what would david do?

If you’re wondering who Ansel is then you’re too young. Perhaps you have heard of the name relative to the subject of photography but have had no desire or cause to know who Ansel Adams is or what his impact was on the fine art of photography. Known most for his images depicting the majestic scenery of Yosemite National Park, Ansel Adams work tirelessly in the darkroom (old school) long before todays digital technology was available. The creator of the Zone System and master printer would probably have embraced the digital era, when he determined it was ready for his work.

Now, prints of his work are being digitized and printed electronically under the close supervision of the Adams family and marketed at sub $1000 prices for a really decent sized print. The originals would cost more than 50 times that. I think it is a powerfully strong indication that not only has the dawn of digital fine art printing arrived but the sun is up and its way past breakfast time.

Check out this video for details on how the prints are made.


Ansel Adams grandson shows off new digitally produced prints.

While no specific printer is mentioned, I feel if the interviewer would just shut up, that name would have been dropped. The key to their quality seems to lie in the capture stage, using Hasselblads, and a rather extreme attention to detail. At first I thought they may have been targeting the negatives and scanning those but since the “art” is created in the print stage that wouldn’t make sense as we would not be looking at the interpretation of Mr. Adams himself.

Here are the technical specs of the prints

How do they look? I’ll let you know when I receive my copy of Rose and Driftwood. (dont hold your breath)

If you are looking for a great resource site for deign related materials then you must check out the Designers Toolbox

Its loaded with a ton of useful stuff like:

• Envelope Sizes - with downloadable .eps Die Lines
• DVD/CD Covers and Labels - with downloadable .eps Die Lines
• Binding Styles
• Paper Sizes
• Web Browser Elements - downloadable PSD files
• Web Banner sample sizes
• Fonts on the Web
• Conversion Charts

and much more. Not to mention a turbo charged Lorem Ipsum generator.

Well thats what I thought EMP stood for but it does me no good when I am printing to my Epson 3800. Epson, just like all other printer manufacturers that produce, thankyou very much, ICC profiles for their printer/paper combinations have their own unique way of identifying the profiles.

Rather than trying to figure them out each time you want to try a different paper stock, make a note of the following table. Some of the names are easy to figure out but others, not so much. Thats because from time to time they change the name of the paper.
Im sure there are perfectly sound marketing reasons for that but would it not make more sense to tell us what the profile is on the box of paper itself?

Table courtesy Epson USA.