Better Gray in Print on Demand
How to improve grayscale appearance in toner based, 600 dots per inch printing
Avoid black areas. July 1, 2007
I received a new copy from amazon.com this week and I must say I'm very dissapointed. Not about the printing quality but about a new problem. On dark areas the content of the back side shows through. Click on the image below to see a larger version. What you see showing through are photos from the next page! This problem is visible on all black areas no matter what size. I've chosen the example below because its the worst. Seems like print on demand is always good for new, unexpected surprises.
Lightningsource soon closer to offset than ever. May 8, 2007
Take a look at this OCE page and you'll see why OCE's 600 dpi are superior. The Oce VarioStream 9210 can alter the dot size! They call it Oce GraphicArtsplus (Dot Modulation) and they promise 90 to 100 different greyscales at real 141 lpi!!!
Today I received a reply from Lightningsource USA: "All our Machines are being upgraded with the Dot Modulation. We are testing files and hope to have everthing upgraded by End July."
Is that good news or what? Mind you I'll have to order my book a third time in fall.
Feedback PLEASE. April 7, 2007
The first two reviews of my book at amazon.com
couldn't be more opposed. What do you think? Please drop me a few lines at martin.koch@buildyourguitar.com. I'm interesteted in what you do, what you think of the image quality and of my description of Photoshop steps. Thanks.
Free Publishing with BoD Germany March 30, 2007
If you don't know BoD and want to look over the fence to Europe and also because their website is in German here's a short indroduction:
BoD is similar to Lightningsource but while latter prefer to work with publishers anyone can publish books with BoD. If you want to use print on demand and want to get your (English or German) book(s) into bookshops in Germany, Austria and Switzerland or amazon.de this is a good way to go.
BoD Fun - Free publishing!
Recently BoD changed it's line of offers. With "BoD fun" now everyone can publish his book for free with no setup costs at all but also without an ISBN. The book(s) can be ordered by the author/publisher or at BoD's own Internet bookshop. If you just want a one shot scrap book or wedding book edition for friends and relatives just cancel the project till end of month without any further costs other than the printing and shipping costs for the book(s). Printing costs for 1-24 copies are relatively high but prices get better for 25+, 100+ and 200+ copies. After the first month authors have to pay about 2 Euros per month and book for keeping the book available (Publishers have their own somewhat lower fees.)
BoD Classic
Because the next offer doesn't include a proof copy, publishers and authors are encouraged to use the free "BoD fun" to start their project. If it turns out well "BoD Fun" can be upgraded to "BoD Classic" for about 150 Euros (Somewhat less for publishers). "BoD Classic" includes a free ISBN and Barcode and full bookshop and amazon.de distribution.
Publisher compensation
Similar to Lightningsource authors or publishers determine the book price and receive a publisher compensation.
Individual color pages and very good grayscale quality
One especiality of BoD is that you can mix black&white and color pages freely. You just pay a higher printing price for the actual number of color pages for the rest you pay black&white printing costs (I wished Lightningsource would offer this!) This way a 200 page book with let's say 10 color pages is only slightly more expensive.
I haven't seen results of Lightningsource's new OCE presses yet but BoD's halftone quality used to be much better.
BoD Germany Website: www.bod.de
Calculator to play with:
BoD fuer Autoren (authors) > Preiskalkulator
BoD fuer Verlage (Publishers) > Preiskalkulator
The good bad old IBMs got completely replaced*. March 23, 2007
According to Aaron Shepard all black and white books printed in the USA are already produced on the new presses. His copy of my book was printed on an OCE and he told me that the photo quality is very good and that LSI will improve the quality further within the next weeks. I'll have to order my book again at amazon.com by end of April to make shure this improvement is included.
I'm planning to update my book but in the mean time just imagine a picture of a OCE VarioStream 9210 on page 8. The principles and peparation steps explained in my book still apply as the new machines still print at 600 dpi.
* At least in the USA. LSI in the UK will upgrade next year.
White paper stock for smaller trim sizes March 22, 2007
Due to popular demand LSI now offers white paper stock for smaller trim sizes.
Mezzotint with Photoshop. March 15, 2007
This tutorial at PlanetPhotoshop.com shows how to do a pretty nice Mezzotint effect.
Book update needed pretty soon. January 29, 2007
Good news: According to a press release several
Océ VarioStream® 9210
printing presses will be available in the UK and USA very soon. I'm anxious to see the halftone quality of these machines. According to the data sheet (See PDF) it's still 600 x 600 dpi but I'm confident it will be superior to IBMs Infoprint. Hurray!
Copy printed in the US arrived today. November 20, 2006
I'm very pleased about the grayscale quality. It is far better than in my proof copy. The UK print looks a bit washed-out compared to the US print which is darker and very sharp. The 2nd proof copy from the UK still had the stripes mentioned on page 19 but they are not visible in the US copy. Seems I had luck with this particular US production machine on that particular day.
Very first book order. October 31, 2006
I just ordered my own book at amazon.com. Why? Because so far I've only seen a copy made in the UK. There shouldn't be any difference but just to be sure I need to see a copy manufactured in the US.
The revision cost by the way was 35 Pounds - the minimum half-an-hour charge. I'm relieved.
Proof accepted. October 19, 2006
The second proof copy arrived today and I already accepted the proof. It is manufactured very well, all cuts are perfectly square. The prescreened images look as good as the ones screened by the printer now. There's no sign of any dot gain. I'm quite pleased with the result and I'm looking forward to find my book at amazon.com.
AAAAAARGHH! October 11, 2006
I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for my 2nd. proof copy. I've sent emails asking where it is. No reply. Today I notice that a proof copy order is awaiting submission. I'm pretty sure I ordered a second proof copy when I submitted the revision. Looks like that didn't work. Long wait for nothing.
Second proof has been generated. September 22, 2006
I uploaded a revision yesterday. My only complaint is that after hitting "Upload" there is no feedback at all. The webpage remains unchanged until the entire file has been uploaded. I clicked several times on the upload button and tried to hear some harddisk activity but without success. I then decided to trust the whole process literally blind and went away. When I returned the page had changed and showed a successful upload.
There's also another uncertainity: the costs of this revision. It is 60 Pounds per hour with a 30 minutes minimum. I don't expect to pay more than 30 Pounds but I have never rejected a proof so far. Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to load a PDF, run some inspection software (if at all) and convert it to the format used by Lightning Source but to be prepared I'm sceptical.
Proof is not acceptable. September 18, 2006
I was able to take a look at the proof copy yesterday. The top cut is very bad as you can see in the picture above. I would request a new proof for free but there are other issues that require some changes by me and therefore a revision:
- Prescreened uniform gray areas don't work and appear with stripes.
- Prescreened photos have no contrast. Limiting the tonal range was a bad idea.
Proof copy arrived. September 13, 2006
I'm away from home but was told on the phone that the proof copy finally arrived today.
Proof copy shipped. September 5, 2006
"Proof out" doesn't seem to indicate that the proof copy was actually shipped. According to an email notification it wasn't shipped until today. When I click the tracking link I get the message shown above, but as far as I remember Lightning Source UK tracking never worked.
Proof Out. August 31, 2006
Submission. August 29, 2006
I uploaded the PDF files at the Lightning Source website. Despite the 25MB size it worked very well and took app. 10 minutes.
