Book Printing
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Don’t have an answer. Just want to add my black-and-white turned out purple too. :( |
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Thanks for posting….at least it’s not me…and perhaps if enough of us voice our complaints, blurb will get their act together… |
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Don’t forget that the inks are metameric. Look at that purple book in daylight conditions and it will look more neutral. Likewise, books printed too green will look very green under daylight. I had the same book printed both too green and too purple, so on top of the metamerism you have to add that the printing shop isn’t calibrating the equipment frequently enough. I fully support the idea that Blurb consider a K3 or other solution. Blurb does market their products and services to professionals who demand the best and most consistent output for themselves and their clients. |
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Mine is purple no matter under what light I’m looking at it. It’s just so dissapointing to upload images with no color information in them and get them printed with midtones all purple as there is no such thing as black-and-white photography. |
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Booksmart converts all color files to sRGB, no matter what the source profile. I presume they do this with greyscale as well, so in fact there would be color information in your files. I would think the printer is using the color inks (and not just the black), not matter if the file were greyscale. I have been converting my greyscale to duo or tritone, then converting that to sRGB. This seemed to me the best approximation to classic offset duotone in the Blurb context, and it takes the guess work out of how the printer would interperet the colorless greyscale file. Since my monitor is calibrated, I then know any discrepancies are on the side of printing miscalibration; or metamerism if the same book looks different under different light sources. I believe these recent complaints of purple images are owing to infrequent calibration, because if anything my earlier tests were on the green side, not magenta. |
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I agree that quality of black and white pictures is poor, with magenta cast or green cast in some cases (even in the same book). If BLURB converts all files into sRGB. Suggestions to improve b&w would be most welcome. |
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I too have had problems with a black and white image printing magenta in my Blurb book. What is interesting is that the old black and white family photos that scanned printed just fine. While the black and whiite print of my own that I scanned was magenta. I’m guessing that the old prints looked fine because they had a slight sepia cast. |
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This is disappointing. I wanted to create a black and white photo album :( I hope they look into fixing this so people can work with black and white images here. |
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Hi folks, a lot of our users have very good results with black and white imagery. Keeping grayscale images neutral is one of the biggest challenges with CMYK digital offset printing. As barst mentions above, when printing images that have a built-in cast like sepia, a color press has an easier time getting it right..plus a cast of one or two points may not be noticeable in a sepia image where with a neutral image it may show. Kimberly, my recommendation is to try a test book with some of your b&w images and stick with our standard or large format product, which tend to reproduce a bit more neutral. Best, —bw |
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speters, Only if you conduct a search query on topic of “ICC profile”, I can assure you that you will be likely to come up with many forum discussion on the topic related to ICC profile fairly often lately. Hope that helps and good luck. |
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speters, FYI, have a look at most recent discussion, if you conducted this venue of search query. |
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Hi! Thought i’d repost on this subject I’ve found some images to come out darker than profiled in my computer, monitor, and printer. I’m not sure what causes this, but a few prints that come out bright and even slightly over exposed can come out dark in a blurb book. Mind you my monitor, printer etc are perfectly calibrated and profiled. It seems if your image appears darker in blurb’s preview mood then it will print that way. You can compare a dark image in preview and then in cs or lightroom, and sometimes blurb’s preview will be darker. So just increase exposure slightly say 1/3 to 2/3 stops. Also try increasing fill lite, decrease shadows all very slightly. I find this corrects the darkness in images in preview. If it looks right in preview it will look right in the book. This darkness in photographs usually apears if at all in b&w or darkly shadowed images. It also helps to keep previous books that din’t turn out right so you know how to adjust the next copy. It usually takes me 1 or 2 off copies before i get coloring right, but then they look great. You can then send your off colored books back in for credit for credit or replacement, but specify you want a replacement with your current upload not the previous off colored one. |
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I haven’t done a Blurb book since the one I posted about in August where I had a problem with one B&W image printing magenta. I have clicked on the links mentioned, but I am now contempating doing a book which will consist of all black and white photos, so I want to make sure I have the very latest info on profiles, etc. I seem to remember from the time that I printed my book (11/06-2/07) that the softcover books were done on a different press than the hardcovers and that the dust jackets were done on yet a different press. Is this still the case? If so, where is the best place to find the profiles for the different presses? Thanks |
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By the way, I did successfully download the Indigo HP 5000 semimatte profile, but am wondering if this applies only to hardcover or to softcover as well. |
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Hi Barst, all Blurb book pages are printed on Indigo except for 7×7 products. —bw |
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My first book was a 13×11. The B&W pictures had a very subtle magenta cast. The dust jacket pictures had a strong green cast. The color pictures were all perfect. Pictures at: http://forums.blurb.com/forums/5/topics/1352#posts-6331
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Thanks for the info Bruce. What about the dust jackets? When I did my book, I ordered quite a few softcovers, but, but only a couple of hardcovers. I never was satisfied with the color on the dustjacket. The color was really off, and didn’t look anything like the inside pages. I believe i was told that a different press was used for the covers. Is that still the case? |
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The dust jackets and covers are done on a couple of different output devices. Depending upon where your book is printed, dust jackets for standard and large format books are done on a Xeikon 6000 press or an HP Z6100 ink jet. Soft covers are done on the Xerox iGen3 as are the dust jackets for 7×7 books. The reason for all of this is that the Indigo has a maximum sheet size of 12×18. Best, —bw |
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So I guess that means that their is no such thing as a profile for the printer of the dustjackets. When I do my next book, I would be very hesitant to do a harcover then because I never thought the dustcovers successfully reproduced the color in the way that the book pages did. It was pretty frustrating because the pages of the books themselves looked so good. I guess I will stick with the softcover. |
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Hi Barst, Blurb does not support color management per se. The HP profile has been provided by a third party who is a Blurb user. We do use the Indigo as our "standard" that we match to regardless of cover output device but because of the differences in technology (digital offset vs .dry ink vs. electrophotographic vs. inkjet) there are some visable differences. —bw |
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Thanks Bruce. At least I will know a lot more about reproducing color then when I did my first book. |
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Specifically, this is for Bruce…but other informed members have at it. I’m fairly unsophisticated about digital. Im a classical black and white photographer who worked with Ansel Adams in the 80s. Now I want to reproduce my black and white work from then until now. Some of my images are 4×5 negs scanned into PS CS3. Now, if I turn them to grayscale, the machine turns them back in to RGB? How do i set the best profile for these images? Should I just make them all RGB and convert to the profile HP indigo press 5000 semimatte? What specific settings should I be using… If someone could walk me through how to set these black and white images for an 11×13 book (which I think would look best), id appreciate it much! |
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Hi Christopher. printing scanned images presents some issues in addition to color/tone. If you worked with Ansel, I’m assuming some of the files may also be from black and white prints? Either way, negs or prints, you may want to experiment with some different sharpening values before you put your final book together. You will likely get some suggestions from the forums here from others that have done similar projects so I’ll leave that open. Regarding profiles, the thing to keep in mind is that the Indigo presses are CMYK devices and need to create your black and white imagery using 4-color. I’ve heard different opinions on if it’s best to save out as grayscale or RGB. Here’s my recommendation to you. The standard 10×8 books are all done on the Indigo. You can do a soft cover standard book of 40 pages for $19.95. Try some variations on your images in the test book, tracking your settings page by page. Once you get your test book back you should have a good idea of what is working best. Good luck with your project! FYI, I was running the imaging labs at Corbis when we did the deal with the Ansel Adams Trust in the mid 90"s. Still the most fascinating project I’ve ever worked on. Best, —bw |
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Thanks bruce-actually they are a combination of 4×5 and 2.5 square negs scanned in as greyscale. The other (about half) are from a Nikon D80 10.1 mpix and saved in PS CS3 as greyscale. Also, any suggestions on how to image for the dust jacket—i usually put my title in photoshop so i can place the tilte where i want it, shadow it, etc. (see my Europe 2007 example). other suggestions are most welcome! |
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I’m rather dissapointed that I have not had anyone respond to these posts on black and white printing lately—this is a HUGE problem from I can figure out. There’s much variability and so many different possible settings of photos in Photoshop for this system. I plan to do extensive tests with the system using differing profiles and even duotones to see how the Indigo responds. I cannot understand why Blurb folks don’t know this information, as it seems pretty basic, but I have calls into HP and other local digital houses to see if I can get some information on this issue. But in the meantime, the users of this system remain in the dark on some much-needed instructions on how to best profile their black and whites before printing books. I’ll post my results when I finish all the tests. |
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Hi Christopher, we’re not the experts on Photoshop, which as you know has tons of settings and lots of print functionality. There are lots of Blurb users that have created many black and white books so hoping that those users can chime in for you. They can give you the best information of what has worked for them. —bw |
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Thanks Bruce. Also, I was hoping you would explain why you suggested sharpening on my scanned images. It didn’t make any sense to me. |
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Hi Chris, on the sharpening I’ve just noticed that some scanned files seemed soft as compared to direct camera files. I don’t have any data on this, just a suggestion as I know scanners generally apply some sort of sharpening in the process. |
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Looking forward to Chris’s test results. |
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Regarding sharpening; both scanned and digital camera files will be soft and require some sharpening. The confusion may be in some of the default sharpening that may be preset in digital cameras for jpegs, Adobe Camera Raw preferences, or in the scanning software. You should be able to clear out the sharpening presets and totally control the sharpening in Photoshop. Though Camera Raw in Photoshop CS3 has much greater control of sharpening than earlier versions and should be investigated too. For more than you ever wanted to know about sharpening, the late Bruce Frasier literaly wrote the book about it. It is called Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2. That said, I don’t believe that sharpening values are anywhere near the problem that getting the correct profile for printing black and white images images without a color cast on Blurb is. I am nowhere near the production phase of the black and white book yet, but I too am very worried about it after the magenta images i had in my mostly color last book. Chdant, you may want to also check the forums on Dpreview and Flickr on this. Their are many topics on Blurb, profiles, etc. |
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This site http://www.pixelgenius.com/ offers some great plug ins for Photoshop: some great color balancing, black and white and sharpening routines. Their sharpening plug in is one of the best in the business – there is a halftone option for sharpening. Two of the six original members passed away this year. I don’t know waht the future holds for Pixelgenius, but I use the plugings in Photoshop CS2 and they have been rewritten for CS3. I use Silverfast software when scanning negatives. I have been working in digital darkroom for six years. I spent a week with Jon Cone and his staff working with quadtone- <font size="2">Piezography</font> pigment inks. For my market I have been pretty happy printing black and white with the Quadtone RIP and Epson inks on a 2400 printer. I’ve accepted the fact that (for me) the success of my black and white printing is more driven by my memory of working in chemical darkrooms back in the 80’s and the highs and lows I experience after viewing the works of someone like John Sexton in a gallery than by the reaction of my audience. I am not satisfied but "they" love it. My current projects include some black and white images of a Passion procession in Mexico along with some high contrast images of clowns and "stilt walkers". I keep The Edge of Time by Mariana Yampolsky on my lap as a benchmark. Have my first couple of attempts with Blurb accomplished my dreams? No. But the recipients of these drafts are getting Christmas gifts they will love. And I will keep trying. Black and white printing in the digital age is a work in progress. But with the advent of new papers and a company like Blub what a great work in progress. I hope that sometime in 2008 I will have fine tuned my Blurb efforts into commercially viable editions. |
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Sharpening isn’t required on my photographs. The accutance and edge sharpness on a 4×5 neg scanned at 2400 dpi is as sharp as a tack, and the digital images the same from my 15MP camera. Sharpening pixelates the image and I do not use it unless I am printing on a lightjet and I use the unsharp mask setting. If you have PS CS3 you dont need this 3rd party stuff-its a waste of money. Im familiar with the forums…much of this is misinformation as it’s posted by amateurs who don’t bother testing. |
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...and besides, this is a topic about BLACK AND WHITE PRINTING. jasperguy, i’ll be posting my results as soon as the test books get mailed to me…interesting results i think. |
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I have extensive experience calibrating multiple presses and I have been exhaustively trained and advised in color management as it relates to monitor profiling, press profiling and calibration, etc. To qualify myself, I am responsible maintaining color calibration and profiling for 6 printers in our facility. Among other things, we do highly specialized prints for high profile photographers and corporations so I’ll not bother dropping names as it serves no purpose in this context. I’d like to strongly echo the statement that neutral grays from shadows through the highlights can be a bear to achieve using CMYK inks, but I may go into a little bit of detail WHY that is hard to do. I realize Blurb doesn’t honor color profiles and i’m a little disappointed about that but for the price—I’ll not be so worried about it. Further to that, a CMYK profile is best generated after the machine had been properly calibrated. Proper calibration will bring the machine to a repeatable standard on each of the color channels. A profile is dependent on many things being unchanged – hardware, ink, substrate surface tension, even temp. and humidity in the production house. It’s not metamerism causing the gray to print purple, red, green. It’s lack of maintaining press calibration. Once the profile is generated, it will know how to mix the colors to achieve all the specific gray values. As far as things looking sharp on an LCD monitor, yeah. They’re going to look crisp on an LCD. They can give a false sense of how sharp images are. All digital cameras shooting RAW mode need to have sharpening applied due to the edge interpretation during the de-mosaic process. Sharpening is important for printing because some printing processes will soften the image as well. Complaints aside, I’m glad a company like Blurb exists and am anxiously awaiting my books to arrive, too. They seem committed to doing a good job and I have no doubt they’ll get their color work streamlined in the future. |
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Hi Flex, Thanks for this post. It is consistent with my experience printing BW with Blurb, and everybody would be well served to read it. I would like to make one clarification: You are absolutely correct about calibration and the "moving target." Still, perfect calibration (if it existed) would not change that fact that the inks are indeed metameric. The greys in Blurb books will appear different under varying light sources (color images are much more forgiving). I have no complaints about this, for the price. But it should be clearly understood by those who would venture forth into printing BW with CMYK printers. |
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“Experts” aside, I disagree with some of this post, and as a photographer who has published offset books, sharpening is not required on most of my work, and in fact, sharpening degrades the image esp. because most folks don’t understand how to use it. My test book is nearly done, so I;ll post my results of what i find on the Indigo 5000 for my new black and white book. |
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Bruce et al, Hope this helps others!! Im ready to put together my 100 page retrospective of my printing from 1980 to today. |
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Thanks for the feedback Chris…and I’m sure there will lots of folks that will benefit from your research. Best, —bw |
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After spending about a week organizing my photos and then entering them into the blurb software I decided to do a proof print. The color proof when printed on my Canon S9000 printer looked pretty close to what I was getting on Photo Paper Plus Glossy. When I printed a BW (looks fine in preview mode with the software) the proof printed on my S9000 was extremely light- just grays and no blacks. If this is what I am seeing for a proof then what would I get back with the printed book? I haven’t read anything on this forum about BW proofing looking too light (extremely light and washed out). I am dissapointed that there are other issues as well with BW that are mentioned on this forum- purple and/or magenta casts. Any feedback? Thanks. |
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Okay everyone- I solved my problem. Very simple- my print head was clogged which resulted in the very light proof print. I ran a head cleaning cycle and that fixed the problem. |
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Sculptor999-you need to read my input on test book above about magenta casts. Your photographs have to be profiled correctly with the indigo5000 PPD and sRGB for printing on the indigo…magenta casts can result from incorrect profiling (eg, using the Adobe RGB 1998 profile will do that). Proofing on a Cannon printer wont give you the same result you get with the Indigo. You have to soft proof on a calibrated monitor and do a test book on the Indigo to truly understand what you’re getting. Take a look at bit of a test book i did: |
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Well I spoke too soon (see my previous two posts). Yes my print head was clogged and when I printed out of Photoshop after the head cleaning I had a perfect print. I had assumed that was the reason for the poor output on the proof print. When I tried again after the previous post I still had the same problem of a very washed out BW print with the proof print. I tried Photoshop again and my print was fine. In conclusion something IS WRONG with blurg. Anyone else with this problem? |
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What is “Blurg”? |
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Well Chris I checked out your link and it is clear that the sRGB converted to Indigo 5000 semi-matte profile is best. How do I import the Indigo profile into Photoshop CS. I figured out how to convert my grayscale to sRGB but how do I get the Indigo Profile into the right place in Photoshop CS? Any info or links to how to do this will be greatly appreciated. Len |
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Just got back my first Blurb. All Grayscale images. Dust Jacket looks superb. |
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sculptor and edgemont: you CAN NOT get any images in black and white to come out decent on the indigo if you profile them for greyscale or really any other profile—you have to use the indigo profile and know how to convert your images properly if you’re going to get decent results. i wish you guys luck. |
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Thanks chdant. One thing I don’t get- Blurb instructs you to provide images with no profile, yes? Do you send the images with one anyway? This all reminds me of printing B&W on my 2200 before I had Quad Tone RIP. |
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Hi ridgemont, your dustjackets are done on a 6-color ink jet device due to the size constraints of the Indigo press. While it would be great to offer that quality throughout the book the issues are first, no duplexing and second (and most importantly) price. The cost of doing a book totally on inkjet can be seen in products commonly used in the wedding photo industry. |
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Thanks Bruce Could you post a Blurb recomendation for how to prep for monochrome, And what’s up with profiles? for 8×10 books I should do the HP5000 profile, |
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Black and white printing help
