On our April 2nd 2009 club night Brian Smith hosted a Printing Workshop. The PowerPoint presentation for the evening can be downloaded from this link.
The format of the evening was an analysis of sample prints supplied by members, and a presentation discussing the various quality issues that printing engenders, including: colour casts, metamarism and bronzing, sharpening, resolution and resampling, paper surfaces etc.
Due to time constraints, the promised demonstration of Qimage printing software omitted, and will be delivered on a later occasion.
The instructions below explained how to produce the test prints.
To make the evening most rewarding, we would like as many members attending as possible to bring some sample prints along for comparison. This
is the ideal opportunity to see if your printing workflow results in optimal quality prints - are you getting the best from your images!
To achieve this, please follow these guidelines:
- download the images provided in the links below - one colour and one monochrome. The files are jpg files of around 1MB each, so you need a broadband connection. If you don't have broadband, then please contact Brian to request a CD.
- do not alter the files in any way, by applying any sharpening or colour corrections
- print each image to fill an A4 sheet, with just a small white border. (Width of each printed image should be around 20cm). Use the printer settings you would normally use for competition prints.
- on the back of each print affix a label showing the following information:
- Your Name
- Make and model of printer
- Name of print paper
- Software used to print, and any specific printer driver settings (e.g Vivid Colour, Grey Inks Only...)
- by all means supply more than one example of either image - using different paper types or printer settings. Don't forget, even if the print is obviously poor, it will be useful to bring to the workshop session for analysis.
Below are the links for the 2 images: these have been 'borrowed' from other internet sites, but they are permitted to be used for non-commercial use. Thanks go to photo-i and onsight.
In Internet Explorer right-click your mouse over the required image, and select Save Target As.. to download the full-size file (don't download the thumbnail by mistake - check the files sizes shown below.) Firefox users should choose Save Link As..
 Colour Test 746 kb 2175 x 3200 pixels |
 Black & White Test 979 kb 1920 x 2400 pixels |