1) I sit in my studio in Virginia, USA and get notification via Google Alerts that someone in Vancouver, Canada has just put up a blog post about my book, CMYK 2.0. I’m like a six-year-old discovering a new flavor of ice cream when thinking about the wonders of digital communication. Not jaded now, never will be.

2) The review of CMYK 2.0 by Kodak’s Eric Kolotyluk makes me giddy. He really gets it. Check it out. Thanks, Eric!

I’m working on a post about printing great 4-color black and white on an offset press. You need a cooperative printer and a few extra skills, but it can be done. Check back here soon.

I felt like a Lilliputian walking among the signs. When they are installed on buildings or poles 60 feet in the air, you don’t realize how big they are. In mothball storage on the ground at the Boneyard, they’re huge.

Here are a few of my favorite images from that shoot. My approach was to try and restore some of the life to the signs. Here they were, dowdy and rusty, gathered together in a heap in the desert sun, not fulfilling their founding mission in life: to light up the night and beckon people in. The least I could do was to restore some dignity to these aging matinee idols.

So, what does this have to do with CMYK 2.0? It’s a reminder (to myself) of why I spend the time getting the color right.

When you allow yourself to stop and reflect on all this stuff, it really does become amazing.

ASMP has just launched dpBestflow, the primary source for best practices information on the digital imaging workflow. It covers everything: image capture, image processing, file naming conventions, file handling, archiving, several optimized workflow options, and even CMYK!

Richard Anderson and Peter Krogh have been hard at work on this site for the last two years. Peter calls it “a Masters degree worth of information”. And he’s right. There’s an answer on the site for virtually any question you have.

The information is presented in text form, in visual form and in video tutorials that allow you to peek over the shoulder of experts in the field as they show you step-by-step directions.

Check it out.

The CMYK Community Board is taking an indefinite break. Our user-to-user forum succumbed to the realities of life in cyberspace. In plain english, that means that the snotty, sun-deprived subculture of social misfits known as hackers and spammers have made life less wonderful for those of us who have good intentions.

The fact is that for every one legitimate user who registered for the forum, there were 300+ illegitimate spambot registrations. The administrative overhead required to winnow out the junk was more than I was able to deal with. After all, I got into this business to take pictures, not to manage misguided teenagers.

The CMYK 2.0 movement is by definition collaborative; communication between users is the key to success. Sadly, we all lose here because the user-to-user forum format is, by it’s very nature, collaborative. But the spirit of the movement will transcend the spit-in-the-eye that is spam. I’ll be keeping the blog going, alive and up-to-date with the latest news and adventures from the field of CMYK and color in general.

Perhaps sometime in the  future, when the CMYK 2.0 movement grows from a one-man operation into a fully-staffed multi-national corporation, we may try to revive the forum. But for now, just go out and shoot more pictures, design more stuff, and print beautiful color.

But first, you’ve got to win a spot on the bus. To enter, click on the Peachpit link above and follow the directions. Basically, it’s a great excuse to go out in your own home town and shoot some cool photos of neon. Post them to the contest’s Flickr page (at the contest site) and see how it goes. Good luck!!

Here’s my image from the other side of the country - New Jersey (my old stomping grounds). It hollered out at me as I cruised by it on Route 22 in Springfield. Had to stop and turn around. How can you pass up a gimme like that? Yeah, we all need a little charm and comfort.

See you in Vegas…

It’s our very own town square where open and active discussion and debate can take place. Whether the conversation is about technical stuff or interpersonal collaborative matters, this is the place to come to take part. As the community grows, the collective knowledge of the membership will grow, turning the Community Board into a primary resource for everyone who has a part in the RGB:>CMYK workflow. All are welcome, whether you’re a 20-year veteran of the printing business, or a newbie designer right out of school. So, spread the word. Encourage you colleagues, your clients, and your vendors to join.We will follow a few basic guidelines that every successful, sustainable community adheres to:

Respect other community members.
Share knowledge generously.
Nurture a safe environment.
Don’t punish ignorance.
Teach when you know, ask when you don’t.
And, assume that everyone comes here with the best intentions.

In order to keep the forum clear of spam and other nasty elements, you must register in order to be a contributing member of the forum. The process is easy. Click on “register” in the top, right corner of the CMYK Community Board page and follow the instructions. You’ll receive an email confirming your application for forum membership. Then, once the moderator approves your membership, you’ll receive another email welcoming you to the forum. That’s it! You’re in!

On the blog, I intend to regularly (weekly, at least!) put up posts that offer ideas, add new thoughts, discuss the latest techniques and workflows, and share real-life stories from the field of how collaboration saves the day in the RGB-to-CMYK workflow. The blog is my platform, allowing me to share what I see and how I see it, and comments are always welcome.As time passes, I hope to see the blog evolve to embrace a more general discussion of  how we work together, and how we use digital tools to get that work done. (As we’ve found out, it involves more than just “pushing the button.”) Also, as those digital tools become more sophisticated, the work we do will only become more remote. As artists and craftspeople, it’s important that we keep our work real and tactile, and embrace the craft that is at the heart of expression.

I’ll try to keep things current and lively. I’m a working photographer with a number of iron in the fire, but I intend to make this blog a regular part of my routine.

Accompanying this blog is a user-to-user forum, the CMYK Community Board, where you can ask questions, share expertise, and toss around ideas. More on the forum in another post…

The pressure was on. This is a book about C, M, Y, and K, for crying out loud. If the book didn’t look great, it would kind of shoot the idea that the author knows anything about preparing files for press. And boy, would my editor be pissed. Holy Histogram, Colorman! Better get it right!! 

Well, it was yet another wonderful proof-of-concept. CMYK 2.0 works! The press check went very smoothly, the color was right on.

Courier uses giant Man-Roland offset web presses that are each the size of two locomotives, and quite a bit louder. (We had to wear hearing protection in the press room.) They had budgeted 6 hours to print the entire book - 8,500 copies of a 288 page book. If there were any problems with color, they’d never be able to stay on schedule. During their make-ready on each signature, they would run until the ink “settled in”, and then pull a sample, bring it into the viewing booth and lay it right next to the proof. Match. Right on. Print it. And then it was off to the next signature. Smooth as silk. The only delay was from the pressmen having to stop the press to change a worn blanket on one of the units.

The reason it all went so smoothly was the preparation and communication that took place BEFORE the press run. Nothing was left to chance. Process control was excercised every step of the way. There were numerous conference calls involving the prepress manager at Courier, the production editor at Peachpit, my good friend and guru Kevin DePalmer, and myself. We asked each other questions, confirmed the press conditions at Courier, and then double-checked it all again, The proofs that Courier ran were a dead match to my own Epson proofs, which were in turn a dead match to my monitor. So, it was no surprise that the color coming off the press was what I expected–in fact, “predictable”–but, it’s still like Christmas morning for me every time I see a press sheet coming off the press that matches my proofs and my expectations.

I think the key for me is to never take anything for granted, never assume anything, and never let my guard down. When I follow that advice, the results justify the effort, and the client is always happy. And THAT is a very good thing.