Background

For the past several years, I have been working on a series of digital prints that come out of my background in traditional studio areas. These works combine elements of painting, drawing, and printmaking. Prior to creating the prints digitally, I was generating similar compositions using conventional media such as pencil, pastel, charcoal, etc. Although I had been involved in digital art since the mid-eighties, I was not using the computer to create 2-dimensional work until the mid-nineties. Before that, in addition to painting, I was creating single-channel video, video installations and 3D animation using a variety of technologies.

Process and Technique

I develop the piece much as in working with conventional media. I start with a sketchbook, deciding on a composition then entering the basic forms into the application. From there, I work up an initial underpainting as a background for progressive layers. I layer elements into the work to provide textural planes to play off of and draw upon.

The software I primarily use for painting is Corel's Painter 6.1 for the PowerMac G4. Painter is relatively unique as an application in its emulation of natural media, customizable brushes and generally good response. The latest versions support industry standard layers and a wide variety of file formats. I allocate 120MB or so of ram to the application itself and it is quite stable. While working, I save in the native proprietary RIFF format which maintains separate wet layers so they can still be manipulated by other "liquid media". To export for output, I save as a TIFF. One of the problems that I have with Painter is that is quite slow operating at higher resolutions. At 300 dpi and up, the more involved natural-media brushes really bog down (even on a dual processor G4) and you lose your feedback with the work. The interface is somewhat tedious with a vast array of expandable palettes. It has quite a steep learning curve. The advantage is that the brushes are extremely customizable. The color management in the current version has much to be desired, but like Photoshop, the upcoming version has better support.

I output the work using Adobe Photoshop because of its superior color management. For proofs, I use Lumijet Preservation Series paper and inks www.lumijet.com. They make inks and papers for a variety of printers and output options. They also provide free of charge the ICC profiles (International Color Consortium) that they have developed for using a combination of their inks and papers with certain printers. They have an extensive list of profiles for supported printers with a very good FAQ describing the setup procedures in PDF format. For proofs I use their Preservation Silver Inks with the Soft Suede paper on an Epson 3000 printer. The Soft Suede media provides a great coated surface for the inkjet, but it is a very cool ultra-white which creates a problem in matching other media. These inks have a wider gamut but are less archival than their Platinum Inks.

For input, I work with a Wacom Intuos USB graphics tablet which is very responsive. It has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, 2450 lines per inch of resolution and customizable software to set preferences on a per-application basis. For instance, the stylus attributes can be saved separately for a natural media application like Painter or Studio Artist, a different set for Photoshop or a 3D application which has yet a different style of input. If you have never used a tablet before, you need to. It is far removed from the experience of trying to draw with a mouse. There is, however, a disconnect with between your eye and hand. This is quickly overcome, especially if you have ever had to do a "blind contour" drawing. There is also the issue of the tablet not being to the scale of the screen. It is very helpful to work on as large a monitor as possible (or even two). Even the largest of tablets top out at 12" x 18" (about the size of a small monitor). This really isn't any more trouble than working with a mouse on a pad, since its size doesn't match the area of the monitor. Wacom has developed their PL series LCD tablets which solve both of these problems. You paint directly on the panel surface.

To ensure a controlled color environment, start off with a calibrated monitor. There are a number of ways to do this, some better and more costly than others, but calibration for your specific equipment in its environment is critical. See the Color Profiling section of the Giclée resource for links to third party calibration and profiling solutions. For Mac users with a Color Sync display, the Monitor control panel is the place to start. Select and/or customize the profile for a given monitor. After that, the Adobe Gamma Calibration utility that installs with Photoshop should be followed. This link has the most thorough explanation of the Adobe calibration procedure that I have come across.

Next comes setting up Photoshop's color management. In my case, since I always proof using the same inks, media and printer, once I set this up it needs very little tweaking. Set up Photoshop's color space to ColorMatch RGB. Its more limited gamut is better suited to CMYK print output than the other color spaces. The CMYK that I use is SWOP Coated as the ink set. Other CMYK settings: dot gain 20%, separation type GCR, black generation medium. black ink limit 100%, total ink limit 300% and UCA Amount 0%. The profile setup panel should be set to ColorMatch RGB as the assumed RGB Profile. Lastly, before output I do a Profile-to-Profile Conversion within Photoshop. This procedure converts the ColorMatch RGB working space to the ICC profile that matches your specific combination of inks, paper and printer. Again, these profiles can be created, purchased or are downloads from the ink or media manufacturer. A note about the Profile-to-Profile conversion; depending on the image, the screen data can be dramatically altered from the original. This can be quite alarming. Using this method is an act of faith, in that Photoshop is changing the image data, compensating and sending it to the printer in a manner that considers the relatively limited gamut of the ink and media used. It will print properly. Note: the printer's color management is actually not used in this method.

Since I have been outputting to an Epson 3000 (we just recently received an Epson 7500), the last step is to set up the Epson printer software. After selecting the proper size, media and orientation, make sure the color space is set to ColorMatch RGB. Also check that the printer's color management is turned off. This makes sure that only Photoshop's color management is active, avoiding potential trouble. After selecting the appropriate resolution, under "color adjustment" make sure the mode is set to no color adjustment. After much experimentation, I have had good results with these settings. Since the ICC profile used in this case is made by the ink and media manufacturer for this specific printer, it is accurate and fine for proofs. For more critical output, however a customized profile creating using a software/hardware combination for your specific system will be more accurate.