Hi Philip
For over 2 years Thomas Holm [of Pixl Aps] and I have been working with
the Pro-File committee [part of AoP] on a Standard for the exchange of
digital files. Part of this is intended to enable photographers to
reliably <<proof>> their work in house on a low cost, but accurately
profiled, and periodically verified printer.
We prefer to call what they'd produce on a <Digital verification print>
since the term proof often attracts the prefix contract and a contract
proof is best left to the repro house.
Your offering of a proofing service would be useful to some I'm sure,
but since industry proofers are reputed to be set particular to each
and every press / repro house, then I'm not sure how well your proofs
would match those done at a clients' repro house further down the line.
Are your proofs analogue [like traditional Cromalins] - ie made from
films? Or are they digital proofs, Cromalins / Sherpa / Approval or
whatever?
For a photographer the big question is - how can I simulate accurately
[onscreen and on a low cost printer] the final press appearance of my
image. Given that ability the photographer can accurately optimise his
colour and tone for that particular destination, retaining the
important elements of his work - a judgement it's difficult for anyone
else to make.
Making a proof is useful, of course, but given that a few rounds of
editing may be needed to attain the printed appearance a photographer
desires, an off-site proofing service becomes less attractive because
of the time involved.
If you'd like to proof our A4 testimage [I can give you a download site]
then I'd be really pleased to see the result.
On 13/12/02 at , philip sheppard wrote:
> Hello everyone. My name is Philip Sheppard. I am a recent graduate now
> working for an ad agency in the north. My job is to research the market for
> our Repro department and I wanted some views on our ideas...
>
> We have an excellent Repro department with the best resources and highly
> experienced workers. It is, however, underused and we are looking for ways
> to utilise this. One idea is to offer a fast proofing service to digital
> photographers. Through our experience photographers find that the end
> product is often different from what they expected, because the image in a
> digital camera is just an idea of what will appear.
In a properly profiled workflow, that's not really correct. For any
image processed digitally, whether capture or scan, a Colour Managed
workflow is imperative because it allows a true view of image file
content.
Of course knowing something about the print destination is useful too,
since colour and tonal range is quite limited in some reproduction
scenarios. As I explained above, photographers really need this
capability in house so that they can fulfill multiple rounds of
adjustment in good time. Never a lot of time avaialable these days is
there?
> Different colours/tones then appear on the final photo. This can
> cause problems with the customers and the photographer then has to
> reshoot days or weeks later.
yes, it does happen
>
> Our service hopes to eradicate this. Local photographers can email
> the images to us, then we can can get the proofs back ASAP.
for local photographers it sounds very useful, as long as you can
simulate the final proof accurately.
>
> Would this service be useful to professional photographers such as
> yourselves? Please can you give me your general opinions, then I
> might send some more specific questions at a later date.
It's a good initiative Philip. I hope it works out for you, as you
suggest it's a shame your repro dep't is underused.
Regards
NeilB
- - - - Consulting in Imaging & Colour Management - - - -
custom scanner and printer profiles, training on Trident & Imacon Scanning
- - - - - we supply Gretag and eyeOne, also XRite & OptiCal - - - - - -
p:44 (0)1273 774704 m:44 (0)7778 160201 http://www.neilbarstow.co.uk/
http://www.apple.com/uk/creative/neilbarstow/
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