Fine Art Printing for Photographers is subtitled 'Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers' which pretty neatly sums it up. This fascinating and eminently readable book covers an area rarely covered elsewhere and even more rarely in such a readable format – that of print optimization.

The authors, Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins have put together a richly detailed title that covers everything you need to know to produce high quality prints for exhibition and sale.

Most people have a vague understanding that they generally get better results if they use the manufacturers’ own inks and papers. However, there are far more options available than a quick trip to your local PC shop would suggest.

Product	Fine Art Printing for Photographers
From	www.rockynook.com
	Easily read concise coverage, well illustrated
	Avoids specific recommendations

The next chapter covers inks, papers and the various performance areas they vary with. Here you can find out the details of pigment versus dye based inks, how different paper types such as coatings, texture, weight can affect the results. Just as important are the tips on drying times and correct paper handling afterwards (keep those cotton gloves handy!) Even though the discussion delves in to areas like buffered papers and the nature of different manufacturers ink technologies, it never becomes anything other than crystal clear and often very interesting too.

Chapter 3 covers colour management and whilst there are other books that cover this in some depth, it’s very useful to have it included here. The various colour models, RGB, LAB, CMYK and so on are described before the book moves on to ICC profiles for your camera, monitor, scanners and so on. The authors show the effects of converting from one colour-space to another before moving on to the all important area of calibrating your hardware using hardware and software tools to ensure all devices work together with maximum colour fidelity.

Chapter 4 moves on to workflow. This is one area that despite the high print quality of the book, it was sometimes very difficult to see exactly what a given process was achieving as some of the before and after pictures looked nigh on identical. Needless to say, PhotoShop was used throughout for the examples which explain how to handle high and low lights, balance tone and more.

Next up was a good section on the practicalities of printers – calibration, changing print heads, driver settings and how to handle basic problems. This chapter notes that popular printers for fine art printing include the Epson R800/1800, Epson R2400/Pro4800/7800/9800, HP Photosmart 8450/8750 & Designjet 30/90/130 with advice specific to each model range being provided.

One area that may be new to many is the concept of a third party print package or using a RIP for outputting your images. Various packages for both Windows and Mac OS X are described and discussed with their pros and cons covered. Much of this software should be considered high end though with prices to match – some typically costing $2-5000 each.

Black and white has its own special needs and a chapter is devoted to this area covering the ink options and how to prepare images prior to print, assuming they are initially in colour. Again, there are special software packages to help produce optimized results in this area.

The last section cover presentation of your prints including matting and framing your images plus some final notes on protecting the images to improve the image’s longevity.

A nice glossary and resource list finishes things off.

This has been one of the most interesting and enjoyable books we’ve seen lately. The content is clear and concise with copious illustrations that ensure the subject material is easily understood. The authors include lots of useful snippets along the way, noting people researching problem areas and web sites that may be of interest. The only criticism we could make is that whilst there is a lot of information on what to look for in printers, inks, papers and so on, the authors steer clear of specific recommendations. That aside, this is a superb book for anyone serious about the quality and presentation of their images.