Mon 21 Nov 2005
Anyone who has ventured seriously into creating digital art sooner or later stumbles into the uncha rted 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.
