Archive for the 'web-to-print' Category

Kuler is not cooler - by Michael Jahn

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 28, 2008
in L*a*b*, blogging, calibration, color, gray balance and web-to-print
. 0 Comments

Michael Jahn, a JimRaffel.com reader replied to me via email about a previous post and I found his comments enlightening about how scary the world of color has become for those of us in the graphic arts that have to actually print this stuff.

So, for the first time ever (I think) a guest contributor at JimRaffel.com….

Hi Jim,

Read you blog about Kuler;

As I suggest in my subject like, I do not think Kuler is cooler.

Okay, I will give you it has a sweet looking thing to look at, but so was that Brazilian chick I dated.

example - go to Kuler - in the search tool, enter “swop”

notkloseinkuler.jpg

See attached (this is made from several screen captures - Kuler runs in a browser, so that is RGB - I did my screen captures in Photoshop building while in CMYK, profile was SWOP version 2 - not wanting to debate the fine points, as Kuler seems to have no real notion of CMYK that one wonders why they offer it at all…

So, my gripe is that if one were specifying in CMYK

– 50k should look fairly close to 50c, 38m, 38 y, 0k - in Kuler (TOP) they don’t, and in Photoshop, (BOTTOM) they do

and 50c, 50m, 50y 0k should look a bit warmish brownish, in Kuler it is neutral (incorrect) and in Photoshop it is a bit warmish brownish (correct)

I have no explanation as to why 19c, 0m, 0y, 38k should look like 50c, 38m, 38 y, 0k - in Kuler, or anything that might create, display, report proof, print or plate.

Clearly - This is not ready for prime time for color specifying in the world of print

–
Michael Jahn
Jahn & Associates
PDF Color Conversion Specialist

The Blurb.com Books Arrived

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on April 11, 2008
in blogging, new media and web-to-print
. 0 Comments

Late yesterday afternoon UPS showed up with our box of 20 books from blurb.com.  Put simply we are impressed.  First, the packaging was professional with each book individually shrink wrapped and then all 20 books neatly stacked in an appropriately sized box with packing material to fill the extra space at the top.  Second, my visual assessment of the print quality (I knew I should have worked a color bar into the design somewhere!) is quite favorable.  They even made the scans of old pictures look pretty darn good.  Third, it’s cool having a coffee table quality book that we produced sitting on our coffee table :-).

I made a comment in my previous post about the BookSmart templates being somewhat limiting.  Earlier this morning I read with great interest a post about the success of a promotional postcard web-to-print company by Adam Dewitz over at PrintCEOBlog.com.  Following is a huge quote from that post (Adam I hope I didn’t quote too much):

… In the monograph I present the concept of deterministic print production workflows. These “workflows rely on catalogs of predefined attributes and rules or logic to dictate the design and production of a print product. The limits placed on the design parameters such as paper stock, color versus monochrome printing, bind-ing and finishing methods, and product dimensions allow for highly automated print production systems to be engineered. These turnkey print production systems are highly efficient and require little human intervention. In fact, they might be the ‘Holy Grail’ of computer-integrated manufacturing the print industry is attempting to achieve.”

It appears that this is precisely what PostcardBuilder has done. …

Two comments to finish this post; 1. It appears that is precisely what blurb.com has done as well; 2. It is time to download Adam’s monograph about web-enabled print architectures.