A Series of Extended Notes by Jeremy Daalder

Contents:

• Introduction
• This book is not yet finished (or even that close yet!)

Introduction

These notes are written by Jeremy Daalder, the director of Image Science. The website also has lots of content that is not repeated in these notes, so feel free to explore!

These notes were written as support material for our unique one-on-one Digital Day Course, and have also been used extensively in the Digital Fine Print course at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), as well as for guest lectures at many other colleges and studios.

In many cases, rather than repeat content, I have used links to other sections of the website where that content appears, so just follow the links and read the content, then return to where you were using the 'Back' button on your browser and carry on from there.

Often along the way I'll gloss over the finer detail of a particular point in order to maintain clarity. So you may find yourself thinking, at times, that I've over-simplified things, or that I'm not telling the full story. You're right, I'm not, and it's deliberate. I've taught these concepts to hundreds of people and I've found that it is important to get the basics in place firmly before piling on the technical detail.

I very much hope you find these notes useful in your quest to achieve the Digital Fine Print. They represent many hours of work, printing, testing and thinking, and while they're definitely flawed, opinionated, and overly wordy, I do think there is some valuable content in them.

All mistakes are of course my fault, and I apologise in advance for any errors, overly strong opinions, or over-generalisations that may be present. I'm passionate about this stuff and I'm a direct person, and these notes are very much a reflection of that!

April 2007 - This book is very much a Work In Progress!

The first draft of these notes was written in early 2006.

In April 2007 I moved them from Microsoft Word to the Web (where they probably should have been to start with!), and gave them a very small tidy up. They still need a LOT of work, and there is at least two thirds of the complete series still missing, so...

Please note this book is very much unfinished.

There is however enough content already that it will hopefully be useful for many people.

Feedback, notification of errors, typos, alternative opinions, and requests for more information/explanation, will all be gratefully received.

The book will have the following structure:

Part 1 - Control of Printing - Colour Management

• Chapters 1 through 6 are in an acceptable state and cover colour management in detail.
• Chapter 7 (not yet available) will cover black and white printing specifics

The other two parts of the book have not yet been written, and will contain notes on (at least) the following topics:

Part 2 - Image Editing for Beautiful Prints

• The RGB Master File Approach
• Editing Files - An Approach To Print Development
• Minimising operations & loss of tone differentiation
• Advanced editing techniques
• Targeting for print, early vs late binding
• Print Materials
• Sharpening
• Print Testing
• CMYK print productions
• Particularly effective Photoshop techniques (Dodge burn, local contrast enhancement, saturation adjustment etc)

Part 3 - Print Aesthetics and Presentation

• Aesthetic guidelines for prints
• The way the eye looks at prints
• Images as series
• Storytelling
• The Subtlety Vs Pop Conundrum
• Mounting, framing, folios, and presentation

Please note all the content is of course copyright (C) Jeremy Daalder 2008