Our Going Digital series was first published in Photo District News Magazine starting in 1995 and ending in 1997. It was subsequently published in Japan's "I" Magazine. The series discussed our experiences as we lived through the process of incorporating digital technology into our studio.

"Going Digital, part 1" discusses our reasons for bringing digital imaging in-house, giving an overview of the market and client expectations.

In "Going Digital, part 2" we compare digital and photographic processes, explaining the minimum technological requirements to gain acceptable quality for press.

"Going Digital, part 3" explains calibration and pre-press and includes specific directions to calibrate your monitor to your output device and "Going Digital, part 4" tallys up the pluses and minuses of the entire process.

The following story is the beginning of a frank, first-person account of one still-life studio's adoption of digital tools. In part one, the author explains the reasons why she and her partner decided it was time to act. In upcoming parts, we'll follow Herrmann and her partner as they move further into the computerization process, exploring such topics as how to evaluate and research equipment, setting up and calibration and how to work with new tools and old clients.

Let me start this story by sharing the fact that six weeks before I started writing this article, I knew absolutely nothing about how digital imaging works or how our studio could use digital technology. Beyond owning an ancient Mac Classic used for bookkeeping and word processing, our studio had no experience with computers. Now we've decided to digitize, so I've been researching and learning everything I can about computers and digital imaging. It has been an overwhelming and very stressful process, but now I feel tremendously excited about using new technology to offer more to our clients.

It seems to me that many articles have been written by or about studios that have established a market for doing style-based digital imaging, but few have addressed incorporating new technologies into an existing client base and a business like ours. So I wanted to share with you my experience and the information I gathered since it may be useful to your business as well.

First let me tell you about our studio. My partner, Michael Starke, and I run a fairly typical, moderately sized commercial still-life studio in Columbia, Maryland. We've been in business for almost seven years. We began by doing straightforward shots for catalogues and brochures. Last year, we started marketing Herrmann/Starke Photography which produces creative still life and product shots for advertising. While we have just started to receive a little bit of national attention--Herrmann/Starke advertised in American Showcase's Klik!  for the first time and they chose one of our images for the back cover of the book--we still rely heavily on our local market in the Baltimore/Washington corridor to provide us with enough collateral work to keep us in business.

Our photographs wind up in a wide range of media, including magazine and newspaper ads, catalogues, brochures and point-of-purchase displays. We shoot mostly 4"x5" or 6x7cm transparency film using a view camera.

We began thinking about going digital because, quite frankly, we had to. About a year ago, we realized that we were starting to lose jobs to studios that had already digitized. We discovered this by asking clients about jobs we had bid on but didn't get. When we asked what happened, they said, "So and so can provide us with digital images, so we decided to go with them." We also knew that digital studios were pitching hard to some of our best clients--including one of our regulars who produces 650 pages a year.

People who produce such catalogues are under tremendous pressure to save both time and money. Even savings of pennies per image can add up quickly when you're talking about catalogues with hundreds or even thousands of photographs. If they can have their photos digitized the same day of a shoot, then they can start working on final layouts right away, which reduces design time and saves them money. Even smaller catalogue clients and design studios that do brochures and annual reports are becoming increasingly attracted to the convenience of receiving digitized images from one location rather than having to get film from us and scans from someone else. Unfortunately, that one location isn't necessarily an independent photo studio.

While some of our new digital competition is coming from photo studios, there are also an increasing number of labs, pre-press houses and service bureaus investing in digital cameras and opening in-house photo studios. Right now, these people are mainly doing work for huge accounts like Safeway, but they are sending sales reps to our town to pitch all the graphic designers on their services. They're clearly going after the brochure and collateral work that is very important to our studio's survival.

The convenience of one-stop shopping these places offer is tough to beat. We can hope to compete with them by offering a more creative vision, better customer service and possibly more competitive pricing, but only if we've mastered the technology. As these sales people pitch our clients on digital service, they are also educating our clients on digital imaging--so we feel it won't be long before our clients start demanding those services from us,too.

For now, we're looking primarily at serving the needs of our catalogue and brochure-type clients. But digital imaging has many applications for our high-end advertising clients as well. As things work now, some of our ad clients take the images we produce and then run them over to a service bureau in one city for scans, then to another location for retouching and to yet another for layout and separations. At some point, they're not going to want to do all that. The high-end ad clients may not be as budget conscious as the catalogue clients, but they are concerned about convenience, service and reliability. They're all overworked and under a lot of pressure, so it's important to offer them as much convenience, flexibility and creativity as possible. Digital imaging will be one way to do that.

We now recognize that if we fail to bring digital technology into our studio soon, our clients will leave us for another studio that has. So for us, digital imaging is no longer an exotic tool that some people use to retouch images or to produce fancy special effects. Digital images are here to stay and we know we must start dealing with them now if we want to stay in business.

Even though most of our clients are not dealing with digital images at this moment, we believe we must start investigating equipment right away. Over the past several months, we've spoken to many people about this subject and nearly everyone has warnedus about the time committment involved in learning to use technology effectively. Anyone can play with a computer for a few hours and figure out how to do some fun-looking stuff, but when you're working under a deadline and within a budget, you can't afford to make mistakes and you need to know as many shortcuts as possible to minimize the time you spend on any one project.

Like most of you, we already work well over 40 hours every week just to keep up with our workload, so there's a limit to how much time we can devote to learning digital imaging. These technologies have a steep learning curve, and more than one person has told us that if we start working with the software and experimenting with the pre-press end now, we can hope to become fully proficient within a year. By then, client demand for digital imaging will be even higher than it is now.

Once we came to that realization, it was clear that we had to do something. But the question was, what? We talked about it for months, considering how we could raise the money to make this important investment. The answer came in the mail: in the form of an offer from a local bank for a non-guaranteed loan. It was a four-year loan with a fixed interest rate and low monthly payments--and it was as easy to get as filling out a credit card application. The amount was about 15% of our annual billings.

We applied for the loan and, since we have a strong credit rating, we got it easily. So we thought, "here's some money, let's see what we can buy with it." Still, once we recognized that it was none too soon to bring digital imaging into our studio, we were still faced with two daunting problems: 1)We were at a total loss as to how we could decide what to buy, and 2) how could this investment pay off? Up until this point, we had been like most other commercial photographers in our position--while we had been keeping an eye on the digital developments over the past several years, we had no real experience with the process.

To help us see what equipment would be most useful to our business, we decided to do a bit more research on what our clients wanted. We asked them how they would feel about letting a photographer scan their film instead of getting drum scans from a pre-press house or service bureau, what they thought about digital cameras as opposed to having film scanned and what their biggest concerns about pre-press were. We questioned them on archiving practices and how soon they thought their companies would want to start getting digital services from a photographer.

We got some interesting answers. We found that many of our clients felt uncomfortable about digital cameras at this point because they work with too many people whose computers can't handle digital image files (except for position only). While they ultimately needed thier photographs digitized, they wanted a piece of film in their files as a backup. Some clients liked the decreased turnaround time that digital cameras offer. Others didn't want a decreased turnaround time as they use that time to iron out design issues. They all felt, however, that eventually their feelings about digital cameras would change and that digital photography would ultimately become the industry standard.

We agree and feel that increasing experience with the digital process will change their minds. The more digital images that come into their world, the more they'll come to feel safe with them. They don't want to make mistakes on their print runs--the costs are very high. That's understandable. Eventually, however, they'll laugh at how they're doing things now, just as designers now laugh at the X-acto knives and rubber cement that were common tools not so long ago.

It seems pretty clear that the digitization of imaging will happen in the same way as it happened with design. We know two designers who are still not computer literate--and they're having a really hard time surviving. It took desktop publishing about ten years to be fully adopted; we think imaging will only take about five years, because people are now so much more familiar with computers in general. Their resistance will be worn down much faster because they use computers in so many aspects of their lives.

Also, most of the people we work with at our clients are employees--and their bosses are telling them to shave ten percent off production costs. They don't want to go digital and they're not happy about having to learn so many new things, but they're being pressured from above. Once someone does something digitally and it turns out well, then people say "Shoot, I should've been doing this years ago," But before that point, there's a lot of fear, fueled by horror stories.

And that brings us to price: All the clients we spoke to wanted top quality for the least amount of money. They all agreed that it shouldn't cost more to have their photographer provide them with digitized images than it cost for them to get film from a photographer and scans from someone else. In fact, most expected to pay less! This equipment costs big bucks but clearly nobody wants to foot the bill.

One of the consultants I spoke to said you shouldn't buy anything that won't be profitable within a year because that's about the timespan for equipment to become "obsolete." But we don't really agree with that, because "obsolete" is too strong a word--just because they come out with a new model that's faster doesn't mean that my model is completely useless. So we're trying to break even in a year and start to make money in the second.

There's only one way to do that, and it's not by charging the same thing for a digitized image as what we're now charging for film. The scanning fee has to be incorporated in there--but it can't be higher than what clients arenow paying a service bureau. In our area, drum scans cost somewhere around $40 each, depending on final reproduction size, with hefty discounts for high volume accounts. That means we'll be earning back our investment at the rate of $40 per shot or less. That's not a lot of money per shot but with enough volume we should be able to reach our amortization as long as we buy only the right equipment for our clients' needs.

Providing clients with digitized images has other costs as well. When photographers digitize their images, they become responsible for the quality of the final printed piece. Issues such as sharpness, color calibration and contrast control must be resolved by the photographer instead of the prepress people. That's a pretty big responsibility and it's very difficult to find ways of billing clients for the time it takes to set those parameters correctly.

The more we learned, the more we realized that the economics of going digital are not pretty. We did investigate some other possibilities of adding new income streams for digital services, such as offering design services, adding more prepress equipment or operating more like a service bureau. All of those possiblities have their own inherent problems, including cost, training and marketing. Perhaps most importantly, they all involve a major shift in the focus of our company away from what we know best, what we do best and what we love best: photography.

Getting into digital imaging does require both time and money. From the outside, it may even seem like more trouble than it's worth. For us, though, getting into digital imaging means offering our clients a higher level of service, stronger images and significant time savings. Whether a client needs a hundred straight forward catalogue shots or a single knock-'em-dead product shot for an advertising campaign, digital technology will help our studio give our clients the images they need, when and how they need them.

Please note: the above article is © Judy Herrmann, 1995. It may be printed for easier reading but may not be distributed or sold without permission

In the first installment of this series, I talked about my studio's decision to bring digital technology into our work flow. We really agonized over that decision, taking into account our clients' real world needs and wants, the services our competitors offer and the economics of the situation. Even so, once we made the commitment to go digital, we found ourselves in an even more agonizing situation...figuring out what to buy!

I decided to start by trying to get an overview of how the digital process worked. After all, how could we decide what we needed without understanding how it all worked together? We thought it would be easy--one or two phone calls to the right expert and we'd be on our way. No such luck! It took me about three weeks and an unbelievable number of hours on the phone with manufacturers, computer consultants, engineers, scientists, technical support people, service bureaus and designers just to get enough information to start researching what we would need to learn and to buy.

It should not have taken that much time or energy, but we encountered a tremendous amount of misinformation, opinion passed off as fact and outright untruths out there. Now, don't get me wrong, we did talk with a number of helpful and knowledgeable people who were very generous with both time and information. The problem is that you can't always tell who knows their stuff and who doesn't. After my first week of phone calls, I decided on a policy of never believing anything until it was confirmed by at least two other sources--that decision saved me a lot of aggravation.

I could fill the rest of this article with anecdotes about the ridiculous things that people have said to me about digital imaging, but I'll limit myself to just one story. A technical representative from one of the leading imaging software companies insisted that no one, but no one, was currently using digital cameras except maybe a few photojournalists who have to get low-resolution black & white images on the wires with no time to lose. He was convinced that the quality of digital cameras was so low that no one could possibly use them for anything other than newsprint reproduction. Now, I've not only seen some beautiful direct digital reproductions but I know of at least three companies within 30 miles of our studio that use digital cameras routinely for all kinds of projects. This same guy gave me other information as well, some of which was right on the mark.

I now know that just because people work for a well respected company or have expertise in one aspect of digital imaging, that doesn't mean that they necessarily know what they're talking about. In my phone calls, I found that very few people have a complete understanding of how the entire process works and even fewer are comfortable admitting that they don't know something. Most of the people that we spoke wiht said everything with such conviction that it really shocked us to see how much inaccurate information they gave us.

Still, we did get a lot of excellent information from a wide variety of sources--we talked to photographers, designers, consultants, authors, plus teachers and scientists in imaging fields. My father is a Ph.D. in physics who does outer space imaging research for Lockheed. His work involves the science of imaging and, between him and his colleagues, we've gotten a clear understanding of the theories and principles behind most desktop imaging tools. That knowledge enabled us to analyze product data sheets and ask salespeople the right questions. (See sidebar, "Understanding The Dynamic Range of Input Devices--Photographically,")

This research phase also involved what was for us the most vital step in the process: determining exactly what we wanted to be able to do with the stuff once we owned it. We had to really analyze our goals as well as our clients' needs to make sure we were getting the right equipment. We found that it was far too easy to get sidetracked by bells and whistles that would not only add unnecessary expense but would even slow our workflow. Throughout the process, as we made each decision, we had to go back to two primary questions; what are we really trying to do and is this the ideal machine for that application?

Our primary immediate goal was to save our clients the hassle of having to get film from us and a scan from someone else. Not only would that make our clients' lives easier, but as photographers, we know exactly how our images should look when reproduced. Controlling that process would let us give our clients better images with the added convenience of one-stop shopping.

Longer term goals included expanding the range of services we could offer our clients by incorporating digital manipulation into our "style-based" imagery for our advertising clients, working with the Internet and possibly doing some multimedia work down the road. We determined that our primary career goals still revolved around remaining commercial artists--we did not want to be come technicians running a service bureau or some kind of production house. Still, our primary, overriding goal would always be to use this technology to better serve our clients by offering them images that looked great, reproduced beautifully and were convenient to obtain.

To achieve these goals we would need to start with some type of input device, a computer with a good monitor, some photo manipulation software and a very deep understanding of prepress issues and of how to set up a digital file for superb reproduction.

The first thing we set out to buy was a computer. Through our research, we knew that almost all of the agencies and design studios that we work with (as well as most of the printers and film output houses), use Apple computers. Unfortunately, virtually all of our client direct contacts have PCs (some with Windows, some without.) We realized then, that no matter which platform we chose, we would need to find some kind of translator program that would allow us to work with the other.

Other issues that affected our choice of computer included speed and expandibility. Since we knew that digital files of photographs tend to be pretty large, we would want to invest in the fastes computer available. We knew from talking with designers who used computers that waiting for the computer to process large files can really add up, especially when you're working on a deadline. Expandability was important because we knew that as technology changed, so would our needs and goals. We therefore wanted the flexibility to add more RAM or specialized boards that would speed up the computer's functions as needed.

Coincidentally, at the time that we were making this decision, Apple had just released its PowerMac line of computers. The operating system that came with the PowerMacs offered a built-in translator called PC Exchange that allowed the computer to read and write DOS formatted files as easily as Apple files. The PowerMac also offered the Power PC processor, which was the fastest chip available at that time. Since Apple was really pushing the PowerMacs and had priced them to sell, the PowerMac 8100 with a one gigabyte (1000 mb) hard drive became our ideal choice.

Once we had chosen a computer, we had to find the right monitor for our needs. We knew from talking with friends and colleagues that despite the expense, we didn't want to skimp on monitor space. One solution that we've seen to the monitor real estate issue is the use of two monitors--one for windows and palettes, and the other for the image. The mouse just moves back and forth between the two monitors as though they were one. We decided to go ahead and start with a 20" monitor with the understanding that as long as we made sure that the two monitors had the same color balance, we could always add a second palettes monitor later.

Before choosing a monitor, we asked a lot of people about the brands they owned, what they liked or disliked, how durable their monitors were, how well the manufacturer treated them when they had problems and if they would buy the same monitor again. We called many manufacturers to try to get a sense of their attitude towards their customers and to get feedback on the color controls available on the monitors and how they would affect color calibration (more on color in part three).

Along the way, we learned that the monitor size is partially determined by the amount of Video RAM (VRAM) that the computer supports. One mb of VRAM supports up to a 13"monitor with millions of colors. Two mbs will drive up to 16" but you need 4 mbs for a 19", 20" or 21" monitor. If your computer can't hold 4 mbs and you want a larger monitor, you have to buy a video accelerator board which costs considerably more that extra VRAM.

Either way, we felt that it was vital that the monitor display millions of colors. Even though a printing press can only reproduce a few thousand colors, images on monitors get posterized (you can see the color/tonal transitions as jumps) when the monitor displays fewer colors.

Our 8100 came with 2 mbs of VRAM that were upgradeable to 4 mbs. We spent $144 on 2 additional megabytes of VRAM that we installed ourselves and were able to run a 20" monitor with millions of colors. Once we had our computer and monitor set up, we started researching storage and transfer devices. Even with a one-gigabyte hard drive, we knew that we would need some kind of "overflow" storage system as well as a method for backing up files.

For deciding on transfer drives and media, we had to go back to our client interview notes. We found that in our area, Syquest cartridges remain the most widely used storage and transfer device. Despite being a fairly archaic technology and expensive to boot, Syquest is so universal in our region that we simply could not afford not to buy one. We found that nearly everyone in our area had either a 44 mb or 88 mb Syquest drive so we opted for a "88C" drive that reads and writes both 44 mb and 88 mb cartridges. Other manufacturers certainly do offer products that are as fast, less expensive and more durable but Syquest clearly has the corner on our market. Happily, Syquest has recently started bowing to the pressure of competitors' drives and their prices have started to come down.

We also investigated other options that we could use for in-house archiving. We found there are a wide range of products offering different features. Some are fast to store information but slow to retrieve it; others are the reverse. Some take different sized recording media, others lock you into one size only. Some allow you to rewrite over original data, others record the information permanently. All of these characteristics are advantages or disadvantages depending on how you plan to use your stored images.

For our studio, the ideal drive would allow for fast retrieval and high permanance. Since we're often reusing images that we've stored, we need to be able to call them up quickly and we don't want to worry about the information degenerating. Rewriting over originals isn't really important to us as we usually want to keep the originals as well as the revisions. We don't care much about how long it takes to stor the information as our gigabyte hard drive allows us to keep things for awhile before off-loading. These data transfers usually occur during downtime (ie overnight). But, since we don't want to have to attend to the storage process, we do want a medium that stores fairly large quantities of information on each removable cartridge/tape/CD so that we don't have to worry about the medium filling up mid-way through.

Ironically enough, it was our research into storage devices that determined the input device that our studio chose. All existing storage devices at this time are notoriously unreliable--they jam, they break, they lose data, they corrupt your files. The CD comes the closest to stable permanance, but even the CD is not infallable. Our catalogue clients reuse our images repeatedly. They cannot afford to pay us to reshoot photographs just because their storage system failed. One of our catalogue clients recently lost the text for an entire 300 page catalogue due to corrupted optical disks. Text can be re-entered, but imagine the cost if they had lost all of their photographs! These clients still want a piece of film as a back-up.

Our studio also shoots products for advertising and editorial usage in which we often mix light sources using multiple exposures with strobes, continuously burning lights, light painting and selective diffusion. The exposure limitations of currently available digital cameras simply don't allow for that kind of creative lighting.

And, while we're absolutely enthusiastic about the efficiencies that digital imaging brings, our clients and their clients still work with too many people that can't use a digital file. We've encountered a number of situations in which a client has needed a digitized version of the image to go to press and a film version to show to their client.

These issues led our studio to opt for a Leafscan 45. This high resolution, reproduction quality film scanner exceeded all of the requirements listed in the sidebar. And, having owned it now for almost a year, I would pit it against a high end drum scanner any day. We are certain that as the technology inevitably improves, we will ultimately purchase a high end digital camera, but in the meantime, our scanner has enabled us to learn everything we could ever need to know about calibration and prepress issues. It has also given us a jump start on learning how to use digitized images in creative and innovative ways. This way, at the point where we're ready for a digital camera, the only learning curve we'll face will be mastering the camera itself.

Once we had our system up and running, we faced what turned out to be the most difficult part of the whole process--dealing with color calibration and prepress issues. Becoming digital means that we become responsible for the quality of the final image as it appears on press. That's a huge responsibility and we must learn how to handle it intelligently. At this point, my partner and I have spent almost a year studying color and pre-press and we're delighted to report that all of our images for which we've handled the prepress ourselves have reproduced as beautifully and more accurately than those of our images that have been handled by outside vendors. Understanding calibration and prepress issues can be intimidating but the rewards of conquering them are well worth the trouble.

Please note: the above article is © Judy Herrmann, 1995. It may be printed for easier reading but may not be distributed or sold without permission

Once our studio made the decision to go digital, we dove in headfirst. It was a very exciting time, but also very stressful and demanding. After hours of research and tough decision making, we finally got our system up and running back in September of 1994. It was then that we found ourselves faced with the process of mastering color calibration and pre-press issues.

It quickly became obvious to us that owning digital equipment was useless unless we could guarantee that the digital images we produced on screen would look just as beautiful on press. Anyone can play around with Photoshop or any other photo manipulation software and come up with some pretty interesting looking stuff, but it takes real know-how to make those images reproduce well.

We were especially concerned as we knew a number of designers who had had bad experiences in which their concepts looked just beautiful on their monitors and then turned out way too dark or too light when they were proofed or printed. Mistakes of that nature can get very costly very fast. not just in terms of reproofing and reprinting costs but also in terms of damaged client relationships.

Virtually all of our clients are overworked and under tremendous pressure. For them, buying photography isn't just about getting cool looking shots, it's about getting the right image for the project on time, within budget and with as little hassle and stress as possible. They don't want to have to explain problems to an angry client or boss and they certainly don't want to hear lame excuses from a photographer.

Our studio has always believed in putting our clients first in all things. We have always taken very good care of our clients and as a result, they have come back to us again and again. We were not willing to risk the reputation that we've built over the past 8 years by trying to palm off digital services that we did not thoroughly understand and control. We realized that we could not even begin to offer such services until we had a thorough mastery of calibration and pre-press.

Once we had recognized the importance of controlling calibration and pre-press issues, we went back to the phones to do some research. We met with tremendous resistance from most of the service bureaus and printing houses that we spoke with. We could tell that they viewed us as potential competition rather than potential clients and that they were not interested in sharing information with us.

We then started trying to read up on pre-press and calibration but we found little useful information in books. At that time, few of the books available on the subject were intended for users like us. Most of the books we read either dealt with overwhelmingly complex high end systems with confusing software and complicated hardware or they were aimed at the small time desktop publisher who wouldn't be using high end printing. We found some helpful information in magazines like Photo District News, Publishing and Production Executive and Graphic Arts Monthly (see resource list), but few of those articles went into sufficient detail to allow us to actually produce images effectively. Luckily, in recent months, a number of excellent books, aimed specifically at design and photography professionals, have hit the stands so that's no longer as much of an obstacle.

We did read everything that we could get our hands on, but we found that we really had to rely on people to get the most up-to-date and helpful information. Luckily, through our earlier research into systems and equipment, we had heard about a couple of consultants that were highly respected, nationally recognized speakers who just happen to live in Maryland. While they both charge in the neighborhood of $100.00 per hour, they were well worth every cent and we were amazed and impressed by the amount of information that each one of them packed into each hour.

We decided to address calibration first as we figured that there wasn't much point in messing around with pre-press until we got our system in line, so we scheduled a meeting with Sandy Bozek of Annapolis. A pre-press and calibration expert, Sandy was able to give us a thorough appreciation and insight into the theories and concepts behind calibration. We met with Sandy for a grand total of one hour that first time and when we left, not only had she answered all of our questions, but she had even addressed issues that we hadn't realized were of concern to us.

In addition to explaining calibration itself, Sandy gave us an overview of the pre-press process and an understanding of where our responsibilities began and ended. She taught us that by digitizing our images we were creating instruction sets that would be interpreted by an image-setter, the device that creates the actual film separations. The instruction sets we created would tell the image-setter where each dot should go and how dense each dot should be. As long as the people who were providing the film out-put of our digitized images kept tight controls over their image-setters so that when they were instructed to out-put a 10% dot, they in fact produced a 10% dot and not a 12% or 8% dot, then our files would reproduce exactly as we had set them up.

That meant that if we could somehow make sure that we were setting up the file with the right dot densities, we wouldn't have to worry about what would happen after the file left our studio--for as long as the film out-put looked good, the Matchprint would look good and then it would be up to the printer to match the Matchprint. For us, then calibration became both the process of getting our monitor display to look as similar to the final printed piece as possible so that we could use our display to judge whether or not we were going to like the finished piece and learning enough about working with CMYK numbers to ensure that the image really would print accurately.

Unfortunately, a lot of things get in the way of being able to truly calibrate a display. The monitor shoots light out while a printed piece reflects light, the monitor has a greater range of color and contrast than a printed piece has and the monitor is RGB while a printed piece is CMYK. At first this sounded like trouble, but then we realized that our training in photography had already taught us how to overcome problems like those.

As photographers, we've had the experience of setting up lights and pre-visualizing how those lights will look on film; we've viewed thousands of Polaroids and derived from the information they provide what adjustments we would need to make so that our film would turn out exactly how we wanted it; and we've examined transparencies on light tables and extrapolated how they would reproduce as reflective printed pieces. Basically, we have spent years developing skills that enable us to use inaccurate previewing tools to deduce how the next step of the process would turn out. We realized that those same skills would work in the context of digital imaging as effectively as they work in conventional photography.

Before meeting with Sandy, we had read up on all kinds of programs and devices that are supposed to calibrate your monitor for you. We researched look-up tables, suction cups that read your monitor, spectrographic devices that can measure where any color falls on the spectrum and calculate a CMYK build for that color, color management systems, you name it. We had even spent some money on calibration software and hardware which we found virtually useless.

Yet, once we had gotten a thorough understanding of what calibration really meant, and how it affected what we were trying to do, we realized that if the real goal of calibration is to make the monitor look like the final printed piece, we should be able to simply do just that. So that's what we did...

Our first step was to start off with a totally daylight controlled environment. Our computer room has no windows and a door that shuts (as photographers, we're used to the darkroom concept, so this wasn't too tough). We replaced all of the bulbs in the ceiling fixtures with daylight balanced fluorescent bulbs (see resource list for details). Additionally, because we just happen to prefer reflected light over direct overhead light, we bought an inexpensive garage workbench type fluorescent fixture that we hung upside down to bounce light off the ceiling. Truthfully, we use the bounced light far more than the overhead lights, but as I said, that's personal preference.

Next, we got ourselves a daylight balanced viewing set up. We started off with a pre-press quality daylight balanced light table (which, like most of you, we already owned). Then, for viewing reflective art, we built a daylight viewing booth (you can buy them but they can be quite pricey). In his book, Designer Photoshop , Rob Day gives a diagram of a viewing booth made out of foam core board and daylight fluorescent bulbs, that works just fine.

Creating and working in a daylight balanced controlled lighting set up is undeniably a pain, but it's also absolutely necessary. All print professionals view everything under controlled daylight conditions. And they will not hesitate to give you a hard time if you don't. The only way we can work effectively with them is to always compare images within identical lighting environments. As much as we would prefer to work in a pretty, colorful place with windows and views, we recognized that as imaging professionals, we had to be willing to keep our computers in a controlled environment.

Once we got the daylight room set up, we shot a transparency that contained a Kodak 18% Grey Card, a Kodak Grey Scale strip and a Kodak Color Control Patch strip. Since we do our own color printing in-house, we're used to using those tools to help us control color in the darkroom. If we had been people photographers, we would have also included some flesh tones. The main thing is that these were subjects that we were used to viewing and with which we would be able to identify color casts or crossovers easily.

We took that transparency to the most well respected pre-press house in the area and we asked them to scan the film for us. We had them save the scan to disk (syquest) and also produce a Matchprint from the scan. Ironically, they tried to color correct our film with the result that their Matchprint didn't look like our original film at all. That didn't matter, though, as what we really needed was the scan from which the Matchprint had been made.

Once we got our scan and Matchprint back, we set the Matchprint up on our reflective viewing booth and opened the scan in Photoshop . We used the "Gamma" controls that come with Photoshop to adjust our monitor's brightness, contrast and luminosity until the scan on our monitor looked as much like the Matchprint as we could get it. By matching our monitor to a Matchprint, we essentially calibrated it to the same control that all printers try to match.

Our calibration system worked really well, but there were still some minor imperfections. We noticed that no matter what we did, our mid-tones and three-quarter tones always looked a little darker on screen than they did on the Matchprint. There was no way to correct that using the Gamma adjustments, so we just have to remember that if the mid and three-quarter tones look a little light on the monitor, they'll look perfect when output. Again, after years of making similar visual extrapolations, this really wasn't a very big deal for us.

We've been warned by many people that monitors need constant recalibration and that the newer the monitor is, the more often it needs to be recalibrated. We've made it a practice to double check our calibration at the beginning of each month. It's been well over a year, now, since we first set up our calibration system, and in that time we've only had to adjust the calibration a couple of times, but we'd rather spend five minutes checking than waste time and money on re-proofing something.

Since calibrating our monitor using this approach, we've been able to "soft proof" our work on the monitor with surprising accuracy. However, we would never go straight to press from our monitor without doing a final proof. We also never rely on our monitor exclusively. Photoshop comes with a built in densitometer that displays the CMYK builds for any individual pixel, grouping of 3x3 pixels or grouping of 5x5 pixels in any given image. We use that tool constantly to double check that we're on target both for color balance and for contrast.

When doing our initial research, particularly when talking with pre-press houses and service bureaus, we had been warned repeatedly about the incredible difficulties encountered when trying to set color "by the numbers." Our experiences don't back that up in the least. In his book, Professional Photoshop , Dan Margulies outlines very specific ways in which Photoshop users can use the built in densitometer tool to spot check the color and contrast accuracy of their pictures. He provides ideal highlight and shadow point numbers as well as suggested ranges for flesh tones.

We've found that once the highlight and shadow points are set, the overall color balance tends to fall right into place and then it's just a matter of spot checking specific areas and making artistic, interpretive judgments based on how we want our image to look. Our second consultant, Michael Lee of Baltimore, came to us with a strong background in using Photoshop and Quark Express as production tools. He introduced us to another system that we've found enormously helpful.

Mike taught us to use Photoshop 's built in densitometer to spot check critical color areas (ie flesh tones or a client's package or product where the color really matters) and then look up the CMYK numbers in a color build book (see resource list) The color build book simply shows all CMYK values in 10% increments and by comparing what the densitometer reads with the corresponding swatch in the color build book, we can make sure that we really have the right color.

We've found this system to be occasionally frustrating as Photoshop 's built in densitometer reads very small areas (a maximum of 5x5 pixels) which can lead to some misrepresentation. We solve this by doing multiple readings and then visualizing what they'll average into. Using this approach has proven invaluable and has enabled us to feel absolute confidence in our ability to set the color balance of our digital files.

Once we had mastered calibration and color issues, we had to face learning about pre-press and printing. We found this incredibly intimidating as we had always heard how demanding and complex a process it was. The pre-press industry, at least in our area, had traditionally surrounded itself with a certain mystique that had left us feeling as though the process of controlling the reproduction of our images was going to be this huge, overwhelmingly complex and difficult task.

So, we went back to our first consultant, Sandy Bozek. After one and one half hours of working with her one on one, we found ourselves with a thorough understanding and appreciation of the entire pre-press process. Her expertise allowed us to start setting the reproduction parameters for our digitized images almost immediately with outstanding results.

Sandy taught us that there exist a series of steps that all digitized images must run through to be ready for output. Those steps consist of color correction, contrast adjustment, setting highlight and shadow points, unsharp masking, and RGB to CMYK conversion. The books listed in our resource section explain each of the steps to a degree that we, unfortunately, could not even begin to touch on here.

It has been over a year, now, since we first brought digital equipment into our studio and we have consistently found that every time that we have handled the digitization of our images ourselves, we have been able to enhance the reproduction values to where they are more true to our original vision than anyone else has ever gotten them. The bottom line is that as the creators of the image, we know better than anyone how it should look when reproduced. We are the best judges of contrast, value and hue. No technician, no matter how skilled and no matter how expensive his equipment, can color correct, sharpen and adjust our images better than we can, ourselves. Our studio has proven that now, time after time.

In the past year, our studio has experienced a lot of changes. We've completed some exciting projects that we otherwise would never have been able to do and we've been able to use our expertise in imaging to help our clients grow and expand their marketing efforts in new and exciting ways. In our next installment, we'll focus on how imaging has impacted our work, our lives and the success of our studio.

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RESOURCE LIST
All the resources listed below offer valuable, real-world insight into technical aspects of calibration, scanning and the printing process. This is by no means a complete list of what's good or what's out there, but it does include those resources that we've found particularly helpful.
Books:

Designer Photoshop by Rob Day--A how-to guide on setting up files in Photoshop . Includes a diagram of how to build a light booth out of foam core board.

Digital Imaging for Visual Artists by Sally Wiener Grotta and Daniel Grotta --An overview of general digital imaging processes.

Four Colors/One Image by Mattias Nyman --An overview of the pre-press process.

Photoshop Artistry by Barry Haynes & Wendy Crumpler (Sybex, San Francisco) --A how-to guide complete with CD demonstrating commonly used Photoshop techniques. Contains printed versions of the images on the CD which can be used for monitor calibration.

Photoshop in Black & White by Jim Rich and Sandy Bozek --Perhaps the only book available addressing pre-press and production issues for black & white digital imaging.

Professional Photoshop by Dan Margulies --A detailed overview and how-to guide to using Photoshop for pre-press and reproduction. Includes information on adjusting color "by the numbers."

Real World Scanning and Half-Tones by David Blatner and Steve Roth (Peachpit Press, publishers) A thorough and complete coverage of the essentials of desktop color calibration and pre-press issues.


Magazines:

"Graphic Arts Monthly" (800-637-6089) Aimed at the printing industry, this free magazine covers changes in printing and pre-press technologies.

"MacWorld" (800-288-6848) Presents helpful advice and information about using Macintosh computers and related software and hardware in everyday English.

"PhotoElectronic Imaging" (404-522-8600) Offers how-to articles and product reviews as well as feature stories on projects or imaging artists.

"Publishing and Production Executive" (215-238-5292) Focuses on how companies use desktop pre-press and digital imaging to simplify and expedite production for catalogues and books.


CD's/Tutorials:
Color Expert (416-360-3894-Canada)--A CD tutorial that covers setting color for reproduction and includes a comprehensive visual trouble shooting guide.

Color Build Books
Postscript Process Color Guide by Agfa (800-395-7007)--Provides CMYK builds in 10% increments. Invaluable for setting color "by the numbers."

Daylight Fluorescent Light Bulbs:
Durotest Lighting (800-289-3876)

User Groups:
User Groups exist for both Macintosh and PC computer users. Most user groups meet about once a month to discuss topics of interest to computer users. In addition to having speakers, they give you the opportunity to meet other imagers, to ask questions, and to get some incredibly timesaving and helpful advice. In our area, there's even a special interest group that's specifically for people in print related industries. To find out about Mac User Groups (MUGs) in your area, call User Group Connection (UGC) at 800-538-9696, ext. 500. For PC user groups, call the Association of PC User Groups (APCUG) at 914-876-6678.

On-Line Services:
An absolute wealth of knowledge and resources are at your fingertips through on-line services. All you need is a modem and some money and you can access virtually any information that exists on the planet. You can also use on-line services to network with other imagers, get advice on hardware, software and imaging techniques, and contact tech support people. Check out info on Photoshop at www.adobe. com or look into the newest apple computers at www.apple.com. The following search directories can also help you find just about anything you could possibly need: www.yahoo.com, www.lycos.com, www.infoseek.com and www.excite.com. Before starting, though, you may find it helpful to pick up a book or magazine on accessing the internet or using on-line services.

Please note: the above article is ©Judy Herrmann, 1995. It may be printed for easier reading but may not be distributed or sold without written authorization.

The information in the fourth and final installment of the "Going Digital" series has been the easiest to live and the hardest to write down. The initial installments discussed the frustrations and obstacles that our studio faced as we climbed the steep learning curve that took us from being imaging illiterates to imaging experts. This segment focuses on how digital imaging has impacted our lives, our work and our studio. That's a big topic: Our studio has experienced tremendous growth and change over the past few years, much of which can be directly attributed to our decision to go digital in 1994. But it's been difficult to analyze and quantify the experience.

Let me start with a brief description of where our studio now finds itself. As in '94, we still service a large local client base, providing them with fairly straightforward catalogue-style images. This market remains the bread and butter of our studio's photography and digital work. Some, but by no means all, have converted to digital methods--a situation which has caused us some frustration (more about that later).

Through mastering digital technology and using it to develop new and innovative imagery, though, we have also started to establish a strong presence in the national marketplace. We are thrilled that top designers and art directors whose work we admire and respect are choosing to work with our studio despite its out-of-the-way location. We were also honored to be included in the PDN/Pix Digital Annual this year.

Other new directions we've taken include writing this series of articles and teaching computer imaging at the Maryland Institute College of Art, as well as at the Photo, Photo Pro and Photo West conventions. All have been highly rewarding experiences and have led to newfound friendships with photographers all over the country, as well as consulting work with others who are looking to go digital themselves.

We feel that these accomplishments alone have validated our decision to invest in imaging equipment. But we also want to say that it has been a long, long road getting to this point.

Looking back, we've realized that the definition of digital imaging has really changed in the past few years. These days, no matter what style of image we create or how it gets used (ad, brochure, annual report, trade show display or web site), it always gets digitized first. It seems like nobody runs anything out from film anymore--even prints for backlit displays and trade shows are starting off as scans.

So that brings us to the question: What does "digital imaging" really mean nowadays? In '94, it was pretty much viewed as sysnonymous with special effects, but in the few short years since then, its role in the industry has really changed. Digital imaging now means simply giving your client a digitized file that's ready for output. That file may be a scanned transparency or it may have been captured directly with a digital camera. It may be a file that has been manipulated or retouched, or it may just be a file that has had nothing done to it besides simply being prepped for output.

For us, as photographers, then, it simply becomes a question of who controls that digitization process--the photographer, the service bureau or the printer? For our studio, a still-life and product studio (in other words, a studio run by control freaks), there's no question about this issue at all. When it comes to controlling how our images reproduce, we want to be the ones in charge.

At the time that we made that decision, we were blissfully unaware of what we were actually getting ourselves into. It turns out, though, that the decision to go digital is not a pretty one, no matter how you look at it. In the past few years, we've learned through sometimes bitter experience that as the ones controlling the digitization process, we are now responsible and liable for more of the project than ever. And we have spent more money on equipment than ever before--with no end to the expenditures in sight. We've also learned way more than we ever wanted to know about printing. And, most of all, we've gotten to realize that, well, we're not necessarily going to make much, if any, profit from this stuff.

Unfortunately, it seems, though, that if we hadn't spent money on digital equipment, we would have seen our client base dwindle down to nothing. Whereas now, with the equipment we have, we at least have a chance of keeping our clients--and maybe, someday, the extra money we bill for using this equipment may exceed the amount that both the equipment and the extra labor required to use it effectively actually cost us.

For our studio, this equation has been very difficult to truly analyze. Let's start by looking at the client base which hires us to do very straightforward shots with little to no retouching or manipulation. Since 1994, the amount of income that our studio has billed specifically for digital services rendered to that client base (i.e. scanning, silhouetting files, minor digital retouching) has barely exceeded the amount of money that the equipment cost us and has not remotely begun to pay for the number of hours that we and our assistant have spent actually doing the work.

However, by offering digital services to this client base, we have made our studio eligible to bid on a significant number of projects for which we otherwise would not have even been considered. Those projects represent over $200,000 worth of additional gross billings that our studio would not have earned without offering the flexibility, convenience and increased quality of in-house digital services. In a retail organization, loss leaders or items that are sold at cost in order to increase traffic, which in turn increases the volume of goods sold at a profit, are used all the time to expand the company's client base and overall profitability. For our studio, offering straightforward digitization of files acts as a loss leader that brings in profitable photography assignments.

Even so, working with digital imaging in this arena has a number of hidden costs--largely in marketing and client conversion. The additional $200,000 mentioned above represents work from a fairly small percentage of our overall client base. Over the past two years, one of our frustrations has been the difficulty we've encountered getting these clients to give us their digital work. Despite our credentials and demonstrated expertise, only about 20 percent of our clients who use more straightforward photography were willing to let us handle their digital files in 1995. By the end of 1996, we had upped that to about 40 percent, but that still means that nearly 60 percent of that client base perceives it as too great a risk--and we're just talking about scanning transparencies.

When it comes to shooting digitally, client resistance increases dramatically. In September of '96, our marketing person called nearly 600 people in our area to aks them whether it would make their jobs easier if we were to offer high-quality digital direct capture. About half of them responded that they might be able to go digital direct for about half of their projects and the rest said they wouldn't use it at all.

In the creative arena, the financial benefits are, truthfully, even harder to measure, but the benefits of digital imaging are both immediate and obvious. It has been our experience that the clients who hire us to do creative imagery don't share the concerns that our bread-and-butter clients have regarding digital imaging. They are content to leave the technical issues to us as the experts, as long as the images look beautiful and reproduce flawlessly. While many of them are interested in the technology and seem to enjoy our discussions and explanations of how we intend to acheive the desired results, they trust us to do our job and are willing to let us choose the best tools and approaches for the task at hand.

With these kinds of projects, digital imaging allows our studio to produce images that truly match our creative vision. With conventional approaches, we've always had to compromise--scrapping a lighting set up that looks gorgeous because it creates too much glare on one object, or abandoning an idea that would work wonderfully but costs too much or takes to long to actually set up. Digital imaging allows us to overcome these obstacles while still working within reasonable budgets and time frames.

Of course we still have to balance the amount of time spent shooting with the amount of time needed for computer manipulation. This can be very difficult. In the early days, we'd often work on a project and think "Oh, we can change that on the computer" only to discover that it would have been faster to do it on the set. Or, we'd do the opposite--spending hours on the set to adjust something that would have taken minutes digitally. Of course, we couldn't charge our clients more just because our inexperience had let to a poor judgement call, so we wound up eating a lot of extra time on projects during the learning process. As we got more experience, though, we became much better at analyzing projects and making these types of decisions about various parts of the job.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the digital tools is how they have freed us from the limitations of geography. The ability to e-mail a file to someone's computer as we're working on their project means that we can now work with pretty much anyone, anywhere in the world. The new version of Painter, an illustration application that can also be used with photographs, already includes technology that allows multiple users to work on the same image at the same time via modem. That means that an art directory anywhere in the world and I can have the same picture up on our monitors at the same time and we can each ee what the other does to change it!

Back in the fall of '95, we worked on a project for book publisher John Wiley & Sons in New York. Virtually all of the communication for that project was accomplished via e-mail. The image, which was used as the cover for their 96-97 New Media Catalog, involved lots of montaging and manipulation. We were able to e-mail thumbnails showing different approaches to the art director, and then, based on her feedback, e-mail revisions. The art director was thrilled to have that kind of hands-on input without ever leaving her office, and the fact that our studio was physically located out of state became totally irrelevant.

Since then, we have worked on countless projects for both local and out-of-state clients in which e-mail has been the primary vehicle of communication. This system has worked beautifully for all concerned. The art directors that we work with typically have very difficult jobs--they're overworked and often need to be in several different places at the same time. As much as we love having them at our studio and collaborating with them in person, we sympathize with their need to keep their days as productive as possible. E-mail lets us minimize the amount of time they have to spend watching us work while still allowing them as much creative input as they want.

Now, while our decision to go digital has led to greater satisfaction with our imagery as well as some wonderful experiences and terrific opportunities, I don't want to leave the impression that it has been without its problems and pitfalls.

For starters, this equipment is unreliable at best. And, unlike most of our conventional equipment, it's so expensive that we can't afford to have backup systems for everything we use. As an example, we've had to have our scanner fixed or replaced several times every year that we've owned it. Each time it's sent in for repair, our service contract (which isn't cheap) allows the manufacturer to keep it for up to ten days. Those are ten days in which we're unable to provide our clients with the services they've come to rely on. A couple of times, we sent it in to be fixed and got it back in ten days only to discover that it still wasn't functioning properly and we would have to send it back again, leaving us without a functioning scanner for nearly an entire month!

In addition, sudden and unexplainable software malfunctions happen with frightening frequency. Any number of times we've worked all day on one of our systems without encountering any problems, shut it down for the night and come in the next morning to a computer that's totally unusable. Luckily, we have enough systems at our studio that this usually doesn't slow us down too much, but it can take hours to figure out what has caused the problem, not to mention the time it can take to fix whatever's wrong!

There are other difficulties as well. As I've mentioned in earlier installments, pre-press and print shops often view us as adversaries and while most of the print professionals we've worked with have had the client's best interests at heart, we have also encountered a few truly unprofessional and unethical people. We had one experience in which a printer actually changed our files before running out the films. Luckly, when the client saw the matchprints, they immediately called us. We always keep a backup copy of the files that we give to our clients so we were able to prove to them that the problems they saw in the matchprints weren't in our files.

More recently, we had a problem when the imagesetter at the client's pre-press company that was used to output our files was out of calibration, causing the client's catalog to come out much too light. After comparing the Matchprints to the files, we took some of the files to a pre-press house that we knew only did top quality work. Sure enough, their matchprints of our files didn't match the matchprints of the client's prepress company and we were able to show that the problems were not inherent in our files.

These kinds of problems can make digital imaging really stressful. Since many of the mistakes or problems that can occur aren't necessarily visible on screen or even in a digital proof, it isn't until the films are run out (and paid for) that these problems become evident. Even though we are total perfectionists and take every precaution imaginable, we still live in constant fear of making some kind of dreadful mistake on a file that results in some serious problem for a client. That's a lot of pressure to live under.

Let me just end this article and this series by saying that when our studio decided to invest in digital imaging back in '94, I was terrified. I mean, we're still a young studio and we've never had a lot of extra money. Taking on this kind of debt was really scary! Looking back, though, I do not have a single regret about our decision. Digital imaging has helped us grow our business and win new clients. It has helped us develop new styles and techniques, win awards and gain national recognition. It has opened up new opportunities to write, speak, consult and teach. Digital imaging may not be for everyone and it's important to wait until you have enough client demand to justify the expense. For our studio, though, digital imaging is the future.

Please note: the above article is ©Judy Herrmann, 1997. It may be printed for easier reading but may not be distributed or sold without written authorization.