Color depth

[Manfred M]

Coming back to your earlier remark on M-PIX, you don't seem to be a fan. My experience with them was not great either. I have been searching for a good and yet affordable printing service for photo books. Any further thoughts?

Affordable and quality seem to be diametrically opposed concepts when it comes to photo books.

I was at looking at the final year projects at a fine arts photography program and one of the projects that the students had to deliver was a photo book. Three approaches stood out:

1. Commercial photo book (Blurb) - this was the least expensive solution and the book had decent enough quality. The prints were done on a digital press (essentially a high speed laser printer with more colours than the traditional CMYK that we see on office laser printers). The colours were the least attractive, but the process itself was quite robust as the paper that was used and the production process created a fairly robust output.

2. The second process used two-sided inkjet photo paper and was custom bound by a local bindery. This approach gave a very much better image results than the digital press and the paper (I was told it used Moab Lasal Photo Matte paper (235 gsm)) and the binding was superb but expensive. The actual prints were not as robust as the digital press process and were subject to mechanical and moisture damage.

3. The third approach was to put the images into a commercial portfolio binder. Prints were done on a cotton rag paper and had a piece of archival tissue paper between each print. Prints were done on one side of the paper only. This was likely the most expensive approach, but the book (which was an aluminum portfolio) was the least attractive approach. It was also the most fragile and white cotton gloves should have been used to turn the pages to prevent the oils from the fingers from transferring to the paper. If prints got dirty or damaged, replacing them with new ones would be fairly trivial.

Bottom line is commercial books are the cheapest approach but give the poorest quality images.

[Arne 65]

Affordable and quality seem to be diametrically opposed concepts when it comes to photo books.

I was at looking at the final year projects at a fine arts photography program and one of the projects that the students had to deliver was a photo book. Three approaches stood out:

1. Commercial photo book (Blurb) - this was the least expensive solution and the book had decent enough quality. The prints were done on a digital press (essentially a high speed laser printer with more colours than the traditional CMYK that we see on office laser printers). The colours were the least attractive, but the process itself was quite robust as the paper that was used and the production process created a fairly robust output.

2. The second process used two-sided inkjet photo paper and was custom bound by a local bindery. This approach gave a very much better image results than the digital press and the paper (I was told it used Moab Lasal Photo Matte paper (235 gsm)) and the binding was superb but expensive. The actual prints were not as robust as the digital press process and were subject to mechanical and moisture damage.

3. The third approach was to put the images into a commercial portfolio binder. Prints were done on a cotton rag paper and had a piece of archival tissue paper between each print. Prints were done on one side of the paper only. This was likely the most expensive approach, but the book (which was an aluminum portfolio) was the least attractive approach. It was also the most fragile and white cotton gloves should have been used to turn the pages to prevent the oils from the fingers from transferring to the paper. If prints got dirty or damaged, replacing them with new ones would be fairly trivial.

Bottom line is commercial books are the cheapest approach but give the poorest quality images.

Thanks. I have Blurb on my list (following a recommendation by Colortek) but also Shop Duggal (not Duggal itself but their sort of mass branch; however, they seem to be using some the high-end printers and have good ones overall, and they do not only accept but prefer Adobe RGB 16 bit TIFFs) and Saal (accepts only JPEGs but has a very comprehensive support section and provides ICC profiles for each paper they use). BayPhoto, Milk and several others are too costly, and I'm not sure to get much more bang for the buck. I'm waiting for the sample book from Shop Duggal to compare with the samples from Blurb and Saal before I decide, which one I'll try first.

[Manfred M]

Thanks. I have Blurb on my list (following a recommendation by Colortek) but also Shop Duggal (not Duggal itself but their sort of mass branch; however, they seem to be using some the high-end printers and have good ones overall, and they do not only accept but prefer Adobe RGB 16 bit TIFFs) and Saal (accepts only JPEGs but has a very comprehensive support section and provides ICC profiles for each paper they use). BayPhoto, Milk and several others are too costly, and I'm not sure to get much more bang for the buck. I'm waiting for the sample book from Shop Duggal to compare with the samples from Blurb and Saal before I decide, which one I'll try first.

Do these companies publish ICC profiles for their paper / printers? I would automatically rule out any that do not.

Any companies that stick with sRGB only likely use printers that are limited to that colour space. 16-bit files get large and given the number of colours that any printer can reproduce (generally a few hundred thousand at best), 8-bit is more than adequate for images delivered to them.

If your images exceed the sRGB colour space significantly (i.e. highly saturated greens and blues) then a wider colour space makes sense for printing, otherwise, sRGB is fine. Unfortunately I do not know the digital press / paper capabilities, so can't really make any comments that are not pure speculation.

[Arne 65]

Do these companies publish ICC profiles for their paper / printers? I would automatically rule out any that do not.

Any companies that stick with sRGB only likely use printers that are limited to that colour space. 16-bit files get large and given the number of colours that any printer can reproduce (generally a few hundred thousand at best), 8-bit is more than adequate for images delivered to them.

If your images exceed the sRGB colour space significantly (i.e. highly saturated greens and blues) then a wider colour space makes sense for printing, otherwise, sRGB is fine. Unfortunately I do not know the digital press / paper capabilities, so can't really make any comments that are not pure speculation.

Blurb does (an CMYK profile), Shop Duggal does not (and they even state that they don't agree with many photographer views on printing, which is an interesting approach... however, they do seem to understand printing when you look at what they are doing) and Saal does (individual profiles for each printer and paper).

[Manfred M]

Blurb does (an CMYK profile), Shop Duggal does not (and they even state that they don't agree with many photographer views on printing, which is an interesting approach... however, they do seem to understand printing when you look at what they are doing) and Saal does (individual profiles for each printer and paper).

No problem with Blub. If their ICC profiles are CMYK and are working with a SWOP (Single Web Offset Press) paper, that is fine. That just means Lightroom is not the appropriate tool to create these books. Stick to the "K" channel for your sharpening work and submit a CMYK file to the. This requirement suggests to me that Blurb is essentially running an operation similar to what any offset press printer would do.

Duggal's approach suggests that their target market is strictly the amateur photography side, so I would avoid them as they are not a provider that I would want to work with. From what you.

I don't know anything about Saal, but their approach suggests that their target market is the knowledgeable photographer.

Regardless of which supplier you use, I would suggest you create the smallest (i.e. least number of pages) book that they make and have them print your images. That will let you gauge how you have to prepare your images for print. If you are very lucky, you will get it right the first time, if not you might have to do test prints a few times to nail down your process.

[DanK]

I take a vastly different view of pedantry; and that involves both context and the audience.

In a group of "subject matter experts" a higher level of pedantry can be acceptable, especially if it makes a difference to the final outcome. If it does not, then we really have a negative situation that can be little more than "oneupmanship" where someone is trying to say "I'm more correct than you are!".

Not to be a pendant, but I think we are misusing "pedantry." It doesn't mean something like "showing detailed knowledge." It's a disparaging comment about how one shows detailed knowledge.

Here's a definition from Merriam-Webster online:

narrowly, stodgily, and often ostentatiously learned

I don't think I have seen any pedantry in this thread. What we do have to grapple with, in a forum of this sort-whre participants have very different interests and levels of knowledge--is how much detail to add to a thread. I agree with Manfred: the key in my mind is presenting information in a way that helps clarify things for others, not to show off what one knows or to pick a fight. I didn't see any of that here.

[Manfred M]

Not to be a pendant, but I think we are misusing "pedantry." It doesn't mean something like "showing detailed knowledge." It's a disparaging comment about how one shows detailed knowledge.

Actually Dan, the situations from my working days that I was thinking about were very close to you dictionary definition. Inviting one or two pendants at a meeting was always a great tactical move. They would just generally annoy everyone in the room because of their attitude and mannerisms. When a person who was viewed as being more reasonable put forward some proposals, these would be accepted just because everyone was so turned off with the pendants they were more than willing to get back at them this way.

My life got more difficult when two of my favourite pendants got themselves fired and I couldn't invite them to my meetings any more.

[Arne 65]

No problem with Blub. If their ICC profiles are CMYK and are working with a SWOP (Single Web Offset Press) paper, that is fine. That just means Lightroom is not the appropriate tool to create these books. Stick to the "K" channel for your sharpening work and submit a CMYK file to the. This requirement suggests to me that Blurb is essentially running an operation similar to what any offset press printer would do.

Duggal's approach suggests that their target market is strictly the amateur photography side, so I would avoid them as they are not a provider that I would want to work with. From what you.

I don't know anything about Saal, but their approach suggests that their target market is the knowledgeable photographer.

Regardless of which supplier you use, I would suggest you create the smallest (i.e. least number of pages) book that they make and have them print your images. That will let you gauge how you have to prepare your images for print. If you are very lucky, you will get it right the first time, if not you might have to do test prints a few times to nail down your process.

Shop Duggal certainly doesn't target the most advanced customers, but Duggal seems to do when I look at their web site and price tags. Yep, that's what I will try to do. Check the samples and give it a try with smallest possible book.

[Rufus]

A few pedants here have morphed into pendants...