easily improve the sharpness of an image in addition to removing unwanted color fringing. Hold down the Option/Alt key and look at the corners of your frame at 1:1 while adjusting chromatic aberration.

6 ) When applying a dark edge vignette, use a Post Crop vignette with a feather amount close to 80. The default feathering value of 50 is too low.

7 ) Pro users should consider making custom DNG profiles for their camera(s) with the XRite ColorChecker Passport. If not, the “Adobe Standard” is more likely than the other profiles (Camera Landscape, etc) to render pleasing results with a wider variety of images.

8 ) Develop images in Color mode before switching the treatment to Grayscale. Not only will the final grayscale product look better but the image will be ready for color printing should you decide to do so in the future. After applying a Greyscale treatment, re-adjust contrast (if necessary) and use Grayscale Mix (in the HSL panel) to simulate in front of the lens filtration (yellow filter, red filter, etc). This greyscale procedure will yield better results than a haphazard one.

9 ) Use Snapshots to save different versions of your images (ex: grayscale and color, cropping for different aspect ratios, etc). Saving snapshots with numbers is quick and can show a progression of development (when appropriate). Example: 1, 2, 3, 4color, 4grayscale, Import.

10 ) Uncheck the “Apply auto grayscale mix when converting to grayscale” checkbox in Lightroom’s preferences under the Presets tab. Auto=Yuk.

11 ) Set the background to white. You can do this by right-clicking (or control-clicking) on the background color around the image area when set to “Fit” to screen. While a white background may not be as pretty as the default dark gray, it will give you a better idea as to how an image’s highlight and mid-tone densities will appear when printed. A juxtaposition with paper white is critical. Toggle between white and dark grey if you like, but always view and adjust with a white background before printing or exporting.

12 ) Print! Image development can only be mastered by producing gorgeous prints. A lot can and will be learned along the way.

Fortune Cookie of the day: Moderation is good for all things in life, especially with clarity, saturation, vignetting and HSL adjustments.

Unlike the previously popular “Extract Monaco LAB” applescript, “Convert to MonacoLAB” is Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6.x) compatible. The Windows version is compatible with XP and Vista; it should also be compatible with Windows 7, though it has not yet been tested on that platform.

“Convert to MonacoLAB” uses a convenient droplet that allows the user to drag and drop a measurement file onto the droplet icon for processing. The processed measurement file retains the original file name and conveniently adds the “MP” suffix at the end of the filename.

You can read more about and download the Mac and Windows versions of Convert to MonacoLAB at Eric’s website. Here’s the direct link to the Mac download and the Windows download.

I’m a big fan of Bill Atkinson’s 1728 profiling targets and have been using Eric’s application in Snow Leopard to get measurement data into MonacoProfiler for generating printer profiles. I’m also a big fan of Eric’s work at Adobe. A big thanks to him for making this utility.

Tom Hogarty, Lightroom’s Product Manager, has lots to say about this beta in his blog. In it he says:

“We’re only halfway through our noise reduction efforts but believe that you will be very pleased with the results so far. We’ve actually disabled the previous Luminance Noise Reduction so that you can focus on evaluating the Color Noise reduction implementation.”

I’m finding a few reasons to actually increase luminance noise reduction on high res long exposures in low light, so I’m yearning to see these sharpening tool evolve a little further from where they are in this beta. But I’m impressed with the results so far.

Tom also points out that images previously developed in previous versions of Lightroom will initially appear the same in LR3 with a warning triangle that appears above the upper left hand corner of the Histogram. If this triangle is pressed, the image will be re-rendered using LR3’s new processing, including the new demoasiacing, sharpening and noise reduction algorithms. The screen grabs above were taken before and after clicking this triangle using LR’s detail panel defaults. It appears that LR3’s new process quality improvements are best seen on high ISO images, especially those from 20+ megapixel cameras files.

A) Generally speaking, color negative (C-41) film is a dream to scan relative to transparency (E6) and black and white films. Color negative not only captures a huge dynamic range but compresses it to a very small dynamic range that’s easy for scanners to extract.  Color negative film allow allows the photographer to print in either color or black and white. Images can be scanned in color mode and in front of the lens filtration (yellow filter, red filter, etc) can be simulated during the process of converting the image to a grayscale mode. Fuji has concentrated recent efforts on tweaking their new color negative films to be even more optimal for scanning. Some B&W neg films (like TMAX 100) can be problematic because they can exceed the dynamic range of the scanner so you have to loose some of either the highlights or shadows.

Now, there are always exceptions. Some scanner software applications aren’t great at handling color from color negatives. Some drum scanner applications, for example, just don’t know what to do with the orange mask and it would take a super skilled operator to overcome the software limitations to get good scan out of it. Most drum scanning applications were designed to scan transparency films so you might hear an operator say E6 is best for scanning (at least on *his* scanner system). Finally, some people might prefer to shoot their favorite B&W neg film for the sake of the unique grain structure.

Imacon/Hasselblad and Nikon scanners are great for color negative scanning and with those scanners you’ll probably want to shoot color neg, especially Fuji’s latest flavors.

sRAW files aren’t actually true RAW files. The sensor’s true RAW data is demosaiced and rendered to a lower resolution file and saved in the YCC color mode. For this reason the final file size isn’t quite as small as one might hope (IE: quarter resolution sRAW files are about half the file size of a full RAW file). Unfortunately, when these files are currently converted to DNG, images are converted to less efficient RGB space and the file size increases – negating some of the file size and processing benefits.

The chart adove illustrates the file sizes of a full res (resolution) raw file, a half res sRAW1 file, a quarter res sRAW 2 file before and after conversion to DNG, and a full res large JPEG.

Perhaps the DNG file format will be updated to include YCC sRAW files at their smaller file size. In the meantime, if you wish to keep file sizes small when shooting sRAW, I recommend sticking with the proprietary sRAW format that your camera uses (CR2, NEF, etc).

Printer driver compatibility is probably the main issue that will force some users to delay upgrading. Snow Leopard’s CUPS printing structure is different enough from the previous version that existing printer drivers may not work. While Apple has their generic “Gutenprint” driver for many common printers, professional will want to wait for the official drivers from the printer manufactuers. Printer manufacturers are weary of releasing 10.6 compatible drivers before they’ve had the chance to test them throughly with the final version. I’ve been told to expect 10.6 compatible printer drivers for currently shipping printers to be released 2-6 weeks after Snow Leopard’s ship date. Expect a slightly longer wait for printer drivers to older, discontinued printers.

Caution is advised when upgrading to Snow Leopard. So far I have seen several color management issues that involve printing in Snow Leopard. Check for compatibility of your applications and printer drivers at the Snow Leopard Compatibility Wiki prior to upgrading. Users should test 10.6 throughly on an extra computer before upgrading production workstations. At the same time, mac users shouldn’t wait too long – this new operating system is ground breaking and will bring significant advantages that will be further realized in future applications (Creative Suite 5 for example). 100 Gigs of RAM, 100 Terabytes of hard drive space and 100 core processors might sound crazy today but Snow Leopard foresees this future.

6400 ISO for testing
Being able to take photos at 6400 ISO has huge benefits for the night photographer. Night photographers tend to waste a bunch of time taking long exposures only to discover they need to reshoot with a better exposure. Testing exposures at high ISOs can save huge amounts of time but doing so has been clunky as it requires complicated math when using a camera that has a ISO ceiling of 1600. Now that that ceiling has been lifted to include 6400 ISO we can make a direct translation from ISO 6400 exposures in seconds to ISO 100 exposures in minutes. For example, a 15 second exposure at ISO 6400 is the same as a 15 minute exposure at ISO 100 (Canon’s native ISO). Nikon users can figure that a 15 second exposure at 12,800 ISO is the same as a 15 minute exposure at ISO 200 (Nikon’s native ISO).

Either way, this means a night photographer can quickly determine the optimal exposure at a high ISO before committing to a long, final exposure at the native ISO. This has provided me with significant time savings and more optimal exposures on the 5Dmark2.

Low noise
To make a long story short, the noise levels are shockingly low, even during very long exposures (like 30+ minutes at ISO 100). Even 6400 ISO images are less noisy than one would expect, and because the noise is embedded within such a high resolution (21 megapixel) image, the noise isn’t visible at all on 8×10 inch or smaller prints.

Live View
The Live View mode not only helps with frame composition at night, it zooms into a small area in the center allowing for incredibly precise focusing through the lens that’s far more reliable than focusing through the viewfinder or by using a focusing notch on the lens itself. This works when the depth of field preview button is depressed so, when there’s enough light, one can visually check depth of field as well. One needs to shine a flashlight on the object of focus but the level of confidence this provides, and success rate, is fantastic. The very latest DSLR’s from Nikon and Canon have Live View and most DLSRs are bound to have this feature from now on.

Resolution and flexibility
21 megapixels offers a lot of image detail and it leaves me with a feeling similar to switching from medium to large format. Processing these files is slow but I’m in awe of the detail and sharpness. While I was concerned that 21 megapixels might be too much for some projects I’ve found the 10 megapixel (half RAW) and 5 megapixel (quarter RAW) sRAW options to be quite useful.

Exposure length recording
Cameras record long exposure times in seconds. Most cameras only record 3 digits worth of seconds (illustrated below left) so any exposures over 999 seconds aren’t accurately noted in the EXIF data. The 5Dmark2 lifts this 3 digit limit so that longer exposures are accurate noted in the EXIF data (as illustrated below right).

Long Exposure Noise Reduction
Like most DSLR’s, the 5Dmark2 has the option to enable long exposure noise reduction. With this option enabled, the camera takes a second dark exposure and subtracts the noise signature from the original image (also known as dark frame subtraction). This is applied both to JPEGs and to RAW files and results in a significant reduction in noise that is superior to noise reduction efforts in RAW processing applications and even filters in Photoshop. So if one takes a 15 minute exposure, the noise reduction takes an additional 15 minutes to complete. Most DSLRs have this feature.

All of the above advantages aren’t unique to the Canon 5Dmark2 and can be found in some of the other newest cameras from Nikon and Canon. The features below are unique to the 5Dmark2.

Long Exposure Noise Reduction Buffering and Usability
The 5D and 5Dmark2 both allow you to start taking a new photo, while temporarily holding (buffering) the noise reduction processing for later. Both cameras allow you to buffer several images worth. For example one can take four 10 minute exposures back-to-back and the camera will process noise for 40 minutes afterwards. The 5Dmark2 is unique in that it tells you how many images are in the buffer when the power switch is turned to off. The camera doesn’t actually turn off until it’s completed the noise reduction processing. The 5Dmark2 also gives the user full control over image review and menu access during noise processing. All of these things add up to significant productivity savings for the night photographer who might otherwise be waiting around 30+ minutes for his/her camera to finish noise processing.

Battery Life
With continuous shooting starting at 9pm I found I could shoot till 3-4am on a single battery on the 5Dmark2. This is well over twice the battery life most cameras have, including the original 5D. Canon tells me that moving the mirror, shutter and lighting the LCD display are the primary culprits of battery drain. It’s also been suggested that 4-8 hour exposures shouldn’t be a battery life problem since the sensor uses so little energy during the exposure itself. I’ll have to stock up on some neutral density filters and test this theory. If it’s true that we can achieve 8+ hour exposures without battery problems, then we can achieve the long star trails that we’ve come to know and love from film-based night photography. I know one can always “stack” lots of short exposures, but doing a single long exposure would fun to test.

Update (6-13-09)
Several people have asked me “Don’t Nikons like the D700 and D3x do all of these as well?” As for the long exposure noise reduction buffering and usability and battery life items mentioned above, the answer is no. Even Canon’s flagship 1Dsmk3 doesn’t have these. For some reason it’s only the 5D family that have these features. When other cameras are processing long exposure noise reduction the camera is dark and unresponsive – you can’t review images, go through the menu or start taking a new exposure. In addition, if you turn the power to off on a Nikon you don’t loose the exposure but you will loose the noise processing. Canons are smarter about staying on the finish noise processing before shutting down.

Nikons have some unique features for night photography that should be mentioned. First of all, the latest Nikon cameras have slightly better dynamic range and light sensitivity at 200 ISO than the latest Canon cameras do at 100 ISO (visit www.dxomark.com for more info). Image Overlay allows for several separate frames to be taken and combined into a single RAW file. A night photographer might use this to take a photo at last light, wait a while and do a second exposure for the sky in complete darkness. Image Overlay could also be handy when working with complex light painting.

Update (10-23-09)
At recent night photography workshops I’ve had Nikons, Canons, Pentax, Hasselblads and Phase One cameras shooting side-by-side and I’ve closely compared the results. Newer cameras are obviously much cleaner and less noisier than older bodies. The D700 and D3 really are the cleanest 12 megapixels you’ll ever see and the smoothness is so fantastic that many owners just skip the long exposure noise reduction. But the benefits of the additional resolution from higher resolution cameras also adds up. While higher resolution cameras (like the 5dmk2, 1Dsmk3, 1Dmk4, even the D3x) aren’t as noise free as Nikon’s 12 megapixel brethren, the noise is slight, small and unperceptable on small prints. When larger resolution files with a little bit of noise are lowered to the equivalent of 12 megapixels the noise smoothes out and the overall image becomes cleaner. Different solutions for different people. For some an immaculate 12MP is better than a very clean 21MP and visa versa. On one hand I like the smaller file size of a 12 mp file and on the other hand the additional resolution of a 20+ megapixel file translates into quality when printed large.

Hasselblad and Phase One cameras perform much better at their native ISOs than at higher ISOs at night. Phase One plus backs curiously won’t allow the long exposure noise reduction to be turned off, so the user always has to wait for processing before the image can be seen or before the next shot can be taken. This eliminates the possibility of multiple exposure image stacking. These cameras don’t quite have the exposure flexibility that having a programmable, digital remote timer provides.

I think these differences are fun to talk about and hope readers don’t view this article as a religious Canon vs Nikon article – it certainly isn’t. I like them both as well as other brands and strive to be as unbiased as one can be.  Each brand has it’s advantages and disadvantages and the discussion between them is valuable when brand loyalty (which is destructive to conversation) is set aside. Night photography is especially fun way of analyzing these differences because it stretches cameras to their limits and is an area that, for the most part, manufacturers haven’t spent much time tweaking their cameras for.

Viewfinder - composition and focus are significantly improved with the bigger and brighter viewfinder

Live View – LV mode is *incredible* for focusing at night! You can see the image, nice and bright on the rear LCD while focusing. It’s very precise and will end the guesswork that we’ve all grown accustomed to. Regardless, one should keep that hyperfocal calculator handy :-]

Battery life seems excellent – the camera showed the battery at 100% after the first 2 hours of continual shooting

Black dots – I didn’t see any. See Canon’s response to this issue that not everyone is experiencing.

Vertical Banding Noise – I was shooting RAW and JPEG so I didn’t see any. Vertical banding noise is only an issue when the sRAW1 setting is used.

Noise reduction processing – as with the 5D, one can interrupt noise processing to continue shooting new images. The camera will buffer the noise processing and process when it’s not shooting. Improving on the 5D’s capabilities, the 5Dmark2 allows the user to view images on the rear LCD screen, browse the menus and adjust the exposure through the viewfinder during noise reduction processing.  If one turns off the camera during noise reduction, the LCD displays a progress wheel and this message: “Processing: images to process:#” listing the number of images in the queue. Like the 5D, the camera will shut itself down when processing is complete. This allows the photographers to switch to power switch to off at the end of the night (even though it may have lots of processing to perform), put the camera in it’s bag and get some sleep.

Quality – the 5Dmark2 certainly captures more shadow detail with less noise than the 5D. With this extra shadow detail, images can look less contrasty. From the side-by-side comparisons I’ve done thus far, I’m concerned about the sharpness on the 5Dmark2. The 5Dmark2 has the ability to fine tune each lens to the body. I didn’t do this fine tuning before shooting my comparisons and it could have made a difference. Fine tuning 1Dsmark3 bodies with lenses has shown, in some cases, significant improvements.

I’m cautiously hopeful about this 5D to 5Dmark2 upgrade but think a little more testing is warranted. Fine tuning each lens with the body could make all the difference in the world, and make this upgrade a slam dunk.

Happy Holidays! – Scot Martin

Surprisingly to some, the new 7-sensor Spyder3 has excellent repeatability and it performs remarkably well in a variety of situations, especially with the latest large gamut displays and projectors. It looks like the Datacolor Spyder3 has trumped the Optix colorimeter as the best and most versatile colorimeter made today. Eizo and others are starting to bundle rebranded Spyder3s with their high end monitors.  My own testing has shown that the Spyder3 performs just as well as the trusted Optix and clearly better than the others. I like the fact that the Spyder doesn’t require dark calibration prior to each use and it comes with a nice holder complete with a tripod mount for projector calibration.

While the Spyder 1 and 2 were disappointing for demanding users, I’ve got to hand it to them for turning this product around and making it the best in the industry. Datacolor sells a basic “Spyder 3 Pro” package for $169 and a more advanced “Spyder 3 Elite” package for $249. The hardware is not only the best thing made but the software is really easy for anyone to use and the “elite” version of the software is surprisingly capable with advanced features like L* tonal response curve, black luminance control and ambient light integration.

Integrated Color sells a display calibration product called Color Eyes Display Pro that’s been a favorite among demanding professionals for several years.  Color Eyes Display Pro is now bundled with the Spyder3 device and I find it to render slightly superior shadow tonality and gradations.

For common monitor calibration, I am currently recommending the basic $169 “Spyder3 Pro” package to consumers and the new $299 Color Eyes Display Pro / Spyder3 bundle for demanding professionals.

Note: CRT users should put a black cloth over the monitor and Spyder when calibrating to eliminate ambient light contamination. Those using Eizo, NEC and Quato displays should stick with the supplied software to calibrate their displays. Eizo’s Color Navigator, NEC’s Spectraview, and Quato’s iColor Display have all become quite good and can have advantages over 3rd party solutions. Use the Spyder3 device with these applications when possible.

One hidden benefit to using a white card is that you can also use it to find the optimal exposure. While there are details and exceptions worth discussing, I’ll simplify here by encouraging users to use the lightest exposure that doesn’t blow out the white card as indicated either by a camera’s RGB histogram or it’s flashing, blown out highlight indicator.

Determining optimal exposure and white balance in-camera is a common training topic for my business, espicially for high volume JPEG shooters that seek optimal print results with zero color correction. Naturally, the same concepts apply for RAW format shooting as well. So switching to a white card and not only helps improve white balance accuracy but also helps photographers fine tune their exposures so as to minimize post processing.

IDEALinkCurve is new a software application that simplifies G7 press calibration without the tedium and uncertainty of manual curve editing. Not only does it provide the RIP curves necessary for accurate printing but it provides a wealth of new ways to analyze color, hue, TVI and gray balance. The G7 method combined with IDEALinkCurve allows someone like myself to calibrate a press extremely accurately in hours instead of days.

I have been calibrating presses this way since early 2007 am really excited about it. We have had spectrophotometry-based methods of calibrating inkjet and photo paper printers for years so it’s great to finally see the offset industry get up to speed with well adapted techniques for calibrating “the devil’s color mode” (CMYK).

I think it is time for a big call to arms for everyone in the printing industry (art directors, designers, print brokers, prepress professionals and print shop owners) to educate themselves about G7 method press calibration. Art directors, designers, and print brokers should start asking their print vendors if their presses are calibrated, and if so, with what method. Print shop owners and prepress professionals that embrace G7 calibration with an open mind might find that it’s what they’ve been looking for throughout their career. Print shops can empower their sales staff with their own SWOP calibration results and samples to show to existing and prospective customers.

Well calibrated presses translate into lower operating costs, faster press ready times, reduced or eliminated press checking, better press to press matching, better proof to print matching, reduced makeovers and most importantly, optimal quality. It is in all of our best interests to calibrate our presses, work with those who do and encourage those who are not yet doing so.

Download the Calibrating, Printing and Proofing by the G7 Method PDF for some excellent reading on this process. We also have a collection of related offset printing links on the Links page.

[this article originally appeared in Newsletter #20 June 2007]

Making inkjet paper specifically for offset proofing is a speciality process. Epson’s Semimatte Commercial Proofing paper is disappointingly yellow in comparison to most offset paper stocks used today that contain a modest amount of optical brighteners. There is a relatively new generation of very similar proofing papers from EFI, GMG, MidStates Graphics and a few others that look nearly identical to common coated offset stocks. I’ve tested and compared these papers side by side on a variety of printers and have decided that MidStates Graphics ProofLine Press White 195gsm is the paper best suited for my clients. It is available in all common sizes and appropriate for photographers, designers, ad agencies and print shops. Over the past 16 months I’ve seen a lot of agencies andprint shops make the switch and they are very happy with it.

I am shocked at the generally poor quality of proofs made today and am encouraging all of my clients to invest in this paper for their proofing needs. This paper isn’t yet available through any online resellers or any retail outlets. ProofLine papers are traditionally only sold through the distribution channels that print shops get their supplies from. So that all of my clients can easily get their hands on this paper, I’ve arranged for a distributor to sell this paper direct to Onsight clients at a 10%-20% discount. I have created custom pricing and order form PDFs that my clients should use when placing these orders. They are great to deal with and very prompt. I want to be that clear that Onsight is not selling this paper (we don’t sell products) we are simply trying to make it easier for our clients to order it from the distributer.

Download the ProofLine Pricing PDF
Download the ProofLine Order Form PDF

I think you’ll find this paper can significantly enhance the quality of your proofs. As always I am available to show you print samples or to calibrate this paper on your own printer. Let me know if we can help.

[this article originally appeared in Newsletter #20 June 2007]

Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl is a paper that demonstrates this selection process well. If Canon iPF x000 printer users print the media selection image with the Special 1, 3 and 5 media selections they will notice that Special 1 delivers a weak DMax, Special 5 a course dot and Special 3 is perfect. If Epson users print the media selection image with the recommended Premium Luster media selection they will notice a course dot due to excessive ink and will want to use lower the “Color Density” slider in the “Paper Configuration” section to get optimal results.

Once you have determined the optimal media selection then one can print a profiling target and generate an ICC profile that delivers optimal results. I do this constantly onsite on my client’s printers (as well as my own) and keep a running list of the results. By doing so, I often find that I can get better results than with a paper manufacturer’s recommendation. Hats off to those that question conventional wisdom and do their own quantitative testing.

The personal work section was made with Adobe Lightroom using the latest gallery templates from Matthew Campagna at The Turning Gate (TTG). Matthew gallery templates are a free download and an increasingly popular way to build attractive web galleries. I choose to use this solution specifically because I feel it is such a great option for a wide variety of my clients.

The TTG Auto Index gallery was used to create the gallery index that links to the 5 different galleries. The 5 galleries were made using TTG Shadowbox Gallery. These galleries are web standards compliant and surprisingly compatible across a wide variety of browsers.

While galleries are easy to create, the process of making a gallery index can be intimidating. Matthew’s TTG Auto Index makes creating a gallery index page surprisingly easy. Once these galleries are downloaded and installed, select any 2 images (they don’t matter and won’t be used) in the Library module, switch to the Web module, choose the aesthetics and options you want for your index page and upload it to your web server. If you wish to put this on the front page of your website you should place it on to the root level:

www.yourdomain.com/

Once these files are uploaded to the web server you’ll need to connect to the server via an FTP application and delete the “index.html” file and the “thumbnails” folder. Then you are ready to upload galleries to subfolders.

In the Library module, select images for your web gallery and switch to the Web module. Select any TTG gallery that is compatible with the auto index and upload to a subfolder. Make as many galleries as you wish. Your server folder structure should look something like this:

www.yourdomain.com/gallery1/
www.yourdomain.com/gallery2/
www.yourdomain.com/gallery3/
www.yourdomain.com/gallery4/

The galleries will be listed in alpha-numeric order which you may choose to manually reorder by placing numbers in front of the gallery folder. My gallery folders, for example, are named as follows:

/1day
/2night
/3kids
/4abstract
/5mexicanpalladium

The really cool thing is that the TTG Auto Index gallery will automatically detect these gallery folders and create the necessary components on the index page without any user intervention. This dramatically reduces the time and effort needed to maintain a gallery index. If you don’t specify a thumbnail for each gallery, one will be randomly selected every time the gallery index is loaded.

My site uses the WordPress content management system (CMS) and my gallery index is not on the front page. To get the web galleries onto the personal work page I have used a basic iFrame which allows you to embed one webpage into another. Here’s the actual iFrame code used for the content of that page:

<iframe src=”http://www.on-sight.com/personalwork/” width=”100%” height=”672px” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”10″ scrolling=”auto” frameborder=”0″></iframe>

Please visit The Turning Gate for the most recent downloads and instructions as they are bound to change quickly. Hats off to Matthew for all is hard work and please making a donation to him if you appreciate his work. I think this technology is fantastic, remarkably easy to use and I hope it will inspire more people to put their work online and keep it updated regularly.