Digital Photography for Graphic Communications
Chapter 6 • Working with Printers, Web, and eBook Publishers
In this chapter, we assume you took some great photos with a DSLR camera or even your smartphone and you want to print and/or place them on the web or in an eBook. For this purpose, we created five “personas,” or characterizations of users, and what they want from images that are reproduced in print, on the web, and in eBooks (Table 6-1).
| user | what they want | file format | colour mode |
| home inkjet, laser with RGB driver |
colour that matches screen resolution for US Letter paper |
TIFF, JPEG | RGB |
| professional inkjet with CMYK RIP |
colour that matches screen proof that matches litho press resolution for poster, banner |
TIFF, JPEG-Hi | RGB (convert CMYK in RIP) |
| lithography | colour that matches screen and/or proof | TIFF, JPEG-Hi | RGB (convert CMYK in RIP) |
| web | good resolution fast download time |
JPEG, PNG, GIF | RGB |
| eBook | good resolution fast display time small file size |
JPEG, PNG, GIF | RGB |
Image Capture for Print and Web
Advanced-amateur and professional point-and-shoot and DSLR cameras can generally capture camera raw and several quality levels of compressed JPEG photos (e.g., high, medium, low). For capturing high-quality photos for reproduction, the authors recommend capturing in camera raw, which gives the highest resolution and tonal range available from the camera.
Camera raw photos cannot be placed in page layouts for print or on the web. They must first be converted to a standard file format like TIFF, JPEG, or PNG. If you are using the image format JPEG make sure to use the “High Quality” or “Highest Quality” setting. These settings use minimal compression, allowing to keep as much image information as possible. The TIFF file format is usually used for professional image reproduction using print processes like lithography and/or flexography. On the Web or for electronic publishing the JPEG or PNG file format is usually used.
Problems Facing Photos for Reproduction
In discussing how to prepare photos for print, users should keep in mind certain problems or challenges that occur when digital images are translated from RGB to CMYK mode for reproduction on paper and also when RGB images are displayed in eBooks and on the web.
Gamut compression. The first problem is that digital photos can contain more colours than can be reproduced with process-colour inks on paper, which is known as gamut compression (Figure 6-1). This often results in disappointed users: they saw a very colourful photo on-screen and are disappointed it lost some of its colour in print. In some cases, it’s possible to preview the colour, if you have an ICC profile for the printer and a program like Photoshop that can preview photos. Photoshop allows you to set up a proof view in the “View” menu. This allows you to simulate how your image will look in certain print conditions.
Photos in eBooks and on the web may not reproduce with t