T0 and Fro © Douglas Mesney 2004 - 2010They say there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Although I've never found one, that could be my fault, not the rainbow's. After all, where is the end of the rainbow? ...or anything?
They also say that art mimics life. It certainly does when it comes to rainbows and giclées. That is, how wide a rainbow can you print? ...Not how long or wide, rather how many colors? ...Huh?
The Gamut Gauntlet
Is there a person alive who hasn't painted or drawn a rainbow? It's something everyone has done. So let me ask you, how many colors do you need for a rainbow?
Kids finger-paint rainbows all the time using just red, yellow and blue. However the color spectrum we call a rainbow needs six, at least:
● Purple
● Blue
● Green
● Yellow
● Orange
● Red
I guess you have to add black and white to the list for technical accuracy, although these colors can't be found in a rainbow.
Primary Colors Create Secondary Colors
Without light there are no colors. Colors are thus made of light. The primary colors of light at red, green, and blue (RGB). Equal parts of all three create white light. The absence of any is black. All other colors are made by adding together combinations of red, green and blue light... thus RGB are called 'additive colors'.
As light falls on the world around us it is reflected off the objects around us back into our eyes. When white light falls upon a green leaf, the leaf absorbs blue and red light and reflects back only the green portion of the visible light spectrum. Thus, reflected light produces colors by subtracting parts of the spectrum, and are thus called 'subtractive colors'.
Looking at a light source you see additive colors.Looking at a picture of a light bulb you see subtractive colors.
On the left, Cyan Magenta and Yellow (primary printing colors) combine to form Red, Green and Blue. On the right, the Red, Green and Blue (primary light colors) combine to form Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. Notice the differences when all colors are added together. Inks produce black. Light produces white. That is why RGB colors are called 'additive' and ink colors are called 'subtractive'.(Theoretically, mixing all subtractive colors produces black. However this is not a perfect world, so printers use black ink to add what their less-than-perfect colors can't produce by themselves.)
Dynamic Tone Range
The number of colors you can make from the number of colors you have is called a gamut. It is the dynamic tone range of the picture... the sum total of all colors.
Gamuts are like a rainbow, which is also called a 'spectrum'.
The colors we can see -- called the Visible Spectrum -- are only part of an infinitely wide 'energy rainbow'. The ends of the visible rainbow extend out beyond blue-purple to into TV, radio and x-rays. Beyond red is Infrared, etceteras.Even the visible spectrum is infinite. There is no way to reproduce all the colors that exist in the visible spectrum or any real rainbow. So what is a poor printer to do?
Historically, printers have recreated rainbow colors using only four colors:
● Magenta
● Cyan
● Yellow
● Black
(The fifth color, white, comes from the paper. Whatever the paper's color, that's 'white' for the picture printed upon it.)
Those four inks are the fewest needed to get a faithful representation of the colors in the world around us that is acceptable to most people... until digital imaging turned the world of fine arts printing upside down. The rainbow hasn't looked the same since.
Twist of Fate © Douglas Mesney 2004 - 2010There are traditional printing presses that will handle seven, eight, or even nine colors and or varnishes (varnishes are considered 'colors'). They produce fabulous results, but hang onto your wallet. And what if you don't need 1,000 copies?
Even at the peak of perfection, traditional printing can only produce a finite number of colors... its gamut is thus limited to those colors. The gauntlet of gamut is never ending for artists, photographers and (especially) printers, all of whom seek the best color.
People build pictures by working on computer monitor using PhotoShop. The monitor produces an entirely different kind of colors than does any printing press. To be able to recreate the kinds of colors people see on monitors as closely as possible requires a very wide dynamic tone range, or gamut. Most printing processes are challenged by the gamut gauntlet producing disappointing results compared to what is possible with giclée.
Giclée Throws Down the Gamut Gauntlet
The limitations of traditional printing have to do with how they apply ink, which is by contact. At some point the paper and ink-carrying plate are pressed together. The better the squeeze, the better the printing, generally speaking.
The physical forces involved in contact and squeezing put physical limitations on how small you can print dots. At a certain 'point' the dot is so small that it either breaks or becomes like a needle. It's like paint brushes... at a certain point you can't get finer.
Spray painters don't have that problem. The guy that invented giclée probably knew that. Who was he? Nobody can say. Nobody can even tell you what the word 'giclée' means, actually. More importantly is what it has come to mean.
As I explain in my book, 'giclée' means 'spray' in French. That loose translation explains the ink-jet technology used for giclée printing. Ink-jet printers spray the ink onto paper and other substrates. That is a fascinating story in and of itself, but not for now.
The Secret Is In The Dots
Spraying ink requires no contact or squeeze... so there is almost no limitation on 'dot' size. In fact, one traditional printing dot is replaced with up to 2880 'micro dots' by the giclée process. Smaller dots mean greater detail.
Traditional printing dots are shown in the top row. Notice the white space around the sharp-edged dots. White space dilutes the color saturation, placing a limit on perceived color depth. The second row shows sprayed dots. Notice there is no white space. Also notice the additional colors produced where the sprayed colors overlap.Who can forget those first Epson® ink-jet printers back in the 1990's? Their intense color saturation and gamut was eye opening and caught the attention of artists and photographers. Suddenly there was desktop fine-arts printing... Giclée had thrown down the gauntlet on gamut.
Looking at some of those early prints now one can see how much better today's giclée printers have become. Their appearance, compared to modern prints, is like the difference between the sRGB and Adobe 1998 color gamuts; the former is more saturated and contrasty looking than the latter.
The migration of digital imaging technology is relentless. Every new generation of digital imaging devices and giclée printers widens the gamut. Widening the gamut is the same as making the rainbow wider. Who wouldn't be happy about that?
As more colors as added, the rainbow expands and gets smoother.Everything has its limits... even ink-jet. Despite the much improved gamut and near photographic detail of the early giclée printers, the prints definitely had their own look, one which lack subtlety compared to what we can do today. It all has to do with the number of colors.
You can draw a picture of a rainbow with three colors, but seven is better as we noted earlier. More colors in the mix produces more rare tones as a result.
At a certain point a light went off in somebody's head and they realized that the only way to significantly expand a printing gamut is by adding more ink colors. The early Epson® printers for example used seven colors, adding light magenta, light cyan, and light black to the normal CMYK mix. These significantly increased both the printing gamut and Epson's sales curve. But that was in the last century.
Since then nobody has looked back. More and more colors are being added, making it possible to print a wider and wider spectrum. But what does that really mean?
If you do prepress for fine arts printing, as we do here at Vashon Island Imaging (www.vashonislandimaging.com), then you know how hard it is to reproduce the look of certain paints and pigments used by artists. You can get ever so close, but there's always something that differentiates the original from the copy. That makes sense because the giclée printer is not using the same kinds of pigments as the original artwork. Any good forger knows that.
It stands to reason therefore that the more colors that you have the better rainbow you can paint... or print.
Visible Differences
A good example of what I am talking about is the visible difference between ink generations and printing machines.
Fanned out tests of Jacquelyn Lown's Between the Worlds clearly show visible differences between inks and machine generations. From the bottom up: the new Epson® 9900, then the older 9880, then two prints made with an Epson® 4800. The lower is before a firmware update and the uppermost a print made by the same machine with firmware update (ironically, it is not as good as the print made before the update, in my opinion).Even at the tiny scale in this blog it is easy to see the differences between these prints made by Epson® printers only 1/2 a generation apart. Shocking, isn't it? Which is better? That is for you to decide. But what if you didn't have to decide? ...Huh?
A new printer can closely simulate the look of an old machine, but not vice versa. That is because the newer the machine the wider its gamut. If you have more colors you can choose to use less. But if you have fewer colors you cannot choose to use more, eh?
'Best Color In Town'
That's our motto at Vashon Island Imaging... 'Best color in town'.
Having a motto like that you have to deliver, or the jig is up.
What we deliver is a full range of services for fine arts reproduction and the 'art of business printing'. Some compare us with so called 'service bureaus' but we go far beyond that at Vashon Island Imaging. Our service range is total... from nothing to finished product... like a rabbit out of a hat.
But there's no 'magic' to it, actually. In the end it's a simple matter of colors. The more you have the more you can make.
Most of our customers are artists and photographers who will migrate to the best color wherever it is. Our goal is to be their destination. You've heard of a 'destination restaurant'? How about a destination print shop?
Rainbow Rider © Douglas Mesney 2004 - 2010Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Just as their car can make or break a limousine driver's reputation, having the latest gear will help drive sales for a giclée printer.
Using contemporary gear is also an insurance policy, in several ways. Being under warranty is one kind of insurance. Customer confidence is the other. Who likes stepping into an old airplane?
Ok, so it's only a giclée, not an airplane. Nobody is going to die. But it gives customers a warm and fuzzy feeling to see anything new. It also gives them confidence to know that they are getting the finest quality available. These days that kind of extra confidence is sometimes needed to keep your shop their destination.
So put it together and what have you got ...a customer POV (point of view) that boils down to 'who’s got the best color, eh?'
That means the widest rainbow wins. Now about that pot of gold...
For a giclée printer, the pot of gold is the giclée printer. That's the fundamental truth of the matter... The machine produces the gold for you.
Fundamental truths are irreducible and now we have the first two of four irreducible fundamentals important to fine arts printers and publishers:
1.) Printing machines produce gold
2.) Bigger rainbows are better
Can you see where I am going with this by now? If not, let me clarify. Besides 'just' information I like each blog to have some socially redeeming value.
The socially redeeming value of this particular blog is to provide a glimpse of our reality at the crossroads of simultaneous technological and economic migration. To stay in business you have to be relevant. Being relevant requires participation in the migration, going with the herd. Oh... It's all so existential.
Existential Questions
Technology has changed buying and shopping habits. If you are a printer, like I am, you can never forget that today's customers have a new modus operandi. They know that they will be able to get what they want at the price they want from somebody somewhere... and that the web will make it easy and fast. That's why there isn't a retailer alive who isn't scared to death by Amazon.com.
Two more new fundamentals truths are applicable to the new MO:
3.) Instant anything available now for less
4.) Loyalty has no monetary value
That shift in the shopping paradigm poses existential questions for every business, particularly those having to do with the Arts in any way. Giclée printers are particularly venerable because their art is digitally made thus a captive to technological change. The art of giclée is a work in progress. If you don't migrate with the technology, your customers may migrate from you.
Add all four fundamentals together and they clearly spell: upgrade or die. Given the choice, I prefer being a giclée printer. Thus and so, Vashon Island Imaging has upgraded to the new 10-color Epson® 9900.
New Epson® 9900
It takes a lot to make me invest in anything these days, but my heart is with the product and this machine's gamut is so much wider than the older Epson® 9880 that I simply could not resist.
Besides the rationale presented above, there's the creative, which is hallowed ground for me. If for creative reasons alone, the bigger rainbow always wins. Well, nearly always.
As far as I am concerned there is no such thing as too many colors.
The new Epson® 9900 uses 10 colors, two more than the 9880. The new colors that have been added are a green and an orange. That widens the gamut for all tones in those families. Extra gamut will be very useful in controlling those hues.
Epson® long ago got blues and magentas under control. By that I mean colors with life and depth... vibrancy and vitality... luminosity. Its a subtle difference nearly impossible to see or even duplicate on a monitor.
Compared to blues and magentas, greens and reds suffered more. By 'suffered' I mean the results lacked the same 'life' and 'airiness' as did the blues and magentas. So improvement of those tone green and red portions of the dynamic tone range has been a sought-after change that's welcome.
Here's what Epson® has to say about the new inks:
“The Epson® Stylus Pro 9900 (44-inch) printer incorporates our latest achievements in photographic ink jet technology. By combining the precision of our MicroPiezo TFP™ print head with the extraordinary performance of Epson UltraChrome® HDR ink, our newest generation of Epson® Stylus Pro printers continues to represent a level of technology unprecedented in Epson's history.
Epson® UltraChrome HDR represents our latest generation of pigment ink technology. Now utilizing ten colors - including an all-new Orange and Green - Epson® UltraChrome HDR ink produces the widest color gamut ever from an Epson Stylus Pro printer. Even more remarkable, combining Epson® UltraChrome HDR ink with our new Epson® AccuPhoto™ HDR screening technology dramatically raises the level of print quality and once again sets a new benchmark standard for photographic reproduction.”
The new Epson® 9900 assures our customers that at Vashon Island Imaging we live up to our motto -- 'Best Color In Town'.
Come and see the new Epson® 9900 at Vashon Island Imaging during the upcoming Vashon Island Art Studio Tour in December.
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