CRAFTING A DIGITAL PRINT

Studio Workshops  –  Live and Interactive via ZOOM
•  23-24 March 2024 (AEDT)  9.30am to 1.00pm
•  29-30 June 2024 (AEST)  9.30am to 1.00pm

This workshop can also be time-shifted for anyone unable to attend on the days it is presented, or time zone is too offset to comfortably attend in real time.

This advanced workshop is about ‘perfecting an image’s preparation and printing’ and is based on my own comprehensive workflow as applied to two classic case studies – Landscapes and Portraits.  It begins with the RAW files and ends up with beautifully resolved exhibition prints.  This is unashamedly my way of preparing images for printing at the highest imaginable quality.  My workflow shifts our responsibility from ‘when and what tool do I use’ to ‘how to create the best effect’ where each moment is explored in detail while prioritising its aesthetic outcomes. This workshop therefore also provides a unique insight into my theory not just my practice, and also features my unique Actions, Macros and Printing Presets used in our file preparation and exhibition printing. Specific topics that have been covered in this workshop include:

Crafting a Digital Print – Spaces and Places
•  Space and time priorities
•  Redefining tonal relationships – Global and Local Clipping
•  Renegotiating the light – Reverse Overlay Masking
•  Re-establishing form and content – Reattaching Highlights
•  immanent vs. transcendent – Soft Light Curves

Remapping Luminosity and Spatial Relationships
•  Luminosity selections and intersections
•  Highlight and shadow Bump Masking
•  Mid tone contrast expansion
•  Saturation and hue masking
•  Expanding print ‘presence’ – intensification and reduction

Printing Landscapes
•  Spatial Compositions
•  Soft Proofing – screen to print calibrations
•  Matching images to media – colour, surface, texture, base, inkset
•  Depth and dimensionality – sharpening strategies (form)
•  Re scaling images and algorithm stacking

Crafting a Digital Print – Portraits and Objects
•  Substituting Luminosity
•  Skin tone correction and continuity (push and pull)
•  Colorimetric separation
•  Frequency separation
•  Colorizing and toning

The Aesthetics of Presence and Affect
•  Harmonising objects (figures) and grounds
•  Re drawing a face or a gesture
•  Re focusing – artefact reduction and deconvolution
•  Narratives of shade and shadows
•  The Ontology of colour

Printing Portraits
•  Temporal Compositions
•  My emotional theory of print size and aspect ratios
•  Output sharpening – blending, testing and evaluation
•  Adapting files for printing on matte surfaced media
•  Correcting for fluorescence and the media’s white point

Our video conferencing and remote desktop software allow us to intimately investigate every procedure and decision with precision and clarity, where the aim is not only to support our attendees’ creative practice but also profoundly expand their printed outcomes.  The considered adaptation and careful integration of key aspects of my own workflow also counters what I call the ‘Photoshop Syndrome’ where fatigue and loss of confidence all too often gets the better of us.  In other words, by making our workflow priority the print’s imaginative and creative affect – our artistry – rather than suffering the complications and distractions of how we get there, helps more than just our prints.

The workshop is also supported by a resource rich website including detailed course notes, videos, and test files.

Updated 06 December 2023