How Do You Get Great CMYK Blurb Skin Tones?

[BWColor]

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Ok, I’m cheating because my M11 Monochrom doesn’t have this issue, but the beautiful skin tones from my X2D are washed out when profiled for Blurb and restoration efforts are out of gamut.  Am I missing something, or do I need to print on my Canon Pro 1000 and have the pages bound?  Do you have any suggestions as to how to better my color managed CMYK skin tones when working in Photoshop?

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[BWColor]

Al:

Thanks for the info.

The lack of response tells me that those of you that like your offset press books, aren’t obsessed with color accuracy, which is a preference and not a necessity. 

Can you recommend an inkjet photo printer that offers photo books and offers icc profiles?

 

Edited August 6, 2024 by BWColor

[andybarton]

Blurb books use jpg files.

[rogxwhit]

They have a pdf to book option where you can embed cmyk image files.  A proofing profile is downloadable.  Otherwise, use srgb & they do the conversion in-house. 

[rogxwhit]

Sorry - my last post was in answer to Andy's post immediately previous.

 

On 8/5/2024 at 3:36 PM, BWColor said:

Am I missing something, or do I need to print on my Canon Pro 1000 and have the pages bound?

To me it's odd to be considering Blurb book printing against a hi-res inkjet, because they're different animals altogether & in different worlds.  Maybe it's sensible to relate in the beginning to page size - & Blurb obviously has a maximum.  Within that stricture, their imaging quality is relatively good, but with a loupe or hand lens you can see the dots and it's not quite like a photo print - whether of analogue output, or digital. 

It's difficult to balance everything out.  Image quality should be stunning from your own printer, if you've mastered it.  But there are immediate cultural implications from how a book is bound.  A hand-bound book with the right paper has the richest ambience, but you may consider how the pages open (hinge from the spine).  There may be a trade-off there.

Sometimes in life, there are too many options!  Blurb at least provides a package that's reassuringly 'book-like'. Various print labs offer 'lay-flat' amongst their other book options that to me tend to have a commercial ambience that's not entirely sensitive. 

In the end, the choices are very personal. 

And I haven't answered you question!  ;-(

[BWColor]

36 minutes ago, rogxwhit said:

In the end, the choices are very personal. 

And I haven't answered you question!  ;-(

Yes .. and I don’t think there is an answer.  I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing something, but it seems that the imaging limitations of offset press is pretty much the proverbial brick wall.  Blurb has a great deal of flexibility with regards to size, binding, paper, but not color gamut.

Do these limitations extend to B&W?  I’m guessing that the darkest blacks won’t compete with a modern inkjet print from a printer with multiple blacks.  I just ordered my first color Blurb book and have another shot with my Monochrom that I might send off.

What has really impressed me with both the Hasselblad X2D and M11 Monochrom files is there dynamic range and beyond anything that I’ve experienced with regards to image resolution and tonality.  Cropping is a real alternative to longer lenses and this means a smaller, lighter kit.

[250swb]

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9 hours ago, BWColor said:

Yes .. and I don’t think there is an answer.  I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing something, but it seems that the imaging limitations of offset press is pretty much the proverbial brick wall.  Blurb has a great deal of flexibility with regards to size, binding, paper, but not color gamut.

Do these limitations extend to B&W?  I’m guessing that the darkest blacks won’t compete with a modern inkjet print from a printer with multiple blacks.  I just ordered my first color Blurb book and have another shot with my Monochrom that I might send off.

What has really impressed me with both the Hasselblad X2D and M11 Monochrom files is there dynamic range and beyond anything that I’ve experienced with regards to image resolution and tonality.  Cropping is a real alternative to longer lenses and this means a smaller, lighter kit.

However did people cope in the days when buying an Ansel Adams book did 90% of the work needed for you to understand the work of Ansel Adams? I say 'in the days' but it's still the case that intellectually everybody knows the real thing will be better, but there'll be enough to go on to decide if it's a good photograph or not. I mean in real life you can't force people to look so closely at a photograph they'll appreciate the resolution and tonality. So isn't this just an example of putting the camera on a higher step than the photograph, for which sRGB will be perfectly adequately sufficient, as illustrated in the 'Leica User Forum Book 2023' 

https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11655926-leica-user-forum-book-2023