310 - Final prints for Emma

Below are the final prints for my theme with Emma.

I have chosen to show the work flow for one of the images, and I will also include 1 image printed on the college computer and 1 image from my home printer to show the comparison.

Here is the workflow for my chosen image.

This is a JPG version of the original RAW image in the camera, the reason for the jpg image is to load onto this blog. A polariser filter was used in natural light.

Here is a comparison of the image in 2 different forms to show the difference in the beginning of the post production. I do attempt to get the best image in the camera that I can to eliminate alot of post production work.

Here is the next image which shows the cropping I have chosen, which is to A3 proportions, along with some cloning to elimate the obstacles that do not add to the image eg the door pillar. Perhaps a slightly different view could have eliminated the door pillar for example in the original image to avoid some post treatment works.

This is the next part of the sequence where an adjustment was done in curves in this instance. there are many other means to achieve the desired effect eg addtional layers to alter the image, levels, colour management measures etc..

This shows how I achieved my final image with a final crop to tidy up any points that detract from the main theme of the image.

Please refer to my blog dated Monday 8th November 2010, which covers the day of the car shoot. This also shows my reserarch into car/model photography. The main influences were from Manfred Reinfried and Gabriele Rigon. I choose the above images based upon an adaption of the images that these photographers produced and shown on the previous blog. I would like to redo these images later on the year as November is perhaps not the best time of the year to do this sort of shoot, although we had glorious sunshine all day. we did use additinal lighting which is noted in other blogs below.

I will be printing off my home printer to show how this printer performs in relation to the printer used at College. At home I use compatible inks with Tesco Super glossy A4 inkjet photo paper (260gsm) which provides an acceptable print, but is not up to exhibition standard. At college I will be using a HP Photosmart B9180 printer, which is calibrated from the monitor, to the printer to the paper used. The paper used HP Satin Matt A3+ 250g/m2(Q5462A) which produces an exhibition quality print.

and here is the final image

EMMA

Set out below are the other final 9 images to complete the set. A similar workflow has been done on these to that above.

This also shows some of the jewellery that Emma was using. I had a separate theme to this one of Emma herself.

This image also links into the other theme I have been working on as it shows Emma's jewellery that I asked her to wear. The other theme is only of the jewellery itself, but this another way to present the jwellery, depending on the client need.The jewellery was her own and this image is in line with my research on how to photograph jewellery. The light has been reflected here onto Emma.

I have provided an A2 portfolio with the above prints slipped inside. The presentation of these images is to illustrate the final putcome of the workflow, from idea through planning, costing, preplanning of the shoot amnd finally the shoot itself. From there the images have been downloaded and produced and are now set out in the portfolio.

310 - printers

There is such a great market for printers, at so many different types and prices, it can very difficult to decide which one to choose. Dot matrix, ink jet, and laser being some types, either colour and/or black and white.
The choice also very much depends on how you are going to produce your prints, and this should be considered prior to your your shoot, and to fit in with your client brief should you have one.

The variety of printing methods today is vast (for digital printing) as is the surfaces to which you can print. These vary from your cheap supermarket papers to archival papers, to aluminium and acrylic, from photographic papers to canvas. Your image can look very different depending on the surface it is printed on. There is also the choice of Matt, semi matt and Gloss for instance,and some in between.
I tend however to send my printing requirements away to an on-line printer as the results are so much better.

The major consideration today is the cost of the inks. When I visited the professional studio of Paulo Loroso the main consideration in the final print was the cost of the inks, and this was the most expensive part of his (or any other photographers business) business. Some businesses offer only CD's/DVDs for the client to take away, and let them print the ones that they require. However there are other mediums to consider, such as the web, and maybe the reuirment to print from this.

My home printer is an A4 Epson stylus PHOTO 220R printer. It uses Epson's unique Micro Piezo print head and 6-colour inks. The prints can also be made borderless on formats from 10 x 15cm to A4. With a resolution up to 5760dpi on suitable media. It has the ability to print on CD/DVDs. You can also apply effects, change layouts and add frames to the photos, with the included range of easy to use software. It is PC and MAC compatible, and has the Epson Print Image Matching III for faithful photo reproduction. The printer produces acceptable prints using the Epson Inks, which tend to be expensive. I have also used Epson papers previously to produce my prints, as the inks are matched for this make of paper.
The technical specification follows:-

Epson Stylus Photo R220 6 colour inkjet photo printer, Epson Micro Piezo™ Up to 5760* x 1440dpi, *optimised dpi on suitable media *1 15ppm*2 15ppm*3 120 A4 sheets plain paper, 100 A4 Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper,2 (Plain Paper). Up to 300g/m2

(Ultra Glossy Photo Paper)

Envelope C6 (162 x 114mm), No 10 (241.3 x 104.8mm),

DL (220 x 110mm & 220 x 132mm)

Envelope Weight From 45 to 75g/m

2

Maximum Printable Area (mm)

Print Margin 0mm top, left, right and bottom*

*Via custom setting in printer driver.

Consumables

Black T0481

Capacity Black 450 A4 pages (at 360dpi, 5% duty)

Colour T0482 (Cyan), T0483 (Magenta), T0484 (Yellow), T0485 (Light Cyan),

T0486 (Light Magenta)

Capacity Colour 430 A4 pages (at 360 dpi, 5% duty per colour)

Dimensions

Standard (wxdxh) 462 x 263 x 196 mm

Operational (wxdxh) 462 x 474 x 297 mm

Weight

5.2Kg

Noise Level

Approx 45dB(A) (ISO 7779)

Power Consumption

Approx 12W (per ISO 10561 Letter Pattern)

Regulations

ENERGY STAR Compliant EMC Directive 89/336/EEC

Warranty

Standard 1 Year Standard Warranty

Optional Extension to 3 years

Print Technology

print head

Epson Variable-sized Droplet Technology with

minimum 3pl droplets

Print head of 540 nozzles (6 x 90 per Black, Cyan,

Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Light Magenta)

Print Quality

using RPM (Resolution Performance Management)

Operating System

Microsoft® Windows® 98 / Me / 2000 / XP and Macintosh®

Below is one aspect that needs to be checked with any printer, and that is a nozzle check.

 

I do not generally use this printer for producing photographs as the quality is inconsistant, and generally not up to gallery standard, and only being A4 and I have not been able to calibrate this printer due to the software being expensive.

Generally I use an online printing outfit for my larger prints. This is a company called D S Colour Labs Ltd,  working in association with Fujifilm. They offer the full range of services from Prints through to photobooks to acrylic panels and photoflyers, and a whole range of gift ideas.

They use Fuji Frontier 570 printers, and all images sent to them are using their printer profile that they have sent. Images can also be supplied as sRGB. Below is the monitor calibration chart that they supply. This is also a crucial part of the printing process, as you want to get a print that replicates what you see on the computer screen. details for this are noted elsewhere on the blog.

The printer is Fujifilms most popular high volume digital lab system,and with high processing capacities can produce prints in minutes. I have them delivered next day by post. Below is an illustration of the printer.

The specification for this printer is very technical and is not included here, but I have a copy as a PDF on my laptop.

There are many alternative suppliers of this facility, and at varying prices. I have chosen this lab as to date it has produced the best value prints, which is very important in todays economic world. I would add however that I will investigate other sources of printing depending on the final destination of the images.

The other current option is to use the printers at college. This printer is an HP Photosmart B9180 and is aim ed at the professional and creative market, launched Feb 2002..

It has 8 ink cartridges, Matt black, photo black, light grey, light cyan,cyan, light magenta, magenta and yellow.(similar to my home Epson printr but has 2 more black inks). The print quality for colour is up to 4800 optimized dpi colour (up to 4800x1200 dpi colour when printing from acomputer and 1200 input dpi).
Below are the sheets that were printed from the printer I used to submit my final images from.

this is the printer calibration sheet

this is the print quality diagnostics page

The paper used is HP Advanced injet paper (satin-matt) at A3+ 250g/m2, and is top gallery standard.

My personal preference is to use the college printer, as it is calibrated through from the Mac screen to the final print, and gives me the print that I want, and will last, given that it will need mounting correctly, with the appropriate frame and glazing.

Black Text, A4 (Economy Mode)

Colour Text, A4 (Economy Mode)

Photo Bike Image, 10x15cm, 13x18cm, 57 seconds, 88 seconds, 163 seconds

A4 (Photo Mode)

Paper Handling

20 sheets of Premium or Semi Gloss Photo Paper; 15 envelopes

Paper Size A4, 9 x 13cm, 10 x 15cm, 13 x 18cm, 20 x 30cm, 3.5 x 5", 4 x 6",

5 x 8", 8 x 10", A5, A6, B5, Legal, Letter, Half Letter

Paper Weight From 64 to 90g/m

310 - Digital printing technologies

Digital Printmaking Technologies

Common technologies used to produce digital prints include inkjet, electrophotography (dry toner and liquid toner), thermal transfer (mass transfer and dye sublimation transfer), and laser imaging (digital photo printing) on photographic paper.

INKJET

Inkjet is a popular technology based upon the ejection of small drops of fluid by an actuator that is controlled by a digital computer system. Once ejected from a print head orifice (nozzle), the droplets pass through the air to a printing medium, typically paper, on which they form spots or dots. By controlling both the actuator and the relative position of the medium, an array of spots is produced on the medium to form a pattern. With the appropriate ink droplet sizes, ink colours, and ink-receiving medium, an image is created. Today, image quality and permanence can be produced in commercially available inkjet systems with performance exceeding traditional photographic technology. This is by far the most popular type of printer on the market today, and they are now as fast as laser pinters, and can be used to print large posters and a variety of advertiosng work. I have a small A4 printer of this type at home and is adequate for the jobs required for it to perform. I have only had personal experience of this type of printer for photographs.

Piezo, Thermal, and Continuous-Flow Inkjet Technologies
These three are the most common inkjet technologies employed. For the digital printmaker they are usually combined with water-based (acqueous) inks, either pigmented or dye-based. The differences among them are the actuator technologies:

Piezo [or piezoelectric crystal actuator based on-demand inkjet technology, in the full term] uses a small crystal that bends when current is applied to it to produce the actuation effect. This "piezo effect" is based on a very small movement of the crystal and subsequent compression of the ink in an ink chamber. The result is the ejection of a very small droplet of ink from a small orifice in the inkjet print head. When properly designed, this system can generate very small, reproducible droplets of ink that can produce outstanding results when the droplets are properly positioned on well-designed inkjet media. Since the actuating pulses can be varied, resulting in more or less bending, a variety of droplet volumes can be produced. This leads to the ability to achieve a digital gray scale and to further improve the image-quality capability of the technology.

Thermal [thermally activated actuator based inkjet technology, in the full term] uses heat to create a very small bubble of superheated vapour to push a small droplet of ink from an inkjet print head orifice. This is the most widely used inkjet technology in the world and can provide very good print quality when properly implemented. It is a more robust technology than piezo since the energy used to eject the droplet makes thermal less susceptible to clogging of the orifice. Also, bubble formation in the ink is not encouraged by the process as it is in piezo; a very small bubble will cause a piezo printer to fail to eject a droplet.

In the early days, the heating and shock experienced in the actuation process limited the ink formulation latitude for thermal. New advances in this technology allow water-based ink designers the freedom to develop inks that do not limit the image quality or durability of the print output. As with piezo technology, final drop volume may be varied to provide grayscale rendering.

Continuous [or Continuous Flow inkjet printing technology, in the full term] is used for digital printmaking exclusively with the IRIS/IXIA inkjet printers (the IXIA has replaced the IRIS). It produces a stream of droplets all identical in size, and the electronics of the system chooses which ones will hit the medium and make a spot and which ones will not. Continuous flow has provided excellent image quality but at a very high cost in both the initial investment, reliability, and speed, as well as image permanence. Pigmented inks cannot be used with this technology. It is no longer a preferred technology.

ELECTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Electrophotography is based upon the deposition of either dry powder or liquid toner onto a photoreceptive surface on which a charge is produced, usually by light from a laser or other similar point light source. The toner is subsequently transferred either to a blanket then to paper or directly to the paper and then fused to form the desired image. Dry toner technology is limited in the size of the particles that can be used. Since these particles are relatively large, this technology generally suffers from insufficiently good image quality to satisfy the digital printmaker. Liquid toner, however, can use very fine particles that allow for production of near-photographic quality output. Today, liquid toner image quality and permanence can meet the needs of some digital printmaking applications. Liquid electrophotography's advantage is higher printing speed as compared to inkjet printing or thermal transfer printing but at a very steep price.

THERMAL TRANSER

Thermal transfer is based upon using heat to transfer either a colored coating containing a binder and colorant or dye molecules (by sublimation or diffusion) from a thin carrier film to a receiver sheet that contains a receptive surface coating. The heat may be provided by an array of nibs (similar to those in a thermal fax machine) that are activated by a computer when a colour spot is desired, or by a laser that heats the carrier film causing the transfer to occur. Good-quality colour prints can be produced by this technology, which is frequently used in photo kiosks for printing either digital or scanned photo reproduction prints.

DIGITAL PHOTO PRINTING (LASER IMAGING)

Digital Photo Printing (laser imaging) is based on traditional photographic silver-halide photographic print paper that is imaged by a laser or similar point light source to provide a full-colour photographic image. This technology is gaining popularity in both wide-format photo printing and for digital photo finishing, both in minilabs and in production labs. Laser imaging produces true photographic prints and can be very productive in larger volume applications; however, it requires photo paper as a receptor, which limits its media flexibility. The market ofr colour laser printers has grown considerably over the lats few years. They are however costly to buy and operate and not really within reach of the ametuer or semi-professional photographer.