Product Description

"Mastering Digital Printing, Second Edition" serves as a unique, comprehensive reference guide to digital printing for photography and fine art. It combines a thorough introduction to this expressive medium, instruction in the latest techniques, and a gallery of the best examples of digital art into a one-of-a-kind resource guide. Whether you are a photographer, traditional or digital artist, or printmaker, this book will help you master the techniques unique to the new world of digital printing.

Offers a revised, updated edition of the successful guide, "Mastering Digital Printing."

Guides readers to a complete understanding of digital printing and the differences between digital printing technologies.

Includes a foreword by photographer/musician Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

Provides the first accurate history of the invention of digital fine art printing and the term "giclée."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116572 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Review
Highly recommended, this new edition is a useful and up-to-date overview of the field. -- Wilhelm Imaging Research, December 2004

Mastering Digital Printing answers every question. Perfect for anyone who wants to see their work in frames -- The Imaging Resource, November 2004

About the Author
A lifelong photographer and digital printing consultant, Harald Johnson is the author of the definitive reference guide to the subject: Mastering Digital Printing: The Photographer's and Artist's Guide to High-Quality Digital Output (Muska & Lipman Publishing, 1929685653). Harald is also the creator of DP&I.In addition, Harald is the founding co-chairperson and a driving force of the new industry panel, the Digital Art Practices & Terminology Task Force (DAPTTF).

Customer Reviews

A Virtual Milestone
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.

Not appropiate for the typical photographer/printer
I've scanned through most of the past Amazon reviews of this book and I find it surprising at how different my opinion is. I have in fact read the whole book cover to cover and I own a $1000 digital camera and a $200 inkjet printer and I have as a hobbyist done a tremedous amount of printing using this type of middle class printing. So I thought a book on the subject would help fill in some holes in my knowledge. In a nutshell my problem with this book is that it is without a doubt not meant for someone like me using this "middle class" tools. I found the book incredibly elitist, the only thing I really learned was I must buy more & better equipment to be a real artist - what I have isn't good enough apparently. For example apparently you need at least 8 megapixels to print an 8x10? My other main issue is that after having read the entire book, when I go to print an image nothing has changed at all - I still do everything exactly the same simply because none of the information in the book applied to me unless I buy thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands dollars worth of additional gear - and in general there was no info on how to use this gear specifically either - just you should have it. I've read an enormous amount of technical books over the years and on average most are great in that they strive to empower the reader with the skills and knowledge to achieve better things - but this book seems to achieve the reverse - unempowering the reader with lists and graphs and photos of things you can't ever possibly obtain. It's quite unique.

So honestly if you're a regular human being who has a camera and printer then this book is really not intended for you. The book's title and back cover do indicate otherwise, there's a photo of a consumer digital camera and nice write up that sounds like it'll apply to you in the same way a fortune cookie is vague. The experience level is also listed at beginner to expert in an attempt to net as many potential buyers as possible.

Who would this book be good for? Perhaps if you are working or beginning to work in a professional print shop that has many professional fine artist clients - this would be a good buy. Or if you're rich and can buy anything you feel like, this would serve as a good catalog. The other advantage if you're rich is you get to be a "real" artist. There were a few parts I did like, one section of 5 pages had a really good overview of the steps to take in color managing your system - if you have the gear of couse, but nonetheless it was useful to know. Unfortunately many chapters just feel entirely useless, the author seems obessed with print permanence which is how long prints will last, he goes on and on about it, always avoiding specifics and generalizing and stressing the importance of performing your own permanence tests and although it is useful on one level it could of been 4 pages not 35. At one point he suggests if you don't have time to perform your own tests you can contract out your permanence testing - does this sound like you? If so I recommend this book to you.

More about how to spec printing equipment than about making prints
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.