chdant's Posts

To the rest of the folks here trying hard to solve these obvious concerns: im pretty surprised that blurb cannot seem to offer much help to the many folks on these posts here and other places that are continually complaining about problems with the odd colors of their black and white books. perhaps it’s pervasive in the industry, but i did talk to 2 technicians who operate the indigo 5000 and they informed me that there are ways to calibrate their printers that can reduce if not eliminate the problematic casts from the monochrome images, profiling aside. i have used similar printers that have calibrated their output devices with nice results. unfortunately, they do not do books. unless we’re willing to spend lots of money to have our books handled by professional printers, we will have to wait until the POD folks figure this out. While im sure there are a lot of “satisfied” customers, there’s a lot who are not, and having a VP of blurb tell us we should look elsewhere is a bit annoying, frankly. im determined to find out more, and visiting an indigo facility this week to discuss with their folks and ill report on these posts for the rest of us who continually have problems with the printing.

ill keep trying. its frustrating without much help from blurb, frankly.
ansel would be appalled.

jaycemcee—
as a professional photographer that has printed several blurb books, i agree with the other posts: you’d be better off somewhere else with your criticisms, because, honestly, i dont think you even understand the process that you are are critical of. try lulu and leave this forum to those who are conveying helpful ideas.

ok, now i AM extremely concerned that the INDIGO 5000 isnt getting it right, and I have a call into Bruce Waterman at BLURB.
I got my large format book back with all the images carefully profiled for the INDIGO 5000 and they were ALL magenta…some horribly so. I am sending back the book, not only for this, but also because the binding and glue were pretty horribly done.
I am very concerned that Blurb doesnt oversee their INIGO printers more that they can test some of this—they are reordering the book, but god knows where it will be printed and what I am going to get next time.
So, in short, I took Bruce’s advice in doing a test, but since it’s likely that the test and real book were done at different facilities and/or the INDIGO wasn’t calibrated right, I got horrible results—i mean some of the images were relly magenta. Very unpleasant.

I wonder if Blurb’s Bruce Waterman would like to comment on this.

Im not sure folks are reading my posts—I did do a test book using just about every possible profile combination and it was extremely revealing.

Once again: 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 another 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:
http://www.blurb.com/images/uploads/catalog/57/149457/143759-49c0eea9a8b7a26e0ecc85ee757ae686.pdf

In short if youre doing black and white, PROFILE every photograph with the indigo 5000 PPD and then make sure it’s saved as RGB (otherwise you cant upload it to the book).

My new black and white book is being uploaded today (2-2) and expect it to be super.

Scott,
This is not my experience. First, most CMYK printers print in sRGB as it is a much bigger color space. I have run extensive tests on the Indigo and found a huge difference in black and white images, depending on how they are profiled.
I suggest you look at some of the tests:
http://www.blurb.com/images/uploads/catalog/57/149457/143759-49c0eea9a8b7a26e0ecc85ee757ae686.pdf

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:
http://www.blurb.com/images/uploads/catalog/57/149457/143759-49c0eea9a8b7a26e0ecc85ee757ae686.pdf

Thanks for all the posts Brian—you’re one of the great contributors who really understands this stuff. I just did a book of my Black and White images over 30 years and have run a test (waiting for the print) with varying settings of ICC profiles and greyscale settings. I think I know that the Indigo5000 profile will work best but want to see how it comes out. In any case, you can see my first pages of the test here.

Hi. I’m starting a new post here to discuss people’s experience with their monochrome images on the indigo5000 printer and how they have found differing profiles have affected their book images. I have used the indigo5000 profile available on the net and found it works very nicely. I have a new test book if you want to look at my books and see a preview.

Anyone actually tested this on their blurb books?

....for those interested in my test book soon to be delivered:
http://www.blurb.com/images/uploads/catalog/57/149457/143759-49c0eea9a8b7a26e0ecc85ee757ae686.pdf

“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.

well, ive really been put in my place by a real pro.

you know nothing about what you speak, Keith. period, as is evident from this. i see you pretty much complain about a lot of things you know really nothing about.

again, I have to laugh at your remarks, which really don’t add anything.

since youre the “drinker and traveler”, I suggest you take a long tall glass of cool-it and give us all a break with your ‘professional’ opinion.