Yountville, CA 2007, copyright by Douglas Stockdale
Last year while I was on assignment in Napa, CA I had the opportunity to walk around the back streets of Yountville. This is a little town off the main road heading north out of Napa while you are still in this famous wine area. I was waiting for my dinner reservation, so this was a late afternoon stroll.
It was an interesting relevation for me to first find out that I did not know as much about Blurb printers as I thought I did. But that was not what surprised me the most.
“Places Amongst Us” SoFoBoMo series by Douglas Stockdale
First, kudos to Anita for tipping me off that there is a differenct printer used by Blurb for the 7 x 7″ square books than their other larger books. I did not know!
But this dog can hunt;- )
So here is the scoop. Only the 7 x 7″ Blurb square book is printed on the Xerox iGen3, all of the others are on the HP Indigo 5000, a toner-based and calibrateable printer. Also the HP Indigo is a more consistent and better color managed printer, even without the Blurb ”custom workflow”, from my very brief experience.
But there is hope; the 7 x 7″ Blurb book can be printed on the HP Indigo as a “custom workflow” available through the B3 (Blurb Business to Business) program, which I am fortunate to have been an invited charter member. And of course, use of the custom workflow includes a little more cost to use. For my page count (under 80), the additional cost was $5.00 per book to have the custome workflow applied.
Which I just did. Now this book will be sold with the custom workflow and printed on the HP Indigo. I don’t know if others have the Blurb ”custom work” flow option for their 7 x 7″ books, but it should make a difference with the availablility of the HP Indigo printer.
The book is now under $30.00 without tax and shipping (in the US), but it should look a lot better. (Sorry Guy for not catching this sooner!). So I guess I now need to order another for myself and see the difference.
And I can wait on spending any time analizying why my 7×7″ book has such awful color shifts.
Best regards, Doug
PS has anyone noticed that WordPress has been changing how the large images in the post display??
Odd, I can have no quams about spending an hour or two spotting a print, but I look for every excuse in the book to avoid manualing loading data in a spreadsheet. Both are vary repitious tasks, one I find very boring and the other almost a zen like delight.
I know that it is probably a lot to do with my own attitude & perception. Spotting for me is enjoyable, Out dust spot, Out! And the results are a nice, clean photograph, which I will enjoy even more with the spots be-gone applied.
The other is work, even when I chart the data into some interestng graphs and create some interesting technical “stories”. I suppose that I would rather being spotting images and I now have to enter data, not spot photographs. Sigh.
Back to entering data again.
Best regards, Doug
Another take away from my SoFoBoMo book Places Amongst Us has been the relatively feel in my hands of the Blurb square 6-3/4 x 6-3/4″ softcover book. Perhaps a little too small. My square images appear to be stuffed in it. Admittedly, I use the LensWork magazine (also softcover & pefect bound) as my “gold standard” for small softcover books at the moment.
I had thought, since I am shooting square, then publish a square book. But the images just do not have a enough breathing room. I know that I have said this before, but I feel it is worth repeating and I want to write more about it now.
Fortunately, I have the ability to make a quick comparison, in as my film photograph example in my Sharpening book is the same one from the same square format series.
In the square book, my square image is 5-1/8 x 5-1/8″ with a 1/2″ surrounding margin. In the 10 x 8″ horizontal book, the square image is 4-3/4 x 4-3/4″ with a 1-5/8″ margin. The slightly smaller image with the larger margin in the larger book just looks and feels so much better. I think that this is where I also admit that I use really big mattes when I frame my prints.
The extra margin I call breathing room for the photographic image. Which I guess also puts me in a design space for a classic, not a contemporary book design. I do like the effects of a gallery in a book look.
Thus, next time I complete another series of square photographs and use Blurb, if they have not launched a larger version of the square book, I will be going with the retangular formats. That works better for me.
Best regards, Doug
I am glad that I let my V1.1 update for my Sharpen Photographs for Blurb Printing rest overnight before uploading the template to Blurb. I think that I still found about half dozen additional edits to complete. This just confirms for me that I usually need some time after completing a project to come back and look at fresh without the stars in your eyes.
I also added a couple of new images from my two active book projects into this. The photo count is now up to 114 from 104. A little self promotion, added something to aliveate the heavy text, a couple more images to potential illustrate over sharpening and to ensure that my page count went to 80. With 80 pages, I get to have the book title and my name printed on the end spine. nice.
This time, there is no rush to publish. so I am keeping the V1.1 private until I review the production proof (first printing) that I just ordered. So if you have been thinking about making this purchase, regretfully, the V1.1 will not go public for at least anohther week. Believe me, thats good for both you and me!
So while that big file was uploading, I went out to re-shoot some film of my Places Amongst Us project. Using the film, camera on a tripod, mirror up and cable release is a different pace. It is not better or worse than any other photography system, it is just different. It has its own pace and flow. I still see, look, think and then react.
Now I need to drop off the film for processing and some glossy proofs. Later next week I will take a loop to the negatives on the lightbook and see if I can determine if it is sharp enough for the scanning process. Just a different pace and flow;- )
But I really do enjoy the instant gratification of digital! Probably why I enjoyed working with Polaroids for all those years.
Best regards, Doug
Update: I received the V1.1 of this book and after a detailed review, I realized that my initial analysis for the neccessary photograph sharpening action for Blurb books was in fact correct.
When I woke up this morning, the most vivid thing that I remember from yesterday was the amount of times that my Blurb BookSmart software crashed on me.
I would work with it for about 20 minutes and then suddenly it was gone, with a pop up message that it had to close. No warning. grrrrr And their “auto save” did not automatic save all of my work. grrrrr redux. So I would make some changes to my template and then hit the File/Save command and be reminded that BookSmart does auto save. But my work around process did save my changes when the bugger crashed again. Now I was making some progress, a little slower perhaps, but at least I was not making the same changes two or three times.
The other alternative was to write my thoughts on my V1.1 Notes in Word and then cut and paste into BookSmart. Just a jerky thought flow, which does me no good;- (
So before you all try to come to my rescue, let me provide the following info: About two weeks ago I downloaded the most current BookSmart software (1.9) and I have not received any new updates. I am running on a dinasour of a computer, over 6 years old, on XP and I have 6 Gig of free space on the HD on my system. My bookSmart software has four books in the que, three of which are completed, one of those I am re-working.
As I said, I have a work around put it is still a pain the rear when suddenly BookSmart crashes and I have to restart it. First, I have to keep doing the save, which distrupts my line of thinking at the moment and does not allow me to build momentum and flow. Then the software crashes, re-read the previous line. grrrrrrrrrrr double-redux with cherries on top.
Okay, enough whinning and back to my re-writing (re-editing?).
Best regards, Doug
Follow on note: after running an advertising scan on my system and ditching 35 “extra” running processes, not as much trouble today. Joy! So I finished the re-write of the book, now up to 80 pages so that I get the spine printed and five pages of V1.1 notes. Which may or may not make sense (the notes that is). So good chance that I will upload the V1.1 tomorrow. Time is now very limited for the true First Edition!
I decided that I needed to get the version 1.1 rewrite completed for the Sharpening Photographs for Blurb Printing book. My thoughts are fresh and I am motivated. A good combination.
And it is taking most of the day. I did not think that it needed that many edits, but considering that this was a long week end project to begin with, it was rough. The how to add in the subtle needed changes; revised photos with the updated USM actions and a discussion about how to visualize the needed sharpening for the halftone printing. That was a tad bit harder. But its coming together and should be complete in the next day or so to upload to Blurb. I am also tracking my notes to send those who bought the first editon (v 1.0).
Since only three of these books were bought and printed before I obsolete it for V 1.1, I guess you could say that this will be a very limited edtion book!
Best regards, Doug
6/12/08 update: Per my Blurb account, 5 have been sold and there are 2 pending sales from yesterday = 7. nice, but I can’t buy that 50mm Distagon just yet. And now I want at least the CF version. sigh.
6/2/08 update, I have uploaded the V1.1 to Blurb and received my production proof. After a detailed review, it appears that my original book is okay after all.
Places Amongst Us by Douglas Stockdale
Yesterday afternoon I received my “printing proof” of my SoFoBoMo book Places Amongst Us, my softbound printed by Blurb.
And of course, its one of those good news, bad news things. First the bad news. I am a goof.
While making my way around some galleries over the weekend, I was showing my new Blurb books as works in progress. And although I would have perferred a request to hang my work, I did get a serious inquiry as to teaching a one day workshop on how to create a photographic Print on Demand (POD) book. hmmmm.
I just may do that, so stay tuned, I have a feeling that there will be more about this later. If it occurs, it will be here in Southern California. But that does open the door for other opportunities, eh?
Best regards, Doug
