New members experience printing & mounting for competition

[GrahamL]

I joined the club last year and was asked by an even newer member where I'd got my mounting tools and materials from. In case it's useful to others here's a slightly amended copy of what I e-mailed. Hopefully this might stimulate a useful discussion too, please feel free to add/disagree.

Note that this is just my own pick and only represents one year of limited experience sourcing and producing. I did visit Hobbycraft in Croydon, but was disappointed at the choice and price compared to the Art material shops mentioned below.

Hope useful,

Graham (L)

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Photoprinting

DigiLab London (Unit F24, Parkhall Trading Estate, 40 Martell Road, London, SE21 8EN).
I first used this local professional outfit for my prints. No problems, their giclee printing on archival Hahnemuhle fine art paper is really good quality, and the colour in these prints is more subtle than laser, but you do pay for it. You can also go in and work with the guy doing it for you, picking it up straight away if they’re not too busy. See http://www.digilablondon.com/ But laser photo-printing is much cheaper, particularly if sourced from ProAm.

ProAm Imaging (Bradford)
These were recommended by Nina and have proven both reliable and excellent in quality. The main catch is the expensive delivery cost and the need to make sure you have a calibrated monitor and setting up the images with their colour profile and very specific ppi amd file structure needs can take sime time, but worth the effort. They also package their prints exceptionally well. Very good value as long as you get a reasonable number printed in one go. Excellent service, apart for not being alerted when they send them (Not given a FedEx tracker number). But turn-round has been faster than I expected. See http://www.proamimaging.com/

Mounting equipment

Details Express - Newcastle Arts Centre Limited
I bought a Logan 350-1 Elite Cutter, knife and a load of spare blades, same product MUCH cheaper than if I’d sourced it from any of the Art materials shop websites I found. See http://www.details-express.co.uk/ Nice people to do business with.

Tools, case, mountboard, etc. (all have London shops):

Atlantis Art
2nd floor, Britannia House, 68-80 Hanbury Street E1 5JL
http://www.atlantisart.co.uk/
Interesting shop locality to visit, very close to Brick Lane.

London Graphics
16-18 Shelton Street, Covent Garden WC2H 9JL
http://www.londongraphics.co.uk/

Cowling & Wilcox
8-12 Orpheus Street, Camberwell SE5 8RR
http://www.cowlingandwilcox.com/default.aspx
Catering for Art students, they are kind enough to provide a table in the shop for you to cut board yourself after you’ve bought it to make it more easily transportable.

NOTES
The club usually makes an annual bulk purchase of mountboard and backing board, probably the next will be in January? This is from Wessex Pictures via Mike Farley’s good services. As a bulk purchase the board prices are really good and also has the advantage of avoiding paying delivery charges. I bought most of my ‘standard’ mountboard and backing board this way.

Note also that regarding my choice of the Logan 350-1 Elite Cutter. While it’s good value and works (currently £118.50), the cheaper Logan 301-1 Mount Cutter (£94.50) is probably all that I really needed, I’ve never used the 90 degree guide rail that comes with the 350-1, and their vertical cutter doesn’t seem to work as well as the excellent 45 degree bevel cutter that comes with both. There are of course other mountboard cutter manufacturers you could use. Cost was a major factor in my choice of the Logan product. Not brave enough to take Wally's suggested manual route, though a much cheaper option I can't deny. I should also add that the Logan website http://www.logangraphic.com/ provides a number of video-links on using their tools, and it may be worthwhile to look on YouTube for other examples of mounting before you do it for the first time.

A long steel ruler designed for use cutting board is important, as well as a suitably sized double sided cutting sheet to do the board cutting on. The blade sharpness of all the tools is vital of course, you probably need to plan to replace blades often, so buying in bulk might be cheaper in the longer term. One virtue of the Logan system is that all the tools seem to use the one sized blade.

[Mike Farley]

Graham

Thanks for this useful guide, which I am sure those new to producing prints will find useful. I have moved it to the "Techniques and Tutorials" forum where it can be more easily located.

A number of members use Pro-Am and a further reason to do so is that the company supports our annual exhibition through its advertisement in the catalogue.

I will probably initiate orders for this year's bulk mountboard purchase in November, the idea being that members can get supplies in readiness to produce prints for the club's exhibition. There is nothing sacrosanct about the date and if people want supplies there is no reason not to do it earlier. The minimum order for free delivery is £75+VAT at the time of writing, which is approximately the cost of 25 sheets, although there are discounts to be had when ordering more.

[GrahamL]

Hi Mike,

One thought, could the 'Techniques & Tutorials' group be retitled 'Techniques, Tips and Tutorials'?

[Peter Boughton]

It can be renamed, but personally I'd prefer staying with shorter names. (Using the description and/or a sticky thread for further clarification.)

For me this thread comes under the first segment of the description "For guides on how to do something, explanations on how particular results are achieved, etc." but if people do feel either name or description could be improved then it can be done.

[Paul Heester]

Thanks for the info.

From the PAGB assesment at the weekend both myself and Rose came away thinking we need a better understanding of printing in general whether at home or online and what paper to use for certain subjects. Im hoping a members evening in future can shed some light on this dark art

[Mike Farley]

Thanks for the info.

From the PAGB assesment at the weekend both myself and Rose came away thinking we need a better understanding of printing in general whether at home or online and what paper to use for certain subjects. Im hoping a members evening in future can shed some light on this dark art

It does not cover everything, but a while back I did post an article about printer profiling on the forum. The number of views is now well into four figures, so presumably someone is getting something out of it. It is also worth noting that that printer profiling is not much use without monitor calibration, which has its own forum post, a link to which is in the article.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=128

As for paper, I have spent some time looking at things like Dmax and the like, trying to work out which papers will give the best results. As you found out at the weekend, it is not always glossy or lustre finishes that do well and matte has its place. If you look at the stunning results Billg of this parish is continually showing us in the print competitions, you will see that his landscapes are invariably printed on matte paper. He tells me that he uses Hahnemühle cotton rag for his shots and while it is not cheap, I have no doubt of the contribution it is making to the final image.

It's a few years old now, but you might find this Luminous Landscape article of interest.

https://luminous-landscape.com/battle-of-the-barytas/

[Mike Farley]

There are a couple of companies selling photographic paper on-line who do seem to be quite expensive, but another - DPSB - is usually considerably cheaper. I have used the company in the past and the quality of service is by no means diminished by the lower price. Indeed, Canson often uses the company to fulfill its orders.

http://www.dpsb.co.uk/

Neither should we forget Richard Frankfurt, who generously sponsors our exhibition each year. He gives 10% discount on all Permajet papers and sometimes has other offers.

http://www.richardfrankfurt.co.uk/

[Rose]

We consistently heard assessors advise people on Sunday that their prints should be on different paper. In particular, those who brought B&W prints were often told their images would render better blacks on fibre. The thing is, there is definitely a skill in knowing what paper to use. And the assessors were all docking points for images that in their view, were on the wrong paper.

[Paul Heester]

And the assessors were all docking points for images that in their view, were on the wrong paper.

I agree with this sentiment as I heard the same on the day. However, they were also saying that prints are viewed from around 5 foot distance and for no more than 10 seconds each. So would be surprised they could assess image itself and make informed judgement on the paper quality all in that time.

[Mike Farley]

And the assessors were all docking points for images that in their view, were on the wrong paper.

I agree with this sentiment as I heard the same on the day. However, they were also saying that prints are viewed from around 5 foot distance and for no more than 10 seconds each. So would be surprised they could assess image itself and make informed judgement on the paper quality all in that time.

I suspect that it is more a case of seeing what type of paper the image has been printed on, which you can tell quite easily even from five feet, then based on the type of image and experience considering whether it could have been improved. From what I have heard, it seems as though matte paper is preferred for monochrome as it gives deeper blacks and it would be easy to ascertain even with a quick glance.

As an aside, I have just posted a link to a video interview with John Paul Caponigro in which he talks about soft proofing techniques (gonna need the full version of Photoshop* for that, folks, as the functionality is not available in Elements ). Since you can get a preview on screen of how the final image is going to be rendered, you can assess the difference made by paper type. Even if you do not have the paper itself, most manufacturers have generic print profiles which you can use to work out what is likely to be best for a given image.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1641

* Soft proofing is also available in more recent versions of Lightroom, but JPC prefers Photoshop as he finds it easier to make any adjustments required. Simply for assessing the effects of paper type, Lightroom might well prove sufficient.