Notes on life, art, photography and technology, by a Danish dropout bohemian.
When you drink the water, remember the river.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Early digital printing
An article about early digital art priting, by Graham Nash. Yes, he is the guy from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Or as I like to call them, "Crosby's Still Fresh and Young".
5 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Reading about Nash and his "Nash editions" years ago was what first got me into digital printing. However, it never occurred to me that it was that Nash from Crosby et al.
Incidently, following Nash's example, I first tried IRIS printers. But I found its dye based output to be inferior to what I was able to get from the Epson that uses pigment based inks. At that moment I lost interest in studying Nash's techniques.
These days the best printers (from Roland and HP, for example) use a 12 colour process which gives an even better gamut, but I have no personal experience with those.
In 2002-2003. I tried two different Iris Graphics printers (I think they were 3047). The problem was not only small gamut, but getting the colour profiles to anywhere near what was expected. There are a multitude of variables; type of paper, brand of inks, etc.
I'm sure if I had owned the printer myself, and played with it long enough I would have got better results. But after I got introduced to the Epson 9600 and its pigment inks, it took only a couple of days of testing and adjusting, and the quality was so good I couldn't believe my eyes.
Longevity played a role, too. Wilhelm Imaging Research (an organisation that specialises in print longevity research) gave significantly better marks for the Epson/Pigment combination than anything to do with the Iris.
My problem is that the guy who owned the 9600 went bankrupt, and I no longer have access to it. I intend to buy a pigment based printer for myself as soon as I can afford it.
I had the good fortune to hear Graham Nash give this presentation live at the DIMA event that awarded him a Lifetime Achievment award in March of 2007. The Epson 9600 came much later than the time that Nash refers to. Life moves fast in the digital world.
5 comments:
Reading about Nash and his "Nash editions" years ago was what first got me into digital printing. However, it never occurred to me that it was that Nash from Crosby et al.
Incidently, following Nash's example, I first tried IRIS printers. But I found its dye based output to be inferior to what I was able to get from the Epson that uses pigment based inks. At that moment I lost interest in studying Nash's techniques.
These days the best printers (from Roland and HP, for example) use a 12 colour process which gives an even better gamut, but I have no personal experience with those.
When was that? It was my impression that pigment prints until the last few years had a *smaller* gamut (though better longevity) than dye prints.
In 2002-2003. I tried two different Iris Graphics printers (I think they were 3047). The problem was not only small gamut, but getting the colour profiles to anywhere near what was expected. There are a multitude of variables; type of paper, brand of inks, etc.
I'm sure if I had owned the printer myself, and played with it long enough I would have got better results. But after I got introduced to the Epson 9600 and its pigment inks, it took only a couple of days of testing and adjusting, and the quality was so good I couldn't believe my eyes.
Longevity played a role, too. Wilhelm Imaging Research (an organisation that specialises in print longevity research) gave significantly better marks for the Epson/Pigment combination than anything to do with the Iris.
My problem is that the guy who owned the 9600 went bankrupt, and I no longer have access to it. I intend to buy a pigment based printer for myself as soon as I can afford it.
I had the good fortune to hear Graham Nash give this presentation live at the DIMA event that awarded him a Lifetime Achievment award in March of 2007. The Epson 9600 came much later than the time that Nash refers to. Life moves fast in the digital world.
Ian
"The Epson 9600 came much later than the time that Nash refers to."
Correct. And I am in no way putting Nash off here. You could say that he was part inventor of Giclée printing. The Iris 3047 was not designed for this application at all, but rather for "proofs". The invention was to (1) repurpose the 3047 for fine art printing with non-coated paper, different brand of inks and profiles; and (2) launch the idea of digital prints in arts circles.
My point was that after the Epson 9600 had been introduced it made little sense to continue deploying the Iris for this purpose.
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