Alone In The Wilderness

There's a show on PBS called 'Alone In The Wilderness'. You must have seen it since they've been playing it since it was made sometime back in the last century... way back. So far back that the color had already faded from the 16mm movie film before it was transferred to video... and that was a long time ago, too. Anyway...

The program is a series about a guy who heads out into the woods to carves himself a simple life, close to Nature. Maybe this is the very first 'reality' show, albeit a primitive one. The interesting thing is that the guy filmed himself... there was no crew. He must have lugged 25 miles of movie film in his backpack, because there are hours of episodes. In each one we watch the guy handily craft a log cabin and all the accouterments out of the natural resources around him... this accompanied by some good old country philosophizing. It's amazing how so little can be made into so much.

Being a giclée aficionado is sort of like being that guy. There aren't many of us. Oh, there are a lot of printers, that's for sure. But not too many are really into the Zen of giclée. Probably that's because for most printing is a job. It's a job for me, too... but not in the sense that I have to do it. Well, I do have to do it... we all need to make a buck. But for me it's not a 'job' because I like doing it so much. Each picture is a challenge. How can I maximize the quality of the giclée print? Although not as thrilling as squeezing another mile-per-hour out of a race car, seeing the perfect print emerge from the printer brings its own excitement.

I could liken giclée to darkroom printing... but then how many of you have done that? Talk about showing my age! Those who have darkroom experience know that a big part of darkroom printing is manipulating the light and 'painting' the image in ways that balance the tones. There is always some trial and error working out the best procedures to print any given negative... and all negatives require some manipulation if the resulting print is to be any good.

Prints made without manipulation are called 'one-light' prints because there is just one exposure. One-light prints are usually made by machines which contact-printed negatives into 'glossies'. Back in the day, 'machine prints' quickly made large quantities of economical prints, usually for distibution to magazines and newspapers as part of press kits, or for models' head shots. This was how pictures were distributed before electronic imaging and communications.

You might ask, if all negatives require exposure manipulation then how could you get a high quality machine print with a 'one-light' exposure and no manipulation? That feat was accomplished by making a 'copy print'... a print made for the purpose of being copied to make a 'copy negative'. The copy print was normally an over sized print -- to make 8 X 10's you'd usually make an 11 X 14 or 16 X20 copy print made to low contrast standards. To your eye a good copy print would look dull and flat, with no richness. The large copy print would be retouched to remove all flaws and then re-photographed using a large camera. An 8 X 10 copy camera was used to make an 8 X 10 copy negative for making '8 X 10 glossies' with an 8 X 10 contact-printing machine.

Making a good print for copying is a black art because photo-mechanical duplication and reproduction work involves contrast build-up every step of the way. The darkroom artist making the print to be copied must plan ahead for the added contrast by reducing the contrast of the original an appropriate amount, to balance the tones. The same is true for the dark tones. A good original for copying will have no black... black areas will instead be 95% gray or thereabouts. So as I say, a great print for copying looks like a crappy faded print but isn't.

If you have read this far, here is the payoff: today's giclée situation is almost exactly the same... but nobody knows it (unless you are a giclée geek). What people don't realize is that to make a good print with a giclée printing machine, you start with a picture that looks 'bad' on your monitor screen. Bad means dull and lifeless. If the picture looks great on your monitor, it probably won't print that well. The highlights will be ink-less and the dark tones clogged up and lifeless. But will anyone notice?

In my book, Giclée Prepress - The Art of Giclée (www.gicleeprepress.com) I devote two chapters just to the control of light and dark tones in order to maximize giclée print quality. Highlight and shadow area tones are the two biggest problem areas for giclée prepress artists because they are the two biggest failures of most imaging devices. It's deja vue all over again because highlights and dark tones have always been the nemeses of printers.

No imaging device can capture all the tones in an average scene because the exposure latitude is too wide for the film or CCD/CMOS sensors. They aim for midtones and average what they 'see' and as a result color tones on the extreme ends of light and dark suffer or are lost. You see that as burned out highlights and clogged shadows... or do you?

Many people (dare I say most) don't even know what a good print looks like. It's true. If you were in the printing business, like I am, you'd understand. How many times have I had to gently remind clients that test prints are just that, tests, no matter how good they look. They say, 'don't throw them out... they're good enough for me!' (but I still won't let them out of the shop... I have a reputation to protect).

The point is that people's expectations are lower today when it comes to image quality. In the old days people had beautifully printed books and magazines as their standard of comparison. Now, how long has it been since you looked at an actual picture book or magazine instead of an electronic one? Most people don't even come into contact with fine quality printing any more. Of course, they appreciate it when they see it but that is so rarely that when it comes time to have one of their own pictures printed they don't know the difference between a Costco print and one made by a custom shop like Vashon Island Imaging (www.vashonislandimaging). That is why I am on this 'crusade' to educate people about the extraordinary printing possibilities available with giclée and how to take advantage of them. When it comes to that crusade, then I really feel 'alone in the wilderness'.

Giclée is so new that the 'industry' hasn't matured yet. By that I mean in terms of its 'coagulation'. In the galaxy, planets and stellar bodies form as gravity draws random bits and pieces together. Gradually the individual parts coalesce into a heavenly body. And so it goes with arts and crafts and other occupations. As more and more people do something, like is attracted to like and organizations are born. The organizations create networks of communication and commerce. Soon, everything you need is under one roof. Voila... Wallmarts. 'Wallmartization' is about as far as you can get from 'Alone In The Wilderness', eh?

Being so new, giclée supplies and knowledge aren't readily available. There are very few single sources for knowledge, in particular. It took me ten years to find and learn the stuff I have gathered together in the book. The book and this blog are my own attempt to provide a knowledge base and resource for those who are interested in pixel-perfect printing... who want to produce the finest quality prints that they can. If you are like me in that quest, you are invited to join the parade. As 'fun' as it is writing books and blogs, it sometimes feels a bit like the movie 'Contact'. You send this stuff out into the universe, but does anyone really hear it or see it? Does it register anywhere? Is there a 'sympathetic' vibration...?

Stay 'tuned' to find out...