Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers, 2nd Edition

Today's digital cameras provide image data files allowing large-format output at high resolution. At the same time, printing technology has moved forward at an equally fast pace bringing us new inkjet systems capable of printing in high precision at a very fine resolution, providing an amazing tonality range and longtime stability of inks. Moreover, these systems are now affordable to the serious photographer. In the hands of knowledgeable and experienced photographers, these new inkjet printers can help create prints comparable to the highest quality darkroom prints on photographic paper. This book provides the necessary foundation for fine art printing: The understanding of color management, profiling, paper and inks. It demonstrates how to set up the printing workflow as it guides the reader step-by-step through this process from an image file to an outstanding fine art print. Contents 6 Preface 12 Foreword 15 Chapter 1 Printing Techniques 18 1.1 Basic Printing Techniques 19 How Many Pixels or Dots Per Inch Do You Really Need? 23 1.2 Offset Printing 25 1.3 Laser Printers 26 1.4 Dye-Sublimation Printers 28 1.5 LightJet® Printing (Digital Photo Print) 29 1.6 Inkjet Printing 32 Inkjet Technology 32 Droplet Size 34 Printer Resolution 34 Number of Inks 35 Type of Inks 35 1.7 Other Printing Techniques 36 1.8 How to Pick Your Fine Art Printer 36 Chapter 2 Inks, Papers, and Print Permanence 44 2.1 Print Permanence 45 Light as a Factor of Print Permanence 48 Temperature Influencing "Dark Fading" 48 Humidity 49 Gases and Their Influence on Print Permanence 49 Paper Additives 49 How to Improve the Permanence of Your Prints 50 2.2 Inks 51 Dye-Based Inks 51 Pigmented Inks 52 2.3 Papers 53 Paper Characteristics 54 Paper Ingredients 55 Whiteness and Brightness 56 Paper Coating 58 Paper Surface – Paper Finish 60 Paper Size 61 Matching Inkjet Technology, Subject, Paper, and Ink 61 Some More Characteristics 62 Other Materials 63 Paper Handling 64 Chapter 3 Color Management for Printing 68 3.1 Understanding Different Color Models 69 RGB Color Model 70 Lab Color Model 70 CMYK Color Model 70 Grayscale Mode 71 HSB/HSL Color Model 71 Color Spaces 71 3.2 Understanding Color Management 72 Why You Need to Understand Color Management 72 ICC Profiles 73 What is a Color Management System? 73 Color Working Spaces 74 3.3 Visualization of Color Spaces 76 3.4 Color Space Mapping 79 3.5 Creating Device Profiles 80 Camera Profiles 81 Printer Profiles 81 3.6 Profiling Your Monitor 82 Calibration by Eye 82 Hardware-Based Calibration 82 Calibration Settings 82 Calibrating and Profiling Using Eye-One Display 2 83 3.7 Photoshop Color-Management Settings 86 3.8 Profiles for Your Printer 89 Profiling Your Printer 90 Printer Profiling Using Eye-One Photo 91 3.9 Installing and Uninstalling Profiles 95 3.10 Finding a Printer's Black Point and White Point 96 3.11 Sanity-Check 97 3.12 Soft-Proofing and Gamut Warning 101 3.13 Metamerism and Bronzing 104 Chapter 4 Fine Art Printing Workflow 106 4.1 Basic Printing Workflow 107 4.2 Tuning Tonality 107 Global Tonality Tuning 111 Local Tonality Tuning 117 Corrections Related to Certain Tonality Ranges (Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights) 121 Painting Techniques (Mainly Dodge and Burn) 124 Dodge and Burn Using Layers 126 4.3 Tuning Colors 128 Selective Saturation Improvements 128 More Saturation and Contrast Tricks 130 Variation with "Soft Light" 133 Removing Blue Shadow Casts 134 4.4 "Ring Around" and Variations 136 Ring Around 137 Using Variations 139 4.5 Local Contrast Enhancement 142 4.6 Further Preparations for Printing 145 4.7 Resizing 146 4.8 Sharpening 147 Chapter 5 Fine Art Printers in Practical Use 150 5.1 Printer Installation 151 5.2 Printer Adjustments 153 5.3 General Driver Tasks and Settings 154 Settings that Influence Print Quality 154 More Settings 156 5.4 Summarizing the Relevant Steps for the Actual Printing 158 5.5 Printing from Client Software (Windows) 160 Page and Printer Setup 160 Printing from Photoshop CS1 or CS2 161 Print Dialog with Photoshop CS3 162 5.6 Print Driver Dialog in Windows 164 5.7 Printer Driver Settings in Mac OS X 168 5.8 Printing from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 173 5.9 Printing Using a Printer Plug-in 176 5.10 Test Prints 179 5.11 Print Quality Related Issues 180 5.12 Some More Recommendations for Printing 181 Chapter 6 Printing Packages and RIPs 184 6.1 What is a RIP? 185 Why Use a RIP? 185 6.2 Printing Using a Printing Package 186 Qimage 186 6.3 Printing Using a RIP 190 QuadToneRIP 190 ImagePrint by Colorbyte Software 193 EFI Designer Edition 196 Chapter 7 Black-and-White Prints 200 7.1 Workflow for Black-and-White Prints 201 7.2 From Color to Black-and-White 203 Black-and-White Conversion Using the Channel Mixer 204 Using "Black & White" of Photoshop CS3 205 7.3 Printers with Black-and-White-Enabled Drivers 206 Black-and-White Prints with Epson UltraChrome K3 Printers 208 Black-and-White Prints with HP Photosmart 8750/8450 210 7.4 Special Software (RIPs) for Black-and-White Printing 211 Colorbyte's ImagePrint 211 QuadToneRIP 213 Other Solutions 213 7.5 Soft-Proofing for Black-and-White Prints 213 7.6 Papers for Black-and-White Prints 216 Chapter 8 Image Evaluation and Presenting Fine Art Prints 218 8.1 Critical Image Inspection 219 Control Tools 221 8.2 Presentation Options 221 8.3 Portfolio Binders 222 8.4 Matting 223 True Matting 223 Principles of the Matting Process 223 A Mat-Cutting Sample Session 225 Faux Matting 229 8.5 Framing a Print 230 8.6 Coating a Print 233 8.7 Displaying a Print in True Light 234 8.8 Storing Prints 236 A. Some Fine Art Printers 238 A.1 General Points on Fine Art Printers 239 Inks for Black-and-White Prints 239 Photo Black and Matte Black Simultaneously On-line 239 Ink Cartridge Volume 240 Print Plug-ins 240 Printer Linearization and Calibration 240 Ways to Prevent Nozzle Clogging 241 Printer Life Cycles 242 A.2 Epson Fine Art Printers 244 Epson Stylus Photo R800 / R1800 245 Epson Stylus Photo R1900 245 Epson Stylus Photo R2400 / Pro 4800 / Pro 7800 / Pro 9800 249 Epson Stylus Pro 3800 250 Epson Stylus Pro 4880 / 7880 / 9880 251 Epson Stylus Pro 11880 252 A.3 Canon's Fine Art Printers 253 Canon PIXMA Pro9500 254 Canon imagePROGRAF iPF5100 / 6100 255 Canon imagePROGRAF iPF8100 / 9100 262 A.4 HP's Fine Art Printers 263 HP Photosmart Pro B9180 264 HP Designjet Z3100 Photo 271 B. Papers for Fine Art Printing 282 B.1 Digital Fine Art Papers 283 Some Notes on OBAs 284 B.2 Some Examples of Fine Art Papers 287 Matte Papers 287 Satin/Glossy Coated Rag Papers 288 High-Gloss Papers 289 B.3 A New Generation of Fiber-based and Baryt Papers 290 B.4 Specialty Papers and Canvas 292 B.5 Fine Art Papers Well Suited for Black-and-White Prints 292 A Note on Paper Grammage and Paper Thickness 294 C. Glossary and Acronyms 296 A 296 B 296 C 296 D 297 E 298 F 298 G 298 H 299 I 299 J 299 L 299 M 300 O 300 P 300 R 300 S 301 T 301 U 301 V 301 W 301 X 302 Z 302 D. Resources 304 D.1 Recommended Books 304 D.2 Organizations and Institutes 305 D.3 Useful Resources on the Internet 305 Index 312 Symbols 312 A 312 B 312 C 312 D 313 E 313 F 313 G 313 H 313 I 313 J 313 L 313 M 314 N 314 O 314 P 314 Q 314 R 315 S 315 T 315 U 315 V 315 W 315 X 315 Z 315 Digital cameras provide image data files allowing large-format output at high resolution. Inkjet printers can help create prints comparable to high quality darkroom prints. This book provides the necessary foundation for fine art printing including the understanding of colour management and profiling