by
Bob McIntosh
Special
to Digital Media Designer
When
you talk with Michael Gilbert of Limited Editions Maui about color
management, you get the feeling that he thinks photographers who
produce their own prints without using color management are missing
the proverbial boat. Or that trying to produce quality prints
from an original photo without color management is like riding
a horse without a saddle–it can be done, but more often than
not you’re likely to fall on your head. That’s why when
he travels to the four corners of the world, lecturing photographers
on photography, Photoshop and large-format printing, he includes
color management in the curriculum. His system is MonacoEZcolor.
"Anybody who’s really serious about photography makes
color management a priority," he says enthusiastically.
Gilbert,
co-owner of Limited Editions Maui, is a world-renowned photographer
with 20 years of experience under his belt. His credentials
are impressive. He serves on the Board of Directors at the Hui
No'eau Visual Arts Center and as Curator, 19th Century, of the
Canadian Center of Photography. He was the youngest photographer
ever to receive the Craftsman Degree. He also published a children's
book, From a Child's Heart. His love for photography
started at an early age when he picked up his first camera at
the age of five. By the time he was 18, he started lecturing
to aspiring photographers.
In addition
to delivering seminars on photographic fine art print, Gilbert
teams with his partner Randy Hufford, who is president of Maui
Custom Color Lab, to provide a service that delivers the full
spectrum of high impact images for display, presentations and
fine art reproduction. A large part of their business is selling
large-format printers, which requires the occasional visit to
the owners who need their devices set up and a color management
solution implemented. For the workflow involving large-format
printers, the team suggests MonacoPROFILER as the software.
Color
management saves resources and frustration
To
Gilbert, color management is one of the most important elements
of photographic fine art print. It is also one of the most neglected
elements of the trade. When asked the most obvious problems
of a workflow that does not include color management, he quickly
answers, "waste of paper and ink." According to Gilbert,
paper and ink can cost $5 per sheet, which includes time. "When
you factor the time you put into it, it can get quite expensive,"
he explains.
Another
problem is the frustration that accompanies multiple prints.
When Gilbert helps a client install a large printer, what usually
pops up are color management issues. "Once you get into
larger printers," he says, "making large prints takes
a long time. Without color management, you can go through five
or six test. It defeats the purpose of buying that printer because
you could have outsourced it to someone else and avoided the
time and energy of doing the job incorrectly."
Gilbert
finds that Maui Custom Color Lab often needs to guide owners
of large-format printers through the color management process
of calibrating and profiling their printers. But color management
doesn’t end with the printers—scanners and monitors
must also be calibrated and profiled. Says Gilbert, "Once
the photographers have their monitors calibrated at least once
a week, they’ll have greater chance of success in their
printing. We recommend calibrating the monitor once a week because
the monitors drift. Profiling the scanner is equally as important."
Color
management system eliminates headaches
The
message Gilbert delivers to his seminar attendees and customers
is that the benefits of color management are great. A proper
color management system (CMS) eliminates the costs associated
with print, ink and time. "There’s no guesswork involved
because when you see the image on the monitor and you like it,
that’s the way it prints out," says Gilbert. Without
a CMS, producing quality prints is like shooting in the dark;
and at $5 a page, the costs add up.
Color management
is necessary to maintain input and output devices’ profiles
and calibrations. Printers come with their own profiles, ink
and paper, but as soon as the photographer changes the ink or
paper, the profiles for that printer are no good. "We found
fluctuations between ink manufacturers’ cartridges to be
enough to throw off the profiles built into the printers far
enough that people would not produce good prints," states
Gilbert. Profiling and calibration of devices are not talked
about in the industry, so Gilbert gets many e-mails from photographers
complaining about poor prints.
When Limited
Editions Maui, Inc and Maui Custom Color Lab got involved in
the sale of large-format printers Gilbert and Hufford recognized
"you can’t sell someone a printing system without
selling them a color management program."
The growth
of large-format printers
Gilbert
saw the escalation of large-format printer coming years back.
He knew that as soon as the larger printers came down in price
and the quality improved, an estimated 58,000 portrait and wedding
photographers would purchase the large-format printers. He knew
that printers with pigmented ink would be ultimately preferable.
Many printer manufacturers, however, didn’t agree with
him. They thought photographers would use printers made for
home use. Gilbert says Epson, specifically, realized that photographers
would be using printers for more than home use, and that’s
why he promotes their products.
As
Gilbert travels the world, he makes sure to show everyone his
photographs and tell them that they can accomplish the same type
of quality. He tells them that not only can they take nice portraits
and photos of sunsets–they can print and sell them as fine
art and make quite a profit. But it is very difficult to do this
without a color management system—as difficult as riding
a horse without a saddle.
