Topic: Black and White on demand printing

[al]

Hello filmwasters, it's been a while. I'm still wasting film, just very, very slowly at the moment!

I have a question about on demand printing, and here seemed to be a good place to ask.

What is the quality of B&W photos printed with the cheapest paper/black and white ink only option like?  I'll probably go with Lulu, maybe Blurb... any other recommendations?  At this stage I want (a) cheap and (b) easy.

I'm not after the ultimate quality here, I just want to be sure that photos printed like this won't look like they've been through a photocopier on maximum contrast ten times.

The reason is I've got a several hundred old scanned family negatives (all monochrome, 1930's to 1960's)to eventually compile into a book with descriptions etc.  I need a draft copy to mark up with notes by passing it round various family members, and a printing a book seems like it will be more convenient and potentially cheaper for this than a huge stack of prints and a notepad.

Eventually I'll be doing a bit of digital darkroom work (the scans are pretty raw at the moment) to clean things up for the final book which I'll print at higher quality.

[Paul Mitchell]

In my experience the reproduction will be fine i.e. no they won't look like photocopies. The only thing to watch is unwanted colour casts. To alleviate this I tend to digitally tone the image before sending them off, invariably a pseudo selenium or just add a bit of warmth. Don't go for a fully fledged sepia though as this will render then more red than is desirable.

Good luck!

[Francois]

He's actually talking about monochrome only printing. So no color cast there.

I think you might be surprised by the quality. Their machines will ditter the image making it look smoother than a Xerox machine.
Just don't expect as long a tonal range as with four color printing... though you'll probably notice that the other colors are not much use when printing B&W.

[Paul Mitchell]

I think you will find Francois that he is talking about using one of the print on demand publishers (Lulu/Blurb). I have never used LuLu but my experience with Blurb is that B&W images are printed using CMYK colours, irrespective of the fact they're greyscale images.

http://www.blurb.com/guides/color_management/prep_bw_booksmart

Having been connected with the publishing/print industry for over 30 years I can assure you that the only way to achieve predictable and consistently good quality B&W print is to use either duotones, tritones or even quadtones using bespoke fine art printers. The trade off is high production costs.

[jojonas~]

I've recently read that most, if not all, on demand printer only print cmyk because it would not be economic for them to also have bw. sad but I guess that's how it goes.
I would be interested if anyone could find an affordable on demand printer that did true bw though.

'till then, toning seems like a smart idea -thanks paul! just to be sure it doesn't go into any unwanted direction I guess? (like green or purple, I shudder!)

[Francois]

Actually, I think it's Lulu that offers a B&W single color printing option for those who want to print novels and such. Since it's single ink printing on regular book paper (not the glossy stuff we have in photo books), the price is much lower.

[jojonas~]

hmm.... yeah they seem to be offering black or grayscale printing. interesting~~
I've got two books ordered from them that look okay. and I've been interested in printing on more coarse paper.

haha, thanks francois!

edit: found this with some close ups on bw printing of photos in a lulu book.
http://www.zentastic.com/blog/2008/08/30/lulu-print-quality-review/
warning for light body modification going on in that page btw

[Phil Bebbington]

Having been connected with the publishing/print industry for over 30 years I can assure you that the only way to achieve predictable and consistently good quality B&W print is to use either duotones, tritones or even quadtones using bespoke fine art printers. The trade off is high production costs.

I need to pick your brains at some stage, Paul.

[al]

Actually, I think it's Lulu that offers a B&W single color printing option for those who want to print novels and such. Since it's single ink printing on regular book paper (not the glossy stuff we have in photo books), the price is much lower.

Yep, exactly.  I've seen Lulu books printed on "standard grade" paper in colour, but they also offer "publisher grade" paper (cheaper) and black and white print (lots cheaper)

The cheaper paper doesn't make that much difference, and also I'm not sure it's available outside the US, but the ink cost is significant. For the job I had in mind, I reckon it would be about £7 for b&w vs £30 for colour print.  It's only for one or two strictly draft/mark-up copies. I'm becoming convinced it will be good enough for my relatives to identify faces and places!

I'll report back on what the print quality is like!

[jojonas~]

I'll report back on what the print quality is like!

sounds good! tia

[Ed Wenn]

Hi Al: Susan Burnstine recommended http://www.magcloud.com/ as a really cheap and reliable POD source. She's used them for various catalogues and flyers for her shows over the last year or so and has always been happy with the results. I checked the prices and they deffo come in cheaper than Lulu etc. I'd say they're worth checking out.