Jeff Schewe - The Digital Print: Preparing Images in Lightroom and Photoshop for Printing

Preparing Images in Lightroom and Photoshop for Printing

Jeff Schewe

THE DIGITAL PRINT
PREPARING IMAGES IN LIGHTROOM AND PHOTOSHOP FOR PRINTING
Jeff Schewe

Peachpit Press
www.peachpit.com

To report errors, please send a note to:
Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education.

Copyright 2014 by Jeff Schewe

Acquisitions and Project Editor: Rebecca Gulick
Production Editor: Lisa Brazieal
Contributing Writer and Development Editor: Brie Gyncild
Copy Editor: Patricia Pane
Compositor: Kim Scott/Bumpy Design
Proofreader: Kim Saccio-Kent
Indexer: Valerie Haynes Perry
Cover and Interior Designer: Mimi Heft

Notice of Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact .

Notice of Liability

The information in this book is distributed on an As Is basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.

Trademarks

Adobe, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom, and Photoshop are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.

ISBN-13: 978-0-321-90845-2
ISBN-10: 0-321-90845-7

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in the United States of America

Dedicated to the lasting memory and substantial contributions of Bruce Fraser.
Thanks Bruce, from all of us.

This book is about optimizing and printing your digital images using Lightroom and Photoshop. The Digital Print details what it takes to set up color management and how to optimize your images using soft proofing and the proper use of the print driver. Its also about what makes a truly great print and how to develop a fine art printing workflow to make printing more efficient and more fun!

I drill down on the tone, color, image sharpening, and noise reduction you need to apply to your images prior to printing. I outline the importance of image resolution and how it affects your printed image. I extensively cover converting color images to excellent black-and-white images and how to make great black-and-white prints. I also cover topics such as paper choices and deal with issues surrounding print permanence.

I wrote this book because there didnt seem to be an optimal source of information that suitably covered the main topics without being relegated to covering everything about a single application. The world doesnt need yet another Lightroom or Photoshop book, but the world does need a current book about the essence of image optimization for printing, regardless of the imaging application. I set out to write a book about cross-application integration that addressed the needs of photographers who want to optimize their images for the best-possible fine art print.

I called the book The Digital Print for a reason. In my formative years as a young photographer, I read a series of books by Ansel Adams that formed the genesis of my infatuation with and addiction to photography. Ansels booksThe Camera, The Negative, and The Printhad a huge impact and greatly helped advance my knowledge of photography. This book is the companion to my previous book, The Digital Negative, which details what makes for a really good digital negative and how to harness the massive power of Lightroom and Camera Raw to extract the best-possible raw rendering of that digital negative. With The Digital Print, I pick up where The Digital Negative left off and also add scans from film into the mix.

Who am I and why should I write this book? Well, Im a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), with two degrees in photography. I was a commercial advertising photographer in Chicago for over 25 years (yeah, I won a few awards). I was an early adopter of digital imagingmy first photo assignment that was manipulated on a computer was in 1984 (the year the first Macintosh computer shipped). I didnt do the digital imaginga pioneering company called Digital Transparencies, Inc., in Huston, Texas, did the imaging.

I started doing my own Photoshop digital imaging in 1992 using Photoshop 2.0. I was one of the first off-site Photoshop alpha testers (alpha meaning way before any sort of final coding is done and before the software is really usable). I got to know and work with many of the Photoshop engineers because of this testing. When I mention names like Thomas Knoll (the co-author of Photoshop) or Mark Hamburg (the number-two Photoshop engineer and founding engineer of Lightroom), its not to drop names but because these guys are friends of mine. Ive worked with them a lot over the years. I want people to know their names and give them the credit they deserve.

I was significantly involved in the early development of both Camera Raw and Lightroomnot because Adobe was paying me tons of money (alpha testers work for free), but for the selfish motive of advancing and improving the tools I personally wanted to use.

Ive also had the good fortune to meet a lot of the leading experts in the field, and I want to express my sincere appreciation of one dearly departed friend, Bruce Fraser, noted author and educator, for taking me under his wing. I had the honor of joining Bruce and some other friends in forming a company named PixelGenius, which develops Photoshop plug-ins.

By way of disclosure, let me just say that I am not and never have been an employee of Adobe (even though over the years Ive worked with Adobe on software development). I dont have any contracts or testimonials with any camera companies. In the book, I frequently mention specific cameras and lenses I used for image captures. I do so to provide a provenance of how and with what gear an image was captured, not to promote any specific camera. I used those cameras because, well, those are the cameras I bought and paid for (although Ive gotten some really good deals).

I have had a long-standing relationship with Epson and personally own four Epson printers: a Stylus Photo R3000, a Stylus Pro 3880, a Stylus Pro 4900, and a Stylus Pro 9900. Yes, I am a printer junky! However, I arranged the loan of a Canon printer imagePROGRAF iPF6400 so I could write about printing from a more neutral position. I want to thank Canon for its support. I was impressed with the image output from the Canon and can honestly say that both Epson and Canon make great printers, so you really cant go wrong with either brand.