Author: tvalleau

ABW ICC profiles for Epson 3800 and Macintosh (2008)

Free ABW (Advanced Black and White) Profiles for the Epson 3800 and Macintosh NOTE: 12/25/09 – As of 10.6.2, these profiles will not show up in Photoshop. Apple made some kind of change that wreaked havoc on ICC profiles in OS 10.6.2. I’ll try to get these fixed, or perhaps 10.6.3 will fix them. (My […]

On my paper choices: matte for B&W (2008)

I print using an Epson 3800 with K3 inks. I’ve just spent a couple of months and many hundreds of dollars running my own tests on papers from a number of manufacturers, from Red River to Canson. I’ve run standard tests, and then from those chosen papers for my own hand-made ICC profiles. Now, paper […]

Framing the Fine Art Photographic Print (2008)

Framing a Fine Art Photographic Print Framing a photograph can be done several ways. The most common is without a matte, and is usually a photo of friends or loved one. Fine photographs, on the other hand, are virtually always matted. Beside the fact that this separates the surface of the photo from the rear […]

Digital? Shoot at 5.6 (2008)

Here’s something most folks don’t know about digital cameras: in terms of a quality, well-resolved photograph, you should stay away from the smaller apertures. F22 is too small. If you’re fortunate enough to have a full-frame sensor camera (such as the Nikon D3/D700 or Canon EOS 5D, for example) you can go to about F11. […]

Epson 3800 prints too dark: FIXED!… (2008)

… at least for me. As soon as I went from PS CS2 to CS3, my prints came out 1.5 or 2 stops too dark. Drove me nutz. Search on the web, and I see I’m hardly alone. Call Epson, and they admit it… but have been working on a fix for nearly a year […]

Setting White Balance with a Gray Card (2008)

This is for the more serious photographers and videographers on the list, and there’s no doubt that some of you (certainly the pros) already know this… but some may not. White Balance. The human eye is very adaptive: take a sheet of typing paper outdoors, and it looks white. Take it indoors and it looks […]

HDR sucks… most of the time (2008)

HDR Sucks. OK: most HDR is poorly done, and that’s what sucks; even with CS3, there is no free lunch. “HDR! Better than sliced bread! Faster than a speeding bullet!…” As I write this, it’s the winter of 2008, and you cannot pick up a photo magazine, computer magazine, or visit a website without someone […]

About color profiles (2003)

Here’s an introduction to how to do color matching; what it is; how to set it up; and why it works. If you’re new to digital photo printing, or just confused as to why your prints don’t look like what you saw on screen, this simple “no geek speak” intro is for you. I wrote […]

Longer banners on the 2200 and changing ink… (2005)

Epson 2200 banners longer than 44 inches can be made by using GIMP print. (Originally posted 2/5/05.) In fact, longer than the roll paper you can buy (which is 32 feet.) Here’s a couple of things to be aware of: 1) there are no profiles for GIMP. (I’ve made my own using PrintFIX, but the […]

On copyright (US)

on copyright. First: INAL (I’m not a laywer.)I have, however,  read and closely followed copyright for a decade or more. Here are some quick, general points: “Prior to what year are works in the public domain?”1923. (It’s 2008 now, and with extensions, copyright attaches for 95 years.) In general, for works created on or after […]