Mastering Digital Printing (Miscellaneous) [Paperback]

Harald (Harald Johnson) Johnson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1929685653 | ISBN-13: 978-1929685653 | Publication Date: December 2, 2002 | Edition: 001

"Mastering Digital Printing: The Photographer's and Artist's Guide to High-Quality Digital Output" is the first in-depth reference to the new world of digital printing for photography and fine art. This authoritative guide provides a thorough introduction to this exploding medium, instruction in the latest digital printing techniques, and an inspiring Gallery Showcase of the best digitally imaged and printed art and photography. Whether you are a photographer, digital or traditional artist, printmaker, art educator, or art marketer, this book will help you master digital printing!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...It's a printing classic in the world of digital arts.... Truly a great road map towards digital printing." -- InsideGraphics.com

"...a complete reference book of digital printing for photography and fine art." -- Art World News, March 2003

"Photographers, digital and traditional artists, and printmakers can gain a thorough introduction to digital printmaking in "Mastering Digital Printing." -- The Big Picture Magazine, Nov/Dec. 2002

"The new bible for digital printmakers!" -- WorldPrintmakers.com

"There's really nothing like this book. It's comprehensive, but it's readable without getting clammy." -- Imaging Resource Digital Photography Newsletter, Feb. 21, 2003

About the Author

Harald Johnson is the creator and moderator of Yahoo's digital-fineart, the world's largest online discussion group on the subject of digital fine art. He has worked with the Walker Art Institute, Acquavella Gallery, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and is the founding chairman of the Digital Art Practices and Terminology Task Force. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 001 edition (December 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1929685653
• ISBN-13: 978-1929685653
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #632,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

136 of 143 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Book Review  Mastering Digital Printing by Harald Johnson, January 2, 2003

By 

S. Friedman "Digital Artist" (Parker, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mastering Digital Printing (Miscellaneous) (Paperback)

Anyone who has ventured seriously into creating digital art sooner or later stumbles into the uncharted sea of printing. Once an artist has finally created his or her masterpiece on the computer, they must contend with a vast array of new printing technologies, image management software (sometimes called RIP), and different ink types and substrates to produce their final print. Until now that process has remained a complete mystery to all but a few. But at last Harald Johnson has come forward with his new book Mastering Digital Printing to explain the process from the basics to the complex.
Perhaps what I like most about the book is that is not just a technical manual, but really goes a long way into addressing head on some of the issues that are raging in the art world today regarding digital artwork. Things like what the difference is between a digital reproduction and digital original, and what a Giclee print is. These topics really shed some light onto some controversial and often overlooked issues.
On the technical side he does a very deft job of delicately explaining complex terms such as printer resolution, dpi, and lpi so that even a beginner can start to get an adequate grasp of the subject. This is a book aimed at artists, not propeller heads. And while his coverage of the different printing technologies may be a bit more information than most artists want, it is never the less important when one is considering [purchasing]a print based on those technologies. He also does an outstanding job of explaining scanning and what artists really need to know about sending out work to be scanned, or scanning it themselves.
Finally he addresses two important issues for the professional artist, permanence and substrates. While some of this does go into the deep end, it provides necessary and often overlooked information that seems to be cropping up more and more at art shows and galleries.
All in all, this book is a compendium of information for serious digital artists. If all you want to do is produce snap-shots from your inkjet printer, this book is probably not for you. But if you are a professional or serious amateur artist wants to obtain the highest quality translation from the virtual representation of their art work to the physical one, this book is a must.

125 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Virtual Milestone, January 1, 2003

By 

[e-mail] (Granada, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mastering Digital Printing (Miscellaneous) (Paperback)

A Virtual Milestone
Harald Johnson's new book, Mastering Digital Printing: The Photographer's and Artist's Guide to High-Quality Digital Output (Muska & Lipman, December 2002) seems to me something of a milestone, not only for its prodigious content, but for its very concept. For Johnson has not only written the Bible of digital printing for fine-art printmakers and photographers, but he has also solved the abiding problem of people who write books on technical subjects: currency. Technology changes fast and books on technological subjects go stale just as rapidly. So Johnson has provided his readers/practitioners with the added support of both a website (http://www.dpandi.com) and a lively online discussion group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digital-fineart) which he created a couple of years ago and conscientiously moderates.

Into the Fourth Dimension
These online resources constantly lever the power and actuality of the book, providing instant access to current information on the ever-changing state of the art. More than a simple book, what Johnson has created is a "metabook" which extends its domain into the fourth dimension: time. This is a prodigious achievement for one man working on his own, one for which Johnson-the Prometheus of digital printing-is to be admired and congratulated.

Have I made the book sound stuffy? Far from it! Mastering Digital Printing is written in a personal conversational style which is more like a chat with a friendly expert than a technical manual. It is wide ranging both in breadth and depth, of interest both to beginners and experts. Perhaps the most exciting thing about this new DP compendium is the guidance it offers photographers and fine-art printmakers-and there are legions of them-who are fascinated by the possibilities of digital imaging and printing but until now have not known how to get started. Johnson's book now provides them with a clear roadmap, and is destined to make many converts to digital.

My reaction after a first look at Mastering Digital Printing was, "This would make a fantastic textbook on the subject," and less than a week later I see on the Digital-Fineart discussion group that someone is already offering courses based on Johnson's book. They are the first, but they will not be the last!

In the Beginning
The book opens with a brief summary of DP's fascinating history, which extends back to the digital printing paleolithic: the year 1989. Johnson says: "... things didn't really take off until the paths of six people-a rock star and his best friend, an art publicist, a sales rep, a computer wizard and a silkscreen printer-unexpectedly intersected..." From these humble rock `n roll beginnings a little over a decade ago digital printing has already brought about a worldwide revolution in image making, and Harald Johnson very cogently explains how and why.

The Who, What, Where, When, Why
People who like to know the underlying reasons for things will love Mastering Digital Printing. Each of its eleven chapters starts out with a brief theoretical discussion of the matter at hand, then moves into specifics, in a nice marriage of theory and practice. If you get in over your head-the chapter on "Understanding and Managing Color" left me dazed and reeling-you will be pleased to find that the second part of most of the chapters contains eminently practical how-to information, complete with product comparisons and insider procedural recommendations. These how-to details cover the complete DP process, from the choice of appropriate digital technologies for the job at hand, equipment and materials, to image creation and actual printing, whether you do it yourself or send it out to a professional print service. There are also illuminating side trips into color management, the choice of inkjet printers and print permanence. On this subject Johnson has come up with a delightful non-scientific yardstick, the Granny Standard: Will your digital print conserve its quality long enough for your grandchildren to see it properly?

Digital Ninjas?
Some of the books technical details sound like cult reading. According to Johnson the colors which you perceive on your computer monitor are influenced by the light reflected by your clothing. So, if you're doing critical color work, it is best not to wear a red or yellow shirt, which will inevitably skew your color perception. In fact, for real purists, the best indumentary is all-black. One imagines armies of black suited and hooded digital Ninjas sitting in darkened rooms in front of finely-calibrated monitors all over the world. Frightening concept!

The Frosting on the Cake
Midst the at times intense technical talk, Johnson does not forget to show his readers the proof of the pudding, a section which he calls the "Gallery Showcase" which includes digital prints by and brief commentaries on the work of eighteen leading contemporary American digital artists and photographers, a collection of work which fairly represents most of the DP techniques and tendencies current today. All that remains to complement this formidable text/reference/do-it-yourself metabook is a rich appendix listing all available resources, including URL's and e-mail addresses, and there it is.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More about how to spec printing equipment than about making prints, April 19, 2006

By 

Harold Davis (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mastering Digital Printing, Second Edition (Digital Process and Print) (Paperback)

This handsome volume badly disappointed me. I think the proper rating for the book is about one and a half stars, but I gave it two out of generosity.

If you don't have a printer and are looking to buy one, it gives a pretty good round-up of the choices, technologies, and papers. The problem with this kind of thing, of course, is that it is necessarily dated--so it can't really serve as a buyer's guide.

If you already have a printer--I have an Epson 4800--and a source of digital images, you won't find much information here about how to make great prints. The only section on the actual print making process shows the dialogs for one printer, probably the author's. Totally unhelpful unless you have that printer (and you've probably already figured out how those dialogs work if you have that printer).

The section on RIP software is way overview, and doesn't provide any decent guidance on how to proceed with it.

I'm not given to writing negative reviews, and I don't often return books (as I am with this one), but in the face of all the positive feedback for this book I feel compelled to provide my opinion. As I said, if you are looking to buy a printer, this might help you understand the basic technology issues (although the models have changed since the book was written). Otherwise, the only use I see for it is as a "gee whiz" coffee table book for would-be digital printers rather than a serious reference manual.