Wednesday, April 09, 2008

sofobomolimbo

The layout is mostly done. I kept it simple, a 6x6 underlying grid and then tried to align most of the elements to that in something of a consistent way. I like how it looks for now. The fonts are mostly settled. The text is written. A big chunk of the photos have been taken. Now all I have to do is start editing them, pick them, finish them off and start pulling it all together. One consideration I haven't quite got to grips with yet is when to do colour proofing and adjustment if I plan on doing blurb output. Do I lay out the images on the pages and then proof the entire page, or proof each image individually and then re-embed them. Any thoughts ? I can see that doing the images on their own will lead to more work and probably better results. If I embed them I run the risk of tweaking the colour for layout elements as well, so each page would be subtly or not so subtly different which will probably look bad. But if I do each image on its own, I'll basically have to lay the whole thing out twice. That doesn't seem right, either. (Once for a web ready, web proofed version and one as a print ready, soft proofed version). Must be missing something, I hope. Other than that, I'm feeling a bit blah. Got a cold or similar and can't seem to shake it. Isn't making me want to get out and shoot too much. Still, plenty of time! That and we finally filed our taxes for the year. Woohoo!

3 comments:

Anita Jesse said...

Gordon, when prepping files for Blurb, are you switching to the CMYK mode before making adjustments, or are you doing all the tweaking in RGB mode? I tested one file and it went much faster to switch to CMYK, tweak, and then switch back to RGB. That switch speeded up the process of dealing with out of gamut colors. Of course, I had to live with some changes in color, but, as far as I know, there is no way around some color shifting. At least, I was able to choose the direction of the shift. I am weak in this area, and that's a big part of the motivation for participating in this project: to learn more about outsourced printing.

Unknown said...

Hi Anita,

I did all the proofing in RGB colour spaces and never switched to CMYK. Blurb take their images in sRGB format so that's where you need to end up, but there is a colour profile for the printer they use that can help you adjust out of gamut issues and generally increase colour/ saturation along the way.

I'll try to do a more complete post on the process.

Anita Jesse said...

Gordon, I appreciate the additional information. Thanks to you, I had downloaded the color profile a while back. Now this clarification regarding color mode clears up another issue for me. I had wondered if my "shortcut" was actually a detour. Thanks.

By the way, I hope you will find time to post more on this topic. You always do a splendid job when explaining these things.