Reproduction of photographs in high quality books

[Julian Boulter]

Hi all,

I asked this general quesion on the print process of high quality 'coffee table' style books a while back:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=11907

I've just been browsing through Edward Burtynsky's book 'China' book and aside from the subject matter, I have some specific tehnical questions using this book as an example:

1. Are the images shot on negative or transparency? I am guessing negative.

2. Are these reproductions made from original photographs or from the negatives themselves? I would guess they are high end flatbed or drums scans of the original photographs, what sort of equipment would have been used?

Thanks

Julian

[tengwei]

Hi all,

I asked this general quesion on the print process of high quality 'coffee table' style books a while back:

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=11907

I've just been browsing through Edward Burtynsky's book 'China' book and aside from the subject matter, I have some specific tehnical questions using this book as an example:

1. Are the images shot on negative or transparency? I am guessing negative.

2. Are these reproductions made from original photographs or from the negatives themselves? I would guess they are high end flatbed or drums scans of the original photographs, what sort of equipment would have been used?

Thanks

Julian

Julian,

I'm not into color sep printing process, neither and expert in CMYK printing or some people called it overprinting process. But I've a friend who has been my advisor in this area.

I've also seen many of this high quality printing process done in China. They are called continuous tone printing, it's like "photo" quality kind of print. This kind of Cont. Tone Printing is rare outside China, as it does not make business sense if there's no volume printing like China. PLUS their rate are very affordable by USD standard, if you can communicate well with 'em.

So be it Neg or Trans, Drum scan or not the end printing is crucial. It's like if you cant print it well in the darkroom, no matter what camera you use; it's not going to look good.

[Julian Boulter]

Hi Teng,

Ok thanks for this, I guess one thing I still want to understand is, if someone is going to create a book from scratch what would be the advantage of creating the prints first and then scanning from the prints to create the plates as opposed to just scanning the negs or trans?

And secondary to this what size prints would be made as optimum to scan from for book reproduction and would they likely be analogue or digital C type prints? I guess creating a reprouction from an inkjet print is not advisable.

Julian

[Peter Lewin]

Julian: I have an acquaintance, Doug Petersen, who has been closely involved with the printing process for two of his own books of photographs. His website is www.deerfieldeditions.com, and has a "contact us" page. If you contact Doug, I'm sure he can answer most, if not all, of your questions. As a point of interest, his most recent book, containing photographs by both Doug and his wife Dorota, consists of images of pt/pd prints made from digitally enlarged negatives - therefore his final printed image "traversed" several generations of negative, digital file, and print, although I never thought to ask whether the images in the book were from new scans of the final pt/pd prints, or from digital files created along the way; my assumption is that the book contains scans made from the pt/pd prints, but that is the basic question you raise yourself.

[Frank Petronio]

In general, most commercial coffee-table type books would be scanned film, either trannies or negs. Negs are becoming more popular in recent years but using trannies have been the work flow since the 1950s. For alternative processes or existing, heavily darkroom manipulated B&W images, etc. expect people to scan prints.

Many top flight publications don't use drum scans, the reproduction size for traditional 4/c litho is not as demanding as what many of the fine art printers who use the large inkjets are doing. But I am sure Edward Burtynsky's work was drum scanned (or done on a high end Creo flatbed or the like) as he maintains very high standards.

I don't know exactly what Edward Burtynsky uses or his workflow, but from the looks of his China book I would guess it is 4x5 ISO 100 color neg expertly scanned on a high end flatbed or drum scanner from the neg, then worked in Photoshop. His book is printed to a higher standard with a finer screen resolution than most commercial coffee-table books as well.

[Gordon Moat]

The publisher is Steidl (http://www.steidlville.com/aboutus/), who run their own press. They were featured in Heidelberg magazine, which is an industry trade magazine from the maker of what some consider the best presses in the world. I have no idea what plates they are using, since I have not seen that particular book. Based upon a couple other books I have, my best guess is either stochastic or frequency modulation screening, or a very high line screen. Anyway, you can contact the publisher and ask directly.

Most information I have seen about Edward Burtynsky indicates he is mostly using a 4x5, though he has used an 8x10 camera in the past. It also seems that he has preferred colour negative films, though I don't specifically know what film he used for his China series of images.

If you heavily manipulate (with an enlarger) your prints, then there can be a slight advantage to scanning prints. However, usually the original film will contain more information than a print, or simply be a physical size that is easier to scan.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[tengwei]

Hi Teng,

Ok thanks for this, I guess one thing I still want to understand is, if someone is going to create a book from scratch what would be the advantage of creating the prints first and then scanning from the prints to create the plates as opposed to just scanning the negs or trans?

And secondary to this what size prints would be made as optimum to scan from for book reproduction and would they likely be analogue or digital C type prints? I guess creating a reprouction from an inkjet print is not advisable.

Julian

Julian,

You'll find my answer in Frank and Gordon's posting... Thanks Frank and Gordon you nail it right!

If you need any help to print it in China... Let me see what I can do for you....

[Julian Boulter]

Guys,

Thanks so much for this, it is exactly the information I was after, very helpful.

Teng, that's very kind of you but I'm a long way from printing yet unfortunately.

Thanks again

Julian