Press check

Printing and Publishing

There is a lot to learn before you take your project to press for commercial printing, and in this workshop we’ll share what we’ve learned in printing LensWork over the last 15 years. (One learns a lot publishing fine art photographs every 60 days!)

As photographers, we may not run the commercial presses, but the more we know the more we can feel confident that our books, posters, or other offset printed projects will be the highest possible quality - and a product we can feel proud of. A solid understanding of the process will help you develop your project, select and direct your printer, and manage the process/people from initial scans to finished book. In this workshop we’ll present everything a photographer needs to know about printing your fine art photographs in book form, posters, or other commercial offset lithographic printing. (Note: this is not a workshop for "desktop" printing, e.g. using your Epson printer in your own digital darkroom. That is a completely different subject!)

Curriculum

Topics include . . .

  • Offset printing primer
    • Fundamentals of offset printing fine art photographs
    • Challenges to reproducing photographic images with fidelity
    • Halftones versus stochastic printing
    • Line screens, dot size, ink coverage, and image quality
    • Duotone, tritones, quadtones, and CMYK ink sets
  • Prepress and image preparation
    • Scanning and scaling original photographs for printing
    • Sharpening for offset printing
    • Greyscale tonal curves
    • Reverse calibration to press, paper, and ink
  • Tone reproduction for fine art photographs
    • How to develop your own custom duotone, tritone, and quadtone curves
    • How to measure and control the target densities in your project
    • In particular, how to bridge from Photoshop to ink-on-paper successfully
  • Paper, ink, and press
    • Paper choices and how they affect image quality
    • Weights, surfaces, whiteness, coating, and ink coverage
    • Basic book design using press signatures and parent sheets
    • Papers for posters and limited editions lithographs
    • Aqueous, UltraKote and varnish coatings
  • Books
    • ISBN numbers and barcoding
    • Hardbound, case bound, and round back bindings
    • Softbound and PUR binding
    • Binding alternatives
    • Cost analysis
  • Commercial printers
    • How to find, interview, and select a printer for your project
    • Overseas or domestic printing
    • Proofs, press checks, and quality control issues