Premedia Trends

July 18, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I just received a nice new book on digital work flows. It covers all the bases: how to plan, how to take photos, how to transport the photos, how to download the photos, and how to archive them.

In the middle of the chapter on how to archive the photos, the author tells us: “Avoid the dreaded word space!”

He argues that all file names should be concatenated into onewordjustlikethis, or he suggests – if you must – use_the_underscore_character.

That’s just plain stupid. Allowmetomakemycase.

Where is it written that we must continue to hold on to the anachronistic requirements of a long-dead operating system? The original brain-dead filename which later became known as 8.3 (eight characters followed by a period and a three-letter suffix) was Gary Kildall’s CP...Read More
Industries: New Products, Premedia

July 15, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

More than forty years ago I helped my mom and dad print labels for my father’s insurance company, an annual event where the whole family printed, moistened, and adhered these labels to the top of Currier & Ives calendars my dad bought in bulk. We then set up an assembly line to roll each calendar in a sheet of kraft paper so that my dad could deliver one to each of his clients. We did the printing on a Chandler & Price 8 x 12 hand letterpress, a press bought at auction by my late grandfather.

These calendars gave my father a chance to vi...Read More
Industries: New Products, Press

July 10, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

In the sixth week of a ten-week class on digital printing, one of my students asked this loaded question. Another of our instructors had the students convert color photos to CMYK as soon as they were downloaded from the camera. It is best, that instructor said, to work in CMYK. We are headed to press aren’t we?

But, I was shocked by that suggestion. Heresy! I shouted. How can you convert to CMYK until you know where, how, and on what substrate your photos will be printed?

It is certainly easier for the human brain, trained as it is by the Crayola Experience, to think in terms subtractive. We know that adding Mauvelous to Mellow Yellow that you get a deep shade of, well, red-orange. We know this from experience. What we don’t know is what happens when we mix half-strength red light with half-strength blue. Those with experience ...Read More
Industries: New Products, Premedia

July 8, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Friday morning I will be in line at the local AT&T store to buy a new 3G iPhone. I waited for a full year for Apple to add GPS and 3G, and now that they have done that, I have no excuse to postpone it any longer. (And, my Verizon contract expires tomorrow morning.)

With my new iPhone I will:

1. be able to show photos of my recent projects and adventures (Iguazú Falls is on the top of the list)
2. be able to review projects in PDF format, upload comments and corrections, while not in my office
3. demonstrate digital photographi...Read More
Industries: New Products, Premedia

July 5, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I’ve been traveling almost constantly since early June, first to Düsseldorf, then Stuttgart, then home for four days, and then off to South America. I’ve just spent a week in Buenos Aires observing the quality of printing on flyers for strip clubs that are thrust in my face by hawkers on the Avenida Florida. Now I have moved my base of operations to Uruguay, where so far I have not had anything thrust in my face by anyone. It’s much calmer here.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a city of about 14 million people; that’s nearly half the population of the entire country. Magazine stands are full of titles, newspapers – including one in English – are published for every interest. The Argentine economy is on the rocks, but despite that, the domestic graphic arts business seems to be doing fine. In the plaza in front of the government buildi...Read More