Black and White book printing, what is the best quality option?

[Larry Kellogg]

In the first edition they're quadtones, printed on top of a tint plate, overprinted with varnishes of different textures. In later editions they're duotones (I haven't seen the duotone version).

You can get quality at least this good with modern monochrome inkjets, if you're so inclined. Piezography now uses 7 inks, perfectly linearized. State of the art monochrome has come a long way in the last 25 years.

My edition is from 1990, but it says that it was produced on a six color offset printer, so perhaps mine is a later edition. Can someone check their edition? Ok, Amazon says: " Distinguishing this book are highly faithful reproductions of 104 black-and-white photographs , accomplished by a new six-color printing process, and 40 more printed in duotone." How in the world can it sell for $1.74? You'll never find the Kertesz book for that price, more like $180 and up.

Paul, you're not suggesting that I print a book with an inkjet printer, are you? I'm confused by your comment, unless you're still trying to convince me to make my prints on an inkjet printer. ;-) For prints, I will stick to silver gelatin. I don't think inkjet prints are superior to silver gelatin prints. For books, I'll do the best I can with the available technology, given what I can afford, knowing that there will be compromises.

[polyglot]

Bookbinding doesn't have to be expensive; there's a whole industry centered around the binding of PhD theses. You supply a stack of pages with sufficient gutter etc, and you get back hardcover books bound in high quality.

I think I paid about $600 to have about 10 copies of my thesis (A4, ~10mm thick) bound. You can even get leather-covered binding.

I am vaguely planning to do this with a stack of gelatin prints but haven't got around to it yet.

Seconding the notion though that if you are unsatisfied with inkjet, duotone will NOT cut it. Might be a fun process or affordable way to print 1000 copies, but inkjet will be better quality.

[Larry Kellogg]

Bookbinding doesn't have to be expensive; there's a whole industry centered around the binding of PhD theses. You supply a stack of pages with sufficient gutter etc, and you get back hardcover books bound in high quality.

I think I paid about $600 to have about 10 copies of my thesis (A4, ~10mm thick) bound. You can even get leather-covered binding.

I am vaguely planning to do this with a stack of gelatin prints but haven't got around to it yet.

Seconding the notion though that if you are unsatisfied with inkjet, duotone will NOT cut it. Might be a fun process or affordable way to print 1000 copies, but inkjet will be better quality.

I think you're confusing the type of printed representation, duotone, a reproduction made with two different colored inks, with the printer used to print the type of reproduction, inkjet or digital offset.

I believe there is no end to the problems of color casts when trying to use six color digital offset printers, such as the Indigo, or inkjet printers, to print black and white photographs. Now, I'm only interested in printing black and white, I have no interest in printing color, at the moment, Most of the world is structured to print color, however, which is a problem for a black and white photographer.

Now, I know that I can set up an inkjet printer to print duotones and swap out the inks to two colors, but I don't see this as a good way of printing a book. I'm not going to wait for the Epson 3880 to print twenty five or fifty copies of a book. I'm certainly not going to pay for all those ink cartridges or set up and maintain a bulk ink system. Are you saying that there are production inkjet houses that will produce two color (black and gray) duotones? Do you have some names?

Beyond all that, I want to work with people who have experience with printing books and who can help produce a good book from a design and physical standpoint.

How are you going to satisfactorily bind fibre silver gelatin prints? Fibre prints are too stiff to be used as pages in a book, they're meant to be mounted and hung on the wall. RC paper produces results that are a pale imitation of a good fibre print but are a little more conducive to being used in a book. Drilling holes in prints and sewing them together is a fun idea, but it's not the kind of book I have in mind, it's not a professionally bound book.

There is a whole industry of professional book makers, and, like you said, they're willing to bind your work for a reasonable price. I'll see what it will cost to produce a book by going through this class and will report my findings. I can't wait to tour the factory!

[jnantz]

hi larry

just wondering how you think "professional photography books" are made ?
there aren't really many ways to make a book ...
the next one i make ( not sure when ) will either be with pages of glass plates
or hand coated hand made paper ... nothing made by a lab or an ink machine ...
should be fun ..

good luck with yours !

john

ps. fb paperworks just fine for book pages, depending on the size of the paper.
slavich i believe still makes single weight ( or there is an awful lot of azo on re-sell market )
small and tipped prints on a page are very nice in book form.

[Larry Kellogg]

Hmmmm, I think there are thousands of ways to make a book, as you eluded to by mentioning pages made of glass plates and handmade paper.

I handle fb paper every day and do not believe it would provide a good experience when used as a page in a book. I print down to 5x7.

Lodima, the Azo replacement, is so outrageously expensive that I can't see how I could afford to make more than one book with it. Plus, the paper is fragile and prone to tearing, from my experience. Using tipped in prints introduces an incredible amount of labor, I certainly wouldn't produce a book with fifty to a hundred tipped in prints.

So, I'll take a shot at specifying how professional photography books are made. They're made on machines and at some scale that makes economic sense for quantities of more than one. They're made on paper that makes it easy to turn a page. How is that for a start?

[jnantz]

hi larry,

i didn't mean for you to take offense at what i said, just wondering where you were coming from.

seing you are in NYC, you might consider going to a place called talas ( http://www.talasonline.com )
maybe they have consultants there that can help you with what you want to do.
they are connected with people who make books ( they sell supplies and equipment, and i think give classes )
and they are probably connected with peopel within the printing industry that does image reproduction on a small ( or large ) scale

you might also contact portfoliobox.coim they are a book bindery and make everything from folios, to portfolios, custom books, you name it.
and, they are a pleasure to work with

good luck !
john

[Larry Kellogg]

Hello John,
I'm not offended, sorry if my post sounded that way. I'm just considering all the options. People can build a book in any way they want, I think it's cool. I know about Talas and their book making tools.

It's just that I'm enrolled in this book making class at ICP so that I'll go through the production process with a book maker so I'm looking at things from that point of view, small run, say fifty to one hundred copies, eventually.

[jnantz]

hi larry,
i just wanted to make sure, its hard to read what people
really mean on the interweb

your class sounds like a blast !

don't for get to have fun
john

[paulr]

My edition is from 1990, but it says that it was produced on a six color offset printer, so perhaps mine is a later edition.

I think that's the first edition. Somewhere inside there's a blurb about Richard Benson's process. He made separation plates from the negatives, using methods of his own invention. The book was printed in "4 colors, a tint, and two varnishes." I believe the 4 colors refers to a quatratone process; the tint refers to a single plate to set the background color of the image (to match Strand's warmer paper base, without having to print all the book text on this same color), and the varnishes were applied over the top ... either one or the other, depending on the surface sheen.

How in the world can it sell for $1.74?

Photo books have a funny life cycle. The sell for full price, and if the publisher doesn't sell out, they get remaindered for next to nothing. Then one day they become collectors items and go for a bajillion bucks. We should buy up the $2 copies. I'm surprised this one hasn't already become rare ... maybe they printed way too many of them.

you're not suggesting that I print a book with an inkjet printer, are you?

I think you should make the book according to your vision and your preferred working methods.
But since you expressed the opinion that printing it in ink would constitute some kind of quality compromise, I'm suggesting otherwise. From a pure print quality perspective, I don't know how you can beat it.

The traditional method is simply tipping in silver prints (or platinum, or carbon, or whatever you're working with). That's how these guys do it. It has the advantage that you you can print the book on any quality paper and have it bound any way you like. And the disadvantage that each book includes a big pile of original prints that you have to make and glue in place.

[Larry Kellogg]

I just can't approach this class with the idea of producing a whole book of tipped in prints. One tipped in print, maybe, any more and the labor and expense becomes prohibitive. Besides, to do a book of tipped in prints is to forfeit the chance to print a book on a professional press working closely with a publishing company.

I think Richard Benson nailed it when he wrote this:

"Reproductions never look just like the originals, and all serious ink reproduction of photographs is based on the understanding that the reproduction look "right" in its own context - of ink on white paper in a book. ... Printing requires an understanding of a concept of equivalence: the most accurate replica one can make of anything is seldom a literal copy, but rather a new thing that gives the viewer the impression that it looks like the original."