On 8/7/03 9:52 am, "Stephen Marsh" wrote:

> Paul Tansley replies to my questions:
> 
>>> I would like to know what criteria BPRP bases for an image which is
>>> 'unsuitable for output' - which is a rather broad term.
>> 
>> So would I. But I don't know, they do, why not ask them?
> 
> I guess I have not been _that_ interested. <g>

Well get interested. You'd probably be one of the people best placed to give
an opinion on the products merits (in terms of sending work to print)
 
>>> I would also like access to an image for human inspection that BPRP
>>> thinks
>>> is unsuitable for repro - and to be given some info on what the intended
>>> repro details are...to see what a human with a little repro experience
>>> thinks.
>> 
>> Hmm, aren't you a human with "a lot of experience" ?
> 
> This is a relative thing. I am just a babe in the woods, compared to some.

That may be so, but the rest of us are therefore merely a twinkle in our
fathers eye  :-)

> It automated much of the input process - delivering a RECO processed file
> with auto endpoints (I did not use auto caste correction) - which was fine
> for the final use of the images, but I did miss not 'driving' the whole
> process. It just meant that more was done in Photoshop, even though the
> Binuscan workflow was supposedly from scanner to film, just lay the original
> down, scan and import direct to layout and output. <g>

Yes, sometimes its good to drive it all yourself, but other times its best
to have a little automation. We don't all have time to drive for pleasure.
I'm all for knowing the ins and outs of the engine before getting in the
car, but in reality, you don't "need" to know that stuff. In the good old
days perhaps you did. Nowadays, if it breaks I call the AA (car rescue). In
car testing terms, traction control always gets turned off, when they swing
the cars round a circuit and make its tail end skid out, but who in their
right mind leaves it off, on the road?

 
> I would hate to judge a product until I have tried it (still waiting for a
> PC demo) - but from prior experience I would probably take any advice from
> software about image quality with some amusement.

I'd probably agree in most cases, but not with this program. Its like Norton
Utilities giving me advice about my hard drive. I wouldn't trust it in the
least (current mac versions on OSX, that is). However DiskWarrior, I'd trust
implicitly.
 
> Print can be a harsh mistress, but print can also be a very forgiving
> process...it is amazing what you can get away with sometimes.

I'm sure it is. But most of us don't get to see that end of things, or if we
do, its only once. When I see my results in a magazine and the pictures has
a lovely green cast, there's not much I can do about it. Was the process not
forgiving enough, or was the operator just crap? All I want to know is what
I think PRP is telling me, which is that the image I am preparing is within
certain recommended guidelines. Sure it could go outside those guidelines
and might be OK, but if I stay within the guidelines then it will almost
certainly be OK. Is that not a good thing? Its like being told to never
shoot with the lens fully opened or fully stopped down, because the quality
is not at its optimum. That's good advice. If one has some experience in the
matter, then one can judge for oneself whether shooting fully open might
actually be worth doing for a given shot, that doesn't make the initial
advice somehow bad.

I still think that you are judging (offering an opinion) the product, from
your own perspective, (if I remember rightly, that is someone who has a lot
of CMYK printing experience), this is not the case for most of us. If PRP is
a little conservative with its opinion of what a printable image is, that's
fine by me. On occasion though, I will also ignore the advice it gives, if
the image is how I like it, and hand it in to the client regardless. It may,
as you say, print just fine, it may not, we'll have to wait and see. As I
said before, some printers seem to be able to produce a nice green cast on
images that were completely neutral, so anything is possible  :-)
 
> I have noted that Davied Biedny is the 'public face' of PRP - I have great
> respect for David, it is a shame that the Photoshop world lost him a few
> years ago, I was a heavy contributor to his Photoshop list at the time
> (PhotoshopCentral). I was pleased but surprised to see that he had surfaced
> at Binuscan...probably a smart strategic move with so many names in the
> Photoshop camp.

Lets hope he can get peoples attention then. The more people discuss PRP,
the more people use it, the more it gets talked about, then the more we will
all discover about it. Is it any good? I still would love to hear an
"experts" opinion. But nobody seems to want to go near it.

Regards Paul
-- 
Paul Tansley
Fashion & Beauty Photography
London
+44 (0) 7973 669584
http://www.paultansley.com

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