paper should I use?’” said Steinhardt. “The best answer is to ask two or three more questions: ‘Tell me about the image, tell me about your personal taste, tell me about what you’re trying to convey.’” Language itself, though, can sometimes get in the way. “Take an Epson paper like Exhibition Fiber paper,” added Steinhardt. “That is categorized by the industry as a photo paper, not a fine-art paper. But it’s the favorite paper of many fine-art photographers. So do I tell fine-art photographers they’re not using a fine-art paper? Some of the terms can kind of get in the way, and I always bring it down to helping people understand the difference.” All Images Start at the Beginning Printers, papers, inks—they’re all important. But as anyone who has ever output an image knows, it can take a lot of work to get to the output stage. Also, too: garbage in, garbage out. Yes, the age-old adage still applies. “Everyone keeps their eye focused on the end point, which is a gorgeous print, but they forget sometimes that from the time they press the shutter button or they save a file, there are lots of steps along the way,” said Kimberly Brown-Azzarello, HP’s Large-Format Solution Architect. “One thing that people forget to think about is the actual file itself. Sometimes people are anxious to print and they don’t know the content or integrity of the native file.” Any print provider who has ever received a 5 KB GIF file and is told to print it at 8½ x 11 is intimately familiar with some of the limitations of a graphic file. Issues like resolution, file size, and the relation to maximum image size are all one thing, but more nuanced front-end issues such as color spaces can still lead to disappointing output. Although purely creative artists and photographers are probably not trying to match specific corporate or PMS colors, said Brown-Azzarello, “if color information is there and was captured by the artist, being able to reproduce that color is valuable. They captured or created that color, I get the sense they would like to reproduce that color.” This approach to “color management” will probably not require the creative to muck about with spectrophotometers and color profiles, but keeping images in a wide-gamut color space like RGB rather than a much narrower one like CMYK is vital. “My analogy is, it’s like having a 10- “For a service provider who really wants to go that extra mile and go after the more discerning client, it’s more about asking the questions than just taking in the job.” acre property and then keeping your dog in a 20 x 20 pen. That’s how I think of CMYK color space,” said Brown-Azzarello. This is especially noticeable when you are printing to machines that print with up to 12 inks and can reproduce a much higher gamut than strict four-channel CMYK. “Always capture the most information you can,” she advised. Then there is “fixing” files in Photoshop. Speer does very little post-production after shooting an image, he said. “So far, what I’ve witnessed when there’s a lot of post-production it’s done just to look like an advertisement,” he said. “I get it, you’ve got to create these striking images that compel people, but most of it is so Photoshopped that it didn’t exist in the first place. So what’s the point in taking the picture?” One common fix that Steinhardt sees a lot is sharpening, which is often over-applied. “Sharpening is really a function of what the final print size is,” he said. “You sharpen differently for different sizes. The bigger the print, the less sharpening is required, and conversely, the smaller the print, the more sharpening. That’s based on viewing distance.” Color also can change at larger sizes, said AoSA Image’s Hill. “You do a small sign-off swatch and it’s at 4 x 6 inches, but when you enlarge that piece the color will change. That was a huge lesson. You’re looking at a serious problem at that point when you have a 40 x 60-inch print that you have to eat because they didn’t like the color.” Hand In Hand Unlike ad agencies, professional graphic designers, marketing departments, or other commercially oriented customers, fine artists and fine-art photographers often need a lot of hand-holding through the output process—not because they are inexperienced or unsophisticated, but because the work they output is very personal. People make art because they have a certain vision, and until the day comes when we can output our thoughts directly— and what a terrifying day that will be—that vision still requires the “corrective lenses” of computer screen, output file, output device, and output provider. Being able to share technical information about papers, about inks, about proper file prep, and so on, and understand and empathize with the artistic temperament, can go a long way toward helping creative people realize their visions, and lead to satisfied customers and more business in the process. “I would encourage wide-format printers, people who are experts in their field, to say, ‘This is our experience with retailers and consumers and what people are responding to,’” said Speer. “And then go that extra step. ‘Curtis, you print on cotton rag most of the time, can we send you a couple samples of a new substrate?’” Because I’m not necessarily going to be privy to what the latest and greatest stuff is. “That could be an upsell. We could take it to a new level.” Find this article at MyPRINTResource.com/12070992 10 Wide-Format Imaging | July 2015 MyPRINTResource.com
Wide-Format Imaging July 2015
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