Black and White Photography Blog, Vol. I

Finished the first book with SharedInk.com

8 x 8 inch, slate linen cover, hardback, image on front; heavy glossy paper; 40 pages, single-sided (that’s my choice) so you actually have a thicker book of 80 pages (left side blank). Production cost: $65.

As you can imagine, it hasn’t been making the books with any of these publishers that has been difficult; it’s been figuring out if any can do a good (and consistent) job with it.

The POD (print on demand) technology is getting there for photo books, and it reminds me of the old days when I was going through what a lot of b&w photographers went through with inkjet prints. Nowadays, I can send files out to several vendors and have them printed with the same K3 ink and paper I use (silver rag).

A few other notes about SharedInk. They actually offer a binding service (with professional membership). You do your inkjet prints on your own paper, at the correct size for one of their books, send them off and they’ll bind them into a hardcover. Only limitation is that the paper stack can’t be any thicker than what would fit into their normal bound book. Cost is the same as the base price for their book. i.e. if I’m doing an 8 x 8 book the base cost is $45.

Also - as far as one-sided printing goes. All the other POD vendors will charge you by the page, whether that page is blank or not. SharedInk charges based on INK (which frankly is the way I thought it should be done).

In other words, the single sided printing option with SharedInk is available for books with 40 pages or less, and you are not charged for the blank left side. Which gives you a book with 80 pages, image on the right, blank left, for the same price as an 80 page book with images on left and right. A very nice touch. But it is all or nothing. You either select the single page option or not. Fine with me (which is how I did the first book).

The process with SharedInk is very straightfoward. I don’t have to work with inDesign, or other layout programs. You do your Photoshop files; you can zip them or upload them individually; and once they’re up there, you can move the pages around online until you’re happy.

Unlike the other sites, you can’t just provide a link to someone and have them order the book (unless they too are in the Pro Photographers group or you invite them… I’m not entirely sure about how that works).

But you can drop ship a book to a customer. i.e. the order comes into me through my site, I order the book and have SharedInk ship it to you.

Anyway, when it arrives, will write more… For now, I can go back to strolling around with the camera again.

It’s been an exhausting week working on this Print on Demand book. Since I last spoke with you, I’ve downloaded software from Digi-labs.com (the same program that Pikto uses) but decided not to use it. (Their “My Photo Books” software is very easy to use, but it really wanted to resize my images, slightly but enough to annoy me).

I can’t even remember half of what I did as far as technical stuff goes. At some point, I wound up at SharedInk.com

As I went along, I realized that so much work was going into this project that I just wanted the book to be as good as I could get it with POD technology, regardless of price. So the last two days I’ve been working on redoing the book for SharedInk.

I haven’t gotten to the point of doing proofs yet. You use a simple PS template, which basically just gives you printable area; do your thing in your native colorspace (RGB for me); and eventually zip the file using a page number file name and do the first PDF proof.

They will also print SINGLE pages ($6 for the first one and $1 ea. additional) so you can tweak your color management / sharpening etc. before doing the whole book.

The book if I continue through with this - which I think I will - is 8 x 8 inches, hardcover (a bunch of choices for materials); and at this point 4-color. The owner also mentioned a neutral gray curve they can use, but we’ll see if this is needed or not.

As usual, if the first book works out, I’ll probably do a larger one. Cost for the 8 x 8 inch book is about $45 for the first 20 pages, and then $1.00 for each additional page (I think that’s what it is).

There’s also a signup fee - but again - given the amount of time and energy that goes into these things - that’s the cheapest part (and it’s waived for the first 45 days to give you a chance to do your first book).

Last night, as I fell asleep, I was trying to remember all the POD companies I had tested or partly evaluated and I couldn’t even list them all. I was thinking that my first book shouldn’t be of photographs at all - but just about this process of producing a book. The other phrase that struck me (duh) was - you get what ya pay for.

* * *

Another day with SharedInk.com - I like their online interface. I think I’m getting a good idea of what this thing will look like when printed. At this point, I’m looking at about 80 pages, hardcover, 8 x 8. My costs will be around $120 ea. It’s still called Morning, Noon & Night. Images from New York. I suppose another two weeks of this. I want to have it available for the holidays. The only issue that I see so far isn’t exactly technical - I know that everyone is going to ask for a signed copy. This means shipping it to myself and re-shipping it, as opposed to drop-shipping a copy from SharedInk. This is true with all online services. There’s no way around that and it will increase costs. Of course, I can buy ten at a time and hope they sell.

* * * MORE VIOVIO STUFF, OCT. 2nd * * *

As far as I can figure, there’s no way to use the VioVio bookmaker without it resizing your jpgs. That is hard to believe but to the best of my knowledge true. Now remember, I’m working on the 7 x 9 inch book. During the bookmaking process, if you select “Without Titles” then a file with an 7 inch width (landscape) goes to about 8 inches. It’s based on the aspect ratio of the file and the margins. If you were doing a larger book, say 8.5 x 11, it will stretch more if there’s no Title selected.

If the Title checkbox is selected, then you get a more reasonable rendition, but still not the exact same size as the file you uploaded.

And if you choose to add descriptions, then the image shrinks more.

It is possible to get the exact size, but you need to supply a PDF file to do this, in this case with the page at 9.25 x 7.25 (the .25 for the trim) - but frankly there’s a lot I don’t know about how their RIP will treat the file, and I can’t give instructions every time the book is ordered. For example, I took a PSD monochrome file and through Acrobat Distiller I created what seems to be a monochrome file, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure what the resolution was, or whether their RIP will treat it as a monochrome - or is it grayscale. It’s also a lot more work to convert each PSD to PDF.

Again - you can upload one entire PDF file - but every time you make a change, you’ll need to reload it.

Since I’m concerned about how the printer is going to deal with PDF files with grayscale images (will there be a color cast) - I should also say that you certainly can add single page PDF files.  And this is what I’m going to do for the text portions.  The grayscale image files should be fine.  And hopefully the PDF with just typeface should be fine as well.

Some of my images were resized slightly in the first book I didn’t see any artifacts. At any rate, for this first book I’m going to do the images at about what I expect them to be rendered at, with titles, and leave it at that.

I also don’t see any method for numbering the pages.

Other discoveries: the DESCRIPTION field in their bookmaker accepts html and when the PDF preview is created, it renders fine. So the way to get a good text page up there is to create a small white grayscale image - say 1/4 x 1/4 of an inch. Upload that as your image, and then fill the description field with html code. You would need to upload a different white square file for each text page. So far it accepts tables, and most of the usual web fonts.

The TITLE field does not accept HTML.

Their is also a checkbox if you want all the left pages to be blank. But you do still pay for each of those white pages. What would be great would be if the description were automatically printed on the facing page. And of course if they wouldn’t resize your image unless it didn’t fit.

* * *

I don’t expect to be posting much here for a while. I’m already deep into producing the first book. Working title is now: MORNING, NOON & NIGHT, Images from New York.

It’s based on a phrase an old woman who used to live below me in the East Village yelled out the window whenever she heard the floorboards creak in my run-down apartment: “Morning, Noon and Night! You never stop, do you! All day and all night! Morning, Noon and Night!”

She was known in the neighborhood as the Morning, Noon and Night lady. Never seen. Always on edge. A character from a Poe story (pretty much any Poe story). But seemed like a good “voice” for a new york book. I never saw her. She never left the apartment. But her crazy voice came back to me a few nights ago.

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.

And - the VioVio book should arrive tomorrow. That’s at least twice as fast as blurb, and their communications are better, which is to say that you get a note when the book arrives at the manufacturer, and of course when shipped which is ahead of their estimated date by 5 days. Also, interesting, shipped from Rochester.

Didn’t want to write a separate post just for this info, so we’ll see what the pros and cons are.

One thing is - I don’t give up easy. After more googling until I was nearly blind, I came across the VioVio site which at least was nice enough to put disclaimers up about color issues, as well as saying up front that you’ll do better with b&w if you upload a grayscale image. Thank you. In fact, although their site is not as spiffy in terms of cosmetics - they’ve actually integrated context sensitive information. They tell you what paper will be used. They tell you that they’re using the iGen and [gasp] even give you the model number!

And they tell you that the quality is not going to be as good as an offset printer.

There are warning about expecting color issues between runs (although that shouldn’t be an issue if all the images are grayscale).

You get a PDF rendition, generated on the fly, and they accept PDF files if you just want to do the whole layout yourself in inDesign or something.

I did a ten page paperback, 7 x 9 with extremely badly designed cover and back. But enough to tell me about quality. So ever the optimist - I await the book once more.

* * *

Received email from VioVio saying that the book had gone to manufacturing. Estimated ship date is Oct. 2.

[About the image above - mixture of tungsten and flash; print on left is an inkjet; then the book. And just to hold stuff against the wall an aperture book. The overall is on the yellow side - I haven’t picked up the digicam in a while - but the rendition of the print vs. book is very close to how it looks to the eye.]

Also, please note that what I’m writing about is mostly about how black and white photographs are rendered with the process. Color shifts are really not that noticable with color printing.

Just the facts:

- What I ordered: 8 x 10 hardcover. 20 pages.

- What I uploaded, sRGB files (as advised)

- Ordered on Sept. 5th. Arrived today via UPS 2-day today

- The just jacket, as well as all the images have a fairly strong magenta cast in the midtones. But only under tungsten light. If I take the book and look at it with window daylight - it it fairly neutral.

- It is a stiched binding.

- The paper is definitely on the thin side compared to a high-end coffee table book but I think it would be okay if the magenta cast could be solved. I’m sure I could tweak the files to get something a bit more contrasty on the page. Except for the magenta, the images are very close to what I see if I soft proof the image with “paper white” turned on.

- If you look at the image with a magnifying glass, you can see how the magenta dots are wedged in with the grayscale dots. If you look at a book say by Aperture - you just see various shades of gray / black.

- I’ve put a help request in asking: a) what machine did the printing (Xerox or HP Indigo) and whether they have any suggestions for getting neutral b&w.

- The images seem flat and lifeless compared to my epson 4800 prints.

- If the inks exhibit metamerism (color shifts depending on light temperature), then there really is no good solution for this (with b&w). With color, it’s not as evident. And then you’ve got the problem with calibration of the Indigo printer as well. And even if you do manage to correct for magenta under tungsten light with some duotone layer, your next run may go towards the green side.

That is a problem.

What you need is POD that specializes in b&w photography. I guess that’s just too small a market?

P.S. If you search the blurb forums for ‘magenta’ you’ll find lots of people with the same problem: http://forums.blurb.com/forums/1/topics/32#posts-449

* * *

From the comments:

So Dave, is the Indigo (blurb) better than the iGen (Lulu) or closer to a draw?
It will be interesting for us to know what tech says and if the problems are fixable.

Thanks, Bob

Bob - Blurb support got back to me very quickly (it’s all email which frankly is fine with me) - and asked to see some digital pictures of the problem - which is why I did the shot above.

Blurb also uses iGen for the paperbacks but this was Indigo.

Now Lulu v. Blurb, or is it really Indigo v. iGen.

Boy - that is a tough one. If Indigo inks are going to give this color shift for b&w than I don’t think it’s useable unless you do some tinting yourself (sepia) or something so that the shift isn’t as obvious.

On the other hand - toner is toner. The problem I had with the first two Lulu books I did as tests with Xerox iGen was that one copy was pretty neutral, and the same image in a second book had magenta streaks. But - I don’t see any color shift with the toner based books under different light sources.

I’m tempted right now to order a second book from blurb - but softcover - and with various test photos. This would use the iGen printer.
In other words, I can probably accept the iGen rendition if it doesn’t shift color.

The bottom line with print on demand is how consistent they can be over time. If I want to sell them, do I have to order 50 and check each one? Or can I rely on some consistent printing so that the customer can order it from their site - uh - on demand.

* * *

Lulu has a new beta photobook interface (beta) and the paper quality is supposed to be a little bit better than the old color stock; but the beta interface is still pretty poor. For one thing, it really wants to crop or resize images to fit in it’s frame containers. And they don’t even have exact dimensions yet for the frames used by various themes. I’d give it six months for them to work out the bugs.

*** 9/18/07

Blurb support emailed me a return label and said they will reprint the book ASAP.

**** 9/26/07 - Sent the book back to blurb customer service ***

Wonder of wonders, I found a site that has a profile for the HP Indigo 5000 printer which is what is currently used by blurb.com for hard-cover books (not the cover though) 8×10 and up.  Very useful to soft proof if your monitor is calibrated. Thank you Sam.

http://www.bonsai-photography.com/

Sam Edge has also written an excellent color mgmt. explanation geared towards blurb.com.

Color Managment with Blurb’s Booksmart THIS LINK IS TO A PDF FILE.

I think this is the last important piece of the puzzle.  I didn’t use this on the first test book - but at least I’ll have some idea of how to proceed next.

Introduction [draft]

The photographs in this book were taken on the way to somewhere else. I didn’t expect them. I didn’t search for them. (If I did search, they went into hiding). I carried a camera with me for ten years while I walked from the upper east side to west 23rd street where I worked. Sometimes I took the 6 train.

When I left the corporate world, the habit and the camera remained. I have tried, now and then, to do a specific project - but they didn’t amount to much. Some pictures were taken on the way to the post office. Others on the way to what I believed was my destination.

Other than the fact that the images are all in New York City, I leave it to you to discover if there are any thematic threads that tie things together. As I write this tonight - I honestly don’t know what they are.
In other words, I have never explored the city in any systematic way. I don’t know the names of statues that I’ve photographed. I’m still liable to get lost in Central Park although I’ve been there a thousand times. No, as I think back on it, I’ve just wandered through the city and once in a while it would prod me out my lassitude and force me to take a photograph.

In the back of the book, you’ll find notes about where I was heading, and in some cases, a story about a particular photograph. It may help to explain the book’s title.

Dave Beckerman - Sept. 2007

P.S. The blurb test book hasn’t shipped yet, although the estimated ship date was yesterday.

What to call it? What to put in it? What voice to use? What should be on the cover? How many pages should it be? Who to dedicate it to? What size? I’ve posted the good, the bad and the ugly as far as images go. I’ve written and sold screenplays. I’ve written what seems like millions of words in these blogs over the years.

Why this paralysis sets in when thinking about creating a book - I don’t know.

You would be amazed at the ideas I’ve had for the first one:

The title would be based on numbers: sort of. For example, the first book would be called, “Won,” which corresponds to the number 1. The second book would be “Too.” And the third book in the trilogy would be — oh, that’s right. I ran into problems with three.

I had a similar idea based on the alphabet.  First book would start with the letter A, etc.  But this was done already with the mystery books — A is Arsenic etc.  I forget the author, but it worked well for her.

Let’s get looser and just call the first one Beckerman, Volume I. Selections from…

Should I include writing alongside the images? There are good stories for some of them. Or should the images just stand on their own which is classier; and have some explanations at the end?

Titles speed through my mind at night: “Native Tourist.” “New York, Night & Day” (here I would have opposing but related images).

I still think in terms of a narrative curve. Some sort of dramatic beginning, middle, and end.

Then there’s the chaos method. Take a bunch of numbers that represent images. Toss them in the air. However they land is the order. Call the book, “No. 1.”

I can’t bring myself to do the obvious, a book based on location: “Central Park, 40 Images,” for example.

Yes, the book is somewhat permanent, as opposed to all the other forms I’ve worked in. The screenplay is written, and re-written, and changed for the film. Each time I do a print, I can take another crack at it. And the blog is just so much stream of consciousness (like this) with a touch of something worthwhile now and then.

There are a few things that I do know:

- I’m thinking in terms of a series of books. Probably small, both in the number of images, and the dimensions. But definitely hardcover.

- The first one is the most difficult.

- It needs to be loose enough to include a number of subjects.

- I’ll begin with an arrangement of photographs, and come up with the title, theme afterwards. Let the images, at least in the first book, do the talking.
- It won’t be a symphony. It will be a string quartet.

Or think pitching. Think - stay within yourself. Don’t try and overthrow… (easier said than done).

After having so many issues with print quality at Lulu a while back, and getting some crappy books published at other sites; I thought I’d give Blurb.com a try. I had read some decent reviews, even of b&w books. It took me about three hours to convert files and do the layout.

Files were 300 dpi (recommended by them); sRGB (also recommended); and I tried various unsharp techniques with the photos: Continuous Tone sharpening; Inkjet Sharpening; and no sharpening. Jpg files. Though they also accept png files.

You download their software and do the usual drag and drop stuff. The software seemed easy to use for me. I didn’t spend much time arranging the images, I can do that later. Just Central Park shots that I already had in a 5 x 7 size. It will be hardcover. I saw a number of people say that the print quality was better with hardcover than with perfect bound books.

If the print quality is any good - than I can go back and rearrange things and write more useful captions. It’s called, Central Park, 20 images. Hardcover. With dust jacket. 8x 10 size. They have larger sizes but I wanted to start small.

I expect it’ll take about a week and a half to get it back. I have my fingers crossed. Oh - the price: $29. The paper back version is $19.

Too put this basic book together - nothing fancy - no bleeds etc. - was quicker than doing one my slideshows.

* * * UPDATE * * *

Which is exactly what I wanted to hear. It means I did some of my sharpening wrong - but this was a test book anyway. It also explains why there are differences in quality between the softcover v. hardcover which I had seen in the forums.

A number of people have written to recommend other sites. Some of this is self-promotion - which is fine - but I want to keep this thread about one thing: fine art black and white POD book publishing, where liquid ink is used as opposed to toner technology. If you have a recommendation, great - but it would be esp. welcome if you include the type of printer that is used for the black and white printing. I’m going to keep this post at the top of the blog while I go through the blurb process.

On my way out of Kips Bay…