Fine… but only do it once!

If you do it and decide it’s not dark enough, do not go back and layer another gradient on top of the one you just did!

Undo it, change the setting, and do it so that there is only one iteration of the tool.

Why? Because layering them will produce banding.

You might not see it at first glance, but I assure you it’s there.

Of course, I found this out the hard way (as I do all the tips I put up here) – a graduated sky in one of my images had been in that state for at least three years. I never noticed it, and when I printed it, even with my ImagePrint RIP, it never popped out at me.

Then I got the Piezography 7-shades-of-gray system and devoted a printer to it.

And there it was, plain as day. At first, I thought it was my new system, but I went back to the image and blew it up to 150% and moved the cursor over the sky… and watched the number change. (Actually, I could see them on the monitor too. I guess I wasn’t paying attention before.)

The other printers used black and two grays, so there was a bunch of dithering going on, which effectively disguised the banding. The use of 7 inks, however, pointed out the problem in all its glory.

End of tale.

Here are the instructions for using Piezography inks with CS6:

Here’s a version of the null-transform that does seem to work for Piezography, (which is concerned only with maintaining the 2.2 gamma, and not any colors) courtesy of Jon Cone:

1) work in Gray Gamma 2.2;

2) convert image to sRGB;

3) choose “Photoshop manages colors”

4) choose “Wide Gamut RGB” as the printer profile

all else as usual.

I ran a couple of prints this morning testing this, and eye-balling the output (compared to known good test prints done thru CS5) it looks correct, and as expected.

“Armor All Auto Glass Cleaner” in the spray bottle. (Not something “like” this product; >exactly< this product - ”Armor All Auto Glass Cleaner”. This is NOT your typical glass cleaner!)

Standard techniques: spray the resting pad for the head; wipe head… all the usual stuff. This tip is about the solution. It’s the only product I’ve found that has the right precentages of isopropanol and propylene glycol ether.

Does it really work? Yes. Test? Sure: print a disposable pigment image, and then spray this stuff on it. The ink will run instantly. Spray on a paper towel and wipe for even more dramatic results.

Finally, I should note that I’ve tested this with K3 pigment inks. I have no idea at all if it works properly with dye-based inks.

The situation with inks drying out is not as simple as your fountain pen skipping.

There are two kinds of inks – pigment and dye. Pigment is little bits of “paint” (Epson encapsulates them in resin) suspended in a liquid (usually water.) Grinding the pigments must be done to high precision so that they suspend, rather than dissolve (as with dye) and are of an appropriate size to pass thru the holes in the print head. Further, they must be significantly smaller (in the case of Epson) because the piezo electric propulsion allows for several different size drops to be dispensed thru those holes.

Pigment inks are often 0.1 microns in size, and the hole in the head is around 20 microns, so it’s not a bunch of particles blocking the hole.

Pigment inks are, as a suspension, subject to settling out, hence the recommendation that the cartridges be shaken. Part of the chemical skill in making an ink and cartridge involves keeping the particles suspended as long as possible. Epson can do it for up to a year or so. (I can’t speak to how well a 3-room Taiwanese third party supplier will succeed at milling, resin encapsulating and suspending, but one suspects that Seiko/Epson are probably more successful at it…)

And this ink dries almost instantly when it contact paper and air. Thus it is invariably dry on the head as well. In fact, it’s the wet ink in the feeder tubes behind the head that must dissolve the dry ink at the mouth. Yes: one of the properties of inkjet ink is that it must dissolve inkjet ink.

What happens then if you let air get in the lines?  There is no way for that ink in the head to be dissolved, because there is no fresh ink touching it, and the air bubble acts like a shock absorber, preventing the ink from feeding.

So, on some professional printers, the heads are parked on a moist sponge when not in use. A cleaning cycle may run ink thru the head under pressure, or may clamp a unit around the head and use suction to try to pull ink out. Commonly, a rubber blade can be run over dirty heads.

Some cheaper printers don’t have separate heads, and the cartridge itself is the delivery mechanism. Some printers use only one size droplet, which is larger, allowing for less refined milling, and hence less clogging.

OK… TMI.

So, what is the cheapest way to keep an inkjet printer running?

Print with it.

Your own environment, the particular printer and the particular inks you use,  will determine how long you can go before your printer needs to run an expensive cleaning cycle. Then print at least one image the day before that time runs out, and you’re good to go.

Or, seen the other way: if I’m right and a cleaning uses enough ink for 10 images, and your time-to-print is once a week, then if you don’t use your printer more than once every 2 1/2 months, I’d start questioning whether or not you were wise to buy the printer in the first place…

First thing I notice is that the discs themselves are heavier (literally) than other DVD-R’s, and they are about 70% transparent.

Mac sees the drive; Toast writes to it; writes are pretty slow: 13 minutes for a full disc + about the same or slightly less to verify.

The discs are made somewhere in the EU.
They are more transparent after burning (a light smokey gray) that is transparent enough to read a book thru;

Disc was readable by my LG Blu-Ray burner/drive and by my Optiarc burner/drive.

So: no problems; everything worked as advertised.

See you in 3011…   :-)

Tracy

That’s fine with me, of course, because none of that impinges on my own skills or artistic vision. But I will admit to some consternation when I see over-saturated, color-altered, HDR’d garish over-manipulated images touted as “the world’s most beautiful photos.” (Google it – you’ll find dozens of such sites.)

The question is why?

And the answer, I have come to suspect, is television, and television quality images, which are low resolution, over-contrasted, sRGB color-space, blurry and pixelated.  And that is what most people have grown up with. That is their frame of reference.

Digital cameras are wildly popular, and I’m delighted that more people are exposed to photography… but look at what is happening just now (late 2011) – the rise of the cell-phone camera, and the introduction of video into digital still cameras.

Cell-phone camera are improving rapidly, but they will take years (if ever?) to rival the quality of a pro’s DSLR. And while that is going on, the other front encroaches: video.

And what is happening there is that people are taking stills from the video stream. That’s lower resolution, lower quality… but perfectly satisfactory for 99.5% of all those millions of uploaded snapshots every day. Perfectly fine to email to your sister.

Even Google is aware of this trend, as they are currently pushing the webP image format – which is based on video.

So, here’s my prediction – the use of dedicated digital cameras will wane in the general public, as both better technology for embedded cameras (cell phones, iPads etc) comes along, and the use of video as a source for stills grows.

Images will fall into two camps: those taken with embedded cameras, and those taken by dedicated cameras, with the former gaining popularity. Web-quality images (low resolution; sRGB color; high contrast; over-saturated) will predominate.

And, because of the quality of those images, fine art photography will once again separate itself from the pack.

Tracy

To that end and context then, size matters.

These days, the photo trend is toward larger and larger prints. I’ve sold a few 60″ prints myself, when a collector requests one. There seems to be some belief that “he must be good – look at the size of his prints!” That’s nonsense, of course, but look at the trend: 50″ televisions; triple-decker hamburgers; SUV’s… the list goes on.

The problem I’m pointing out however is this: like a billboard, you cannot look at it up close. And like a billboard, its sheer size invites only cursory glances, and intimates that it is completely forgettable.

In short, many giant images have a tendency to be just pretty pictures, destined for corporate lobbies, or stately homes.

There is absolutely nothing at all wrong with “pretty pictures” and they brighten our lives. There is nothing wrong with large prints either… but neither is (in my opinion) proper for fine art photographs.

In fact, I’ll suggest that a fine art photo needs to be relatively small; certainly 16 x 20 or less, and frequently it should fit on 11 x 17 paper.

Why so small? Because with a smaller size, the viewer must intentionally approach it – walk up to it; stop what he or she is doing and take a moment to observe it. A walk-by will not suffice, simply because the image is too small to be observed and recognized at a glance.

Further, this almost mechanical contrivance promotes intimacy. Standing close to an image removes the rest of the environment from the observer’s consciousness. Attention is focused, and the self is opened up to the artist’s intent. (This sense of intimacy is usually enhanced by a matte which has a border half the size of the image itself, or at least several inches, surrounding and isolating the image with a uniform backdrop. You will likely never see a 60″ print with a matte.)

Ultimately, the size of the print depends on the intended use of the collector, but in the case of true art, which allows for immersion and new insights on repeated viewings – in short, withstands the test of time – then I’d suggest that a smaller print is the appropriate choice.

Size matters.

(see more recent initial review, above, somewhere)

(Before I go any further, I’d like to make a point. I think this technology is a milestone in the entire history of computers, and perhaps the most important invention since the computer itself.*)

Yep: there is digital technology coming in a mere few weeks that will yield DVDs with a 1000 year expected lifetime.

The burner will cost $150 – 200, (with the bard drive costing $49) and the discs around $3 each. 4GB.

You can at last archive your photos (and anything else that can go on a DVD).

I have already pre-ordered one.

Here’s the article:

http://www.informationweek.com/byte/reviews/personal-tech/storage-memory/231500076

and here’s where you can pre-order one:

http://millenniata.com/preorder/

Now, someone is sure to say “So what? The DVD player will be gone long before the DVD media dies, and you’ll have no way to recover the data.”

That, of course, is a common problem with all digital technology

Our TV’s were recently replaced; have you read a Jaz drive lately? Syquest?

That comment, however, misses the point: digital technology is “forever” only if it is maintained. That is, every few years (somewhere between 5 and 10 in the case of DVDs) one must re-store the data on new media. The problem, of course, is that one cannot know exactly _when_ a DVD will start going bad. It depends on several different factors, including storage direction, light, humidity, oxygen levels, temperature and so on.

Thus, to ensure continuity, one has to constantly check the readability of optical media, and even then it’s a crap-shoot, since while it may read fine in year four, at year 5 it may fail. So… did you make a backup in year 4?

The benefit of the new DVDs therefore isn’t so much that they last forever, as that they _will_ be readable when you need them to be… including the point at which DVDs are about to become passe, and you need to move the data to, say, holographic filing, or whatever comes next.

hth

——————–

followup, longer-winded explanation

>ALL< digital technology will be superseded. RAM, drives, CPUs, power supplies, motherboards, cases, connectors… everything. The only practical way to look at computers is as consumables, with a time-to-live, and a need for replacement.

Data storage in particular is most subject to media deterioration and/or mechanical obsolescence. The price is constant diligence, and as I noted above, the crap-shoot nature of needing to second-guess when failure will occur. (Of course you can’t, so you have to keep -at least- two copies of everything… and that -doubles- your need to periodically inspect.)

___________________________________________

* Why? Because throughout the history of computers, whose job it is to manipulate data and save it, the “save” part has always been temporary. One has always had to go back and verify the integrity of the saved data. Never before has it been possible to save the data, and forget it until the replacement came along. This is a huge development.

You can mitigate the FCPX disaster somewhat by doing this:

1) mea culpa

2) timeline for the fixes

3) put FCP suite back up for sale

4) hope that’s enough.

Some of these folks have gone ballistic, claiming that they are going to throw out their entire Apple hardware and software setup, and switch to Avid.

Not all responses have been quite so over the top, and some have been quite reasoned. Here’s my take, and I think it fits in the latter category…

—

Regarding FCPX: your choice  (and every one else’s) is just to hold your horses. Wait.  Keep using the software you have. It isn’t suddenly inoperable. There’s nothing -forcing_ you to convert NOW. Pretend you never heard of FCPX and edit away!  True, there won’t be any -updates- to FCP7, but by the time you’re dying for an update, Apple will likely have resolved the version 1.0 issues.

I have my 44 minute Bullock video here. I loaded it back into FCP7 today, and it works just fine. It didn’t suddenly become inoperable because I purchased FCP X.

And while they are no longer selling FCP7, where did you read the statement from Apple that they will no longer support it? [I doubt that's the case.]

I really don’t understand the hysterics. Not you, of course… yours is merely disappointment…but that is exactly my point – it’s that people are disappointed, not that FCPX magically destroys your copy of FCP7.

[You asked if ] I blame them for switching horses? Yes, frankly, I do. Making decisions about the next NN-years of their life and costing in the 5,6 or 7 figure range .. > 2 DAYS< after a version 1.0 release? They are not being mature enough to say “OK – not ready for prime time yet… Bummer. I guess I’ll just keep going as is, and take a look at it later when it’s more fully featured.”

Why is everyone assuming that version 1.0 is the way it’s going to be _forever_? Has Apple EVER not updated it’s products? Why assume that’s the case now? If you were a cutter for my studio and announced that you were going to gut the hardware and software of the entire editing department because you didn’t like version one of the new editing software, I’d fire you for being a fool… right after asking “Who said you HAD to use it?”

Yes: the release is not what we all hoped it would be. But it will be. FCP version 1 from 10 years ago wasn’t suitable for pros either… and it took at least 8 years to get to where it is today…So we’re comparing a version One release with a version Seven release… and rationally expecting parity?

Apple never billed it as the next update. They billed it as the _NEW_ FCP.

My friend, I’m not one of those blind “Apple People” but neither am I irrational, and a lot of the reaction I’ve seen so far is exactly that: irrational.

All the things you’ve pointed out in your reply are legitimate gripes about the version 1 release… but NONE of them are not solved by just staying with FCP7 a while longer. It still works just fine.

Meanwhile, Apple is breaking some eggs for the sake of making a better omelet a ways down the road. If technology didn’t move forward, we’d all still be using the horse and buggy.

I just can’t get around feeling like most of these people just discovered there’s no Santa Claus.

So, yes: jumping ship right now (2 working days after the release) is simply immature and short-sighted. This is a transition period from an old way to a new way. Transitions don’t happen overnight.

To all those who jump ship and switch to Avid or Premiere, I say “Good luck to you.” In less than a year, I’ll be using a more-capable (than Avid), faster(than Avid), better(than Avid), more stable (than Avid) FCP X version 1.5 which will do all the things that version 1.0 is missing… and likely more.

Meanwhile, I’ll take the time to learn the new paradigm, and come up to speed.

I expect you’ll hear something from Apple during this coming week.

And that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!  :-)

Tracy

“The way that can be named is not The Nameless Way.”