Big Graphics Have Big Impact on Local Campaign.
Posted by Rick Sader on April 7, 2011 at 9:11 amTo kick-off his run for Stafford Commonwealth Attorney in Virginia, Eric Olsen turned to Lone Eagle for a 4′x10′ banner as a backdrop to his announcement on the courthouse steps. As you’ll see in the photo below, this simple, low-cost vinyl banner made a big impact on the look and feel of the event. But let’s go back in time to a few days before the event. The phone rang on a Friday afternoon about 4:45pm Pacific and it went something like this:
“Good afternoon, Lone Eagle.”
“Hi Rick, it’s Eric Olsen…..got a minute?”
“Hey Eric, how’s it goin’?”
“I know it’s late notice, and I understand if you’re not able to do it, but I’m announcing my candidacy next Wednesday and I was wondering if you could make me a big banner.”
A big grin slowly came across my face. First of all, I love it when clients call with tight deadlines & they’re not sure if I can deliver. I’ve never missed a deadline…. never…. not once….. no matter how tight. Second, Eric is a friend of mine and the thought of helping him by doing what I do best made me very happy.
He emailed me some thoughts on what he wanted his graphics to look like and I got to work right away. About 90 minutes later, I emailed him a low-resolution version for his approval. (Would have been sooner but, hey, it was dinner time….. a guy’s gotta eat). He approved it Saturday morning and I started printing. About 30 minutes later I was busy punching grommets into his beautiful glossy campaign banner. It helps to have awesome ICC profiles ready to go for a huge range of media. It’s one of the things that allows Lone Eagle to fly thru jobs with both high quality and speed. My local FedEx shop had it by lunchtime and Eric had it in his Fredericksburg, VA home by Monday afternoon (two days before the event).
Here’s a photo that Eric emailed me after his event. That’s Eric on the right:
Put yourself in Eric’s shoes for a minute and imagine how he felt. I’m sure he was relieved to find the package on his doorstep Monday afternoon….two days before his event. Later, he told me how “awesome” his graphics were and how happy he was. A great big smile came across my face. That’s how we roll at Lone Eagle. Now what can we do for YOU?
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
Posted by Rick Sader on October 24, 2010 at 10:22 amA new client called me the other day in desperate need to get his tradeshow graphics printed quickly and shipped across the country the next day. He had had a bad experience with a different print shop. At the last minute, the other shop had delivered a bunch of tradeshow banners that were just awful; the black was a dull brownish color, the product photos looked “furry” (really… furry!), there was lots of banding, and the contrast was off. He showed me one…. these banners looked horrible. Later, when he picked up his graphics from my shop, he was thrilled and told me how ‘lucky’ I was that I could do such great work so quickly.
After he left, I thought to myself “LUCKY?! Hmmmmm….maybe I WAS lucky.”
• ‘lucky’ that I had purchased a $30k, state-of-the-art mild-solvent inkjet printer.
• ‘lucky’ that I had made a beautiful ICC profile for the media he wanted.
• ‘lucky’ that I had enough ink & media on hand to complete his entire job quickly.
• ‘lucky’ enough to know to print at 720dpi, 16-pass (i.e., high-quality mode) in order to get the high print quality necessary for display at a tradeshow.
• ‘lucky’ enough to have on my website a method for him to conveniently upload his eight 380MB files to my shop overnight (www.YouSendIt.com).
Well, as you may have guessed by now, none of this is luck at all. All of the capabilities listed above were the result of careful forethought and preparation. The other shop didn’t have a decent ICC profile (they didn’t even know what an ICC profile IS!!). And they printed in “production mode”, i.e., low resolution & low number of passes in order to just crank the job out fast. As a result, there was absolutely NO control over color, ink limits, linearization, etc…. a sure recipe for terrible print quality.
The title of this blog entry is a quote from Samuel Goldwyn, the filmmaker. I’m not sure exactly what he was referring to at the time, but I’m willing to bet it was in response to someone accusing him of being ‘lucky’ upon seeing his success.
Fine art reproduction is easy… if you know how.
Posted by Rick Sader on April 13, 2009 at 8:14 pmHmm, let’s see. So you just scan someone’s painting and then print it out… is that about it? Well, not quite. There are a number of ‘tricks’ to getting great results efficiently. Let’s go through the process from the beginning.
Fine art reproduction requires a number of steps to be done properly. The first step is the scan. High resolution flatbed scanning is one way to digitize original artwork. The first ‘trick’ is to use high enough resolution so that you’re feeding enough information to Photoshop in the retouching stage and ultimately to the printer in the printing stage. Typically, scans at 300 – 360ppi (pixels per inch) at the full dimensions should suffice. Higher resolution will be required if the artist would like prints larger than the original. The second ‘trick’ is to use the RGB color mode. If you use any other color mode, then the printer will make a conversion that may introduce color shifts. The third ‘trick’, if you’re really meticulous, is to use 16bit color instead of 8bit. This will give very fine gradations in color that may be required for some pieces. The downside is that this results in 2x larger digital file sizes.
The fourth ‘trick’ is to include a grayscale taget within the margin of the scan. This is a small 12-step grayscale piece that allows you to adjust the white point, black point, and neutral gray once you move the image into Photoshop. This step is critical.
Once in Photoshop, the “levels” command makes the white, black,and grayscale adjustments a breeze. As with any fine tuning done to the image, make sure to use adjustment layers. This allows you to tweak the adjustment, change its blending mode and opacity, or delete it without altering the original file…. very handy. These adjustment layers may include things like saturation, hue, levels, curves, etc. If you’re looking at your image on a calibrated monitor (you are calibrating your monitor, aren’t you?) then these adjustments will help you to tweak the digital file so that ultimately the print looks like what you see on your monitor.
ICC profiles for your printer, ink, media, & print resolution are also required to get great results. You may be able to download generic profiles but the best option for high-quality fine art reproduction is to create your own. There are a number of hardware/software systems available. A final step in the retouching process is usually adding a small amount of sharpening. Don’t overdo it.
Now it’s time to print a proof. Usually a small print on the intended media will suffice. This will allow you to check the tone, color accuracy, color saturation, etc. At this point, it’s important to compare your proof to the original under proper lighting. A sneaky, sinister thing called metamerism is lurking in the darkness, waiting to trip you up. Metamerism refers to the fact that a color may look different under different types of lighting. The original and the proof may ‘match’ under the (ugh) flourescent lights in your office but they may be way off under natural sunlight or in the gallery. If you don’t have a 5000K light booth, then just take your prints outside in the natural daylight. At this point, you may need to adjust the saturation, tone, etc. to get a better match.
I recently completed a very successful fine art reproduction job for a local watercolor painter, Dr. William Robinson. Bill is a very talented, self-taught portrait artist. His most recent work was a very cute portrait of his granddaugher, Miranda. All of the steps outlined above were followed in order to translate his original watercolor painting into a digital file that could be printed quickly and accurately onto Epson Somerset Velvet Fine Art Paper using an Epson 9600 inkjet printer. This printer uses the Epson 7-color UltraChrome inkset which will resist fading for many decades. Various sizes were printed according to the client’s wishes. See Bill’s website for more examples of his beautiful work.