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For me (talking as a print designer) the only way to tell if the "no expense spared" has been taken is to see a printed copy.
For images, the best possible print reproduction would be using Hexachrome inks and stochastic screen. Now if we were to prepare one image to this standard it would be charged out at ?80-100, you also need a specialist printer whose presses are calibrated to print said process.
So if there are 1000's of images involved, that will cost a huge amount. (For reference, only some fine art prints and ultra high end catalogues normally use Hexachrome ink and/or Stochastic screening).
These images will always look rough in a pdf, after all, you are looking at that in RGB on an uncalibrated monitor, the only way to "know" is see the finished result.
Now, quality of photographs is totally independant of design layout, that is subjective and always in the eye of the beholder.
It would be nice to havea PDF issue at an affordable price, those who wants and can afford the hard copy will aways pay. and the rest of us can enjoy it on our ipad, wouldn't that be great?
btw, i just saw a trial run on trevor's site for personal stock tracking, very interesting, i will go try out today.
These images will always look rough in a pdf, after all, you are looking at that in RGB on an uncalibrated monitor, the only way to "know" is see the finished result.
How the pages appear on a monitor, rough or very good, is governed by the PDF output setting. My monitor is calibrated for Photoshop Lightroom. The PDF pages I saw were huge (image size) and not on one of the lower settings (memory size).
Books can big things, but the principles that go into producing one aren't rocket science. Dorling Kindersley for example would start with an idea, calculate the number of expected unit sales and then determine their wholesale selling price and set the guide retail price. For them to make any money it's obvious that the production costs per unit have to be less than the wholesale price. So they set a production budget and set about producing the book to the highest quality achievable within the budget parameter. As a rough rule of thumb, although always the case, production costs can be divided into three equal areas. 1) Copy, art and design. 2) Photography. 3) Print and finishing. To bring the production together artistically there's an Art Director, and breathing down his neck a Production Director whose job it is to bring the project in on time and to cost.
I doubt someone like Dorling Kindersley would be interested in producing a 'big production' book about Cuban cigars because the subject is to esoteric and the numbers simply not there to get the cost down to an acceptable coffee table price.
To his credit RMN has taken the project on, but it seems to me on a 'cost no object' basis and those have spiraled. For a work of this type ?450 would be a high but good fair price and if MRN had worked towards 10000 units would give a retail yield of ?4,500000 and within that amount there would have been enough for MRN to have recovered his cost and made a bit to buy another cigar collection or two.
If you want to, you can.
And, if you can, you must!
How the pages appear on a monitor, rough or very good, is governed by the PDF output setting. My monitor is calibrated for Photoshop Lightroom. The PDF pages I saw were huge (image size) and not on one of the lower settings (memory size).
True, but a lores PDF will be highly compressed images with very reduced resolution, but PDF setting aside, it is still RGB and will never be truly accurate and only very close. Hexachrome six colour inks are high intensity and produce much more colour range than standard CMYK print process, no monitor can reproduce that.
Here at work for colour accuracy we always only ever trust densitometer readings for colour values, having had umpteen monitors over the years and attempted to calibrate them to print, they have never come close.
For the closest colour standard you can use FOGRA colour standard certified devices, anything with a scanned FOGRA wedge (epson print, print from a press etc) which has scanned ok will be the best accuracy, even then you are only aiming for a "window" of tolerance.
True, but a lores PDF will be highly compressed images with very reduced resolution, but PDF setting aside, it is still RGB and will never be truly accurate and only very close. Hexachrome six colour inks are high intensity and produce much more colour range than standard CMYK print process, no monitor can reproduce that.
Here at work for colour accuracy we always only ever trust densitometer readings for colour values, having had umpteen monitors over the years and attempted to calibrate them to print, they have never come close.
For the closest colour standard you can use FOGRA colour standard certified devices, anything with a scanned FOGRA wedge (epson print, print from a press etc) which has scanned ok will be the best accuracy, even then you are only aiming for a "window" of tolerance.
Having never used Hexachrome ink printing, I am interested. Are the inks used pigment-based aqueous archive standard? Or is that totally dependant on the specific ink set used?
Also it appears the technology was abandoned for further support in 2008, for any particular reason?
A small amount of reading also suggests that Hexachrome offers higher efficiency, due to spot colour capabilities and less requirement for printer wash.... I take it that this isn't enough to offset total cost?
P.S. Not looking for an angle, just interested.
Licky Licky before Sticky Sticky. - Puff Scotty 22/03/14
even then you are only aiming for a "window" of tolerance.
and the same is true of all the production stages .... there's no perfection, you have to compromise somewhere.
The book isn't Hex by the way Dave. A webpage from a US company was posted up on FOH to explain the dot set up, but the entire Thread was deleted before I had a chance to read it. My own fault for being busy trying to explain to idiots that nothing can be masterpiece until it is seen, heard, smelt, touched or tasted and then by consensus acclaimed to be a Masterpiece .... but hey ho.
If you want to, you can.
And, if you can, you must!
Nothing can be masterpiece until it is seen, heard, smelt, touched or tasted and then by consensus acclaimed to be a Masterpiece .... but hey ho.
Sums it up perfectly
I always get excited when I see someone is trying to create something in print to the maximum, so rarely in this trade does that happen, normally quality is sacrificed in the name of saving a few quid.
The best fine art prints I've ever seen were created using Hexachrome. The term Hexachrome is banded around in print now also to indicate images being printed in six or more colours, not just the Hexachrome inkset. So if an image contained lots of metal (jewellery etc) you could introduce a metallic ink. The special software we use turns an original image (ideally RGB to start with) into the specified colour ink separations for printing.
Hexachrome goes hand in hand with Stochastic screening, conventional screening for print uses a uniform ruling of dots (usually round or elliptical in shape, such as newspaper print), you are limited in the angles that you can run these screens to four, any more angles and you get "moire patterning" on the print. Stochastic screening produces random shapes, which allows you to print as many separations as you like.
So for example, you have a fine photograph of a bowl of fruit, to get the best colour reproduction and detail you use Stochastic screening and Hexachrome, the special orange ink in the standard Hexachrome inkset gives the orange fruit a vibrant look. Conventional CMYK inks have a very hard time producing clean oranges.
Apologies for the walls of text and also if I am teaching anyone to suck eggs
.... or put very simply use little spots of colour in a single dimension to produce an accurate as possible rendition of an object you would expect to see in three, and which is within the tolerances of the human eyes ability to accept comfortably.
Substrate (paper) is also important and must be compatible to the process. The best quality papers are not always the best suited.
If you want to, you can.
And, if you can, you must!
CMYK The CMYK color model ( process color , four color ) is a subtractive color model , used in color printing , and is al...
Basically the bit they mention about adobe not supporting the plugins is a moot point, for highend repro Esko software's Artpro is used, you can easily carry multiple channel images and edit them on the fly.
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