Black and White Photography Blog, Vol. I

Perfect. All I could ask for. I only did a ten-page 7 x 9 book so I didn’t get the laminated cover and it was saddle-stiched (stapled); but what I wanted to find out was: is it possible to get neutral b&w images on decent paper, and the answer - finally - is yes.

I had, as directed, uploaded 300 dpi sGray files rather than RGB, and there is not a touch of color anywhere in the book. Doing a soft preview with paper-white turned on gave me a very good idea of how the pages would look.

No this paper doesn’t have the richness of a fine art inkjet print (and VioVio tell you that ahead of time) but still, this is a nice paper (the 10% extra silk paper) and a decent weight for a perfect bound softcover book.

Other notes about VioVio.com, the actual packaging was better thought out than Blurb, i.e. it comes in a box where the corners are extended in case the box is dropped (which, having done shipping for 10 years now) is a great thing.

Turnaround time was faster than Lulu or Blurb. This is really important if you are doing proofs in the beginning and want to make changes; and also if you are actually selling the book so customers aren’t waiting forever to get it.

There is a very small VioVio.com logo on the back cover (I almost couldn’t find it and was looking for it) but this can be replaced if you sign up for a pro membership account - which also gives you tons of space on their servers. If you’re a professional and plan on doing a bunch of books - their fee is quite reasonable ($150 a year).

I’m encouraged enough to go on now and do another softcover with a more professional layout, and give it some creative energy.

Phew.

* * * XEROX iGEN PROFILE * * *

One more thing: here is a link to a zip file for the iGen Profile. I find that if you use it with “paper white” turned on it is very close to what you’ll get in the book, assuming that your monitor is somewhat calibrated.

As I work on the book (started today) I’ll continue to expand this post; so if if you’re interested you might want to bookmark this post. I’m not going to do separate posts each time I figure something out.

* * * OCT. 1, * * *

First potential issue arises with the VioVio book process. Not a showstopper, but worth writing about. I was printing a low-res proof of the 9×7 book on my inkjet and was surprised to find that the images which were uploaded as 5 x 7’s were actually stretched to fit the page. Not as full bleeds, but so that there was a margin on left on right side in the case. This confused me because in their book creation interface I had always clicked don’t resize.

I went back to look at the first book I got and realized that the same scaling had taken place and I hadn’t noticed it. So back into their interface I go and find a few interesting things:

- If there is no text in their description field, this scaling will happen. And as the first book didn’t contain descriptions, the images were scaled up to fit the 9 x 7 format. However, there are ways around this, such as adding “spaces” to the description. I thought from the start that I’d probably have descriptions though I was thinking I’d do them on a separate page. Now I’m not so sure about that. The other related issue is that as far as I can figure, there is no way, if you are using their bookmaker interface to control the font that’s used for this description. (I have an email in to them about this). Which brings us back to another issue.

- The suggested way to do an all text page is to upload a small white jpg, and then use their description box for the text. I haven’t tried this yet. The good part is that you skip any raster process that might happen with a PDF file, i.e. converting your vector-based typefaces; but how much control you get with the placement of that text etc. still remains open.

- For total control you need to go the PDF route (which they support) but the question I have in to them is whether the PDF can be done grayscale.

So still some unknowns in the process, but I continue on my merry way uploading and tweaking my files; and in the worse case scenerio I’ll simply go with their interface with captions / descriptions on the side of the portrait oriented images, and captions, descriptions below the landscape oriented images.

* * * TIP / TEXT SOLUTION * * * 

Okay, I figured out how to control the text.  The description field will take most HTML code.  So, you upload a square small white grayscale file as the image, and then you write your description in HTML and paste that into the description box in viovio bookmaker.  So things like italics, and even some fonts are rendered then into your PDF file properly.  I can only say that the basic HTML formatting code seems to work.