Epson Digital Photo Exhibition and Workshops

[leek]

While looking at printer info, I came across information about these events

I have booked in for the Photography workshop on 17th Feb and the Digital Printing workshop on the 22nd Feb... I'll have a look at the exhibition on one of those evenings... If anyone else is coming along, let me know...

[Paul]

Hi John,
I to have booked myself into the digital workshop on the 17th (5-7pm)
and the printing workshop on the 22nd.
Will see you there!
Paul

[ajo43]

I've booked for the printing workshop on the 22nd. see you there.

Thanks for the tip.

[Glen]

I tried to book for the photography workshop and it was full. I will remember you guys as the ones who took my spot

[leek]

I tried to book for the photography workshop and it was full. I will remember you guys as the ones who took my spot

That's a shame... Did you register your interest for any additional workshops? Being a sort of marketing event, they would probably arrange further sessions...

There's probably still spots for the Printing workshop...

[Onyx]

Thanks for letting us know about this Leek. I thought it might have been something aimed at mom & pop crowd, but it doesn't seem to be the case - going from the info at the website.

I've booked myself for the Workflow one on the 17th.

[Glen]

Thanks John I did, didn't reply to that email until about two days after, more of a web email for things like that. My photoshop skills are non existant and that was a prerequisite for the printing workshops

[birddog114]

Nothing much there at all, Epson wants you guy to buy Epson printers, instead of Canon or Lexmark, I've been down that road, for resellers conference, with more stuff add on as catering with finger food, bubbly + other gifts and the similar they advertised recently as you guy tried to book and reserve.
It's boring with almost the basic topics which we learn around here or other forums.
I remembered, couple questions had been asked the instructors during their printing workshop and workflow, they could not answer and promised will contact them personally.
So, if you have time and get nothing to do then heading there to kill your free time, go out and do a workshop with our group are more better solutions than those events.

[Glen]

Birddy, thats why I have more photoshop workshop coming up in Belmore this weekend

[Onyx]

Nothing much there at all, Epson wants you guy to buy Epson printers, instead of Canon or Lexmark, I've been down that road, for resellers conference, with more stuff add on as catering with finger food, bubbly + other gifts and the similar they advertised recently as you guy tried to book and reserve.

Well, from resellers crowd now they've moved onto schmoozing the retail crowd. I should ask them some difficult questions like why Epson printers need electronic gizmo's in their cartridges that prevent 3rd party inks from working.

I'm not expecting much from this free workshop (you get what you pay for), but if I walk away with even an Epson mousepad I'll be happy.

[birddog114]

Nothing much there at all, Epson wants you guy to buy Epson printers, instead of Canon or Lexmark, I've been down that road, for resellers conference, with more stuff add on as catering with finger food, bubbly + other gifts and the similar they advertised recently as you guy tried to book and reserve.

Well, from resellers crowd now they've moved onto schmoozing the retail crowd. I should ask them some difficult questions like why Epson printers need electronic gizmo's in their cartridges that prevent 3rd party inks from working.

I'm not expecting much from this free workshop (you get what you pay for), but if I walk away with even an Epson mousepad I'll be happy.

This Saturday, I'll give you few live mice/ rats and bring home happy

[leek]

My photoshop skills are non existant and that was a prerequisite for the printing workshops

I didn't notice the prereq when I booked, but after MattK's tutorial this Saturday you will know as much as I do about Photoshop...

[Onyx]

Hey guys, I just came back from one of these Epson workshops. I attended the "from RAW to print" one, requiring the requisite photoshop skills.

It was less of a sales pitch than I had anticipated. I sat through basically an hour long powerpoint presentation highlighting aspects of image production from capture to print, identifying issues along the way; introducing aspects of software that came with Epson printers, etc. I don't own an Epson and don't intend to buy one, but still I got quite a bit out of it.

The speaker, I forgot his name, said he came from 20 yrs in the pre-press industry and operated drum scanners and the like, before moving into whatever he's doing now with Epson (imaging and technical product director - or some other fancy useless title).

It centred alot around Photoshop CS, although we did go through entry and mid-level image editing programs and their pro's and con's.

In summary, the guy advocated Phase 1 Capture Pro as the raw converter (20D owner, forgive him).

Colour management - huge topic; this was one of my primary interests in attending the workshop. I'll summarise by passing on his suggestions: he recommended Photoshop Colour Settings (Shift+Ctrl+K) be set to Europe Prepress Defaults (which encapsulates Adobe1998 colourspace, 15% dot gain for gray and spot, etc.)

For rendering intent (adapting the viewing colourspace of 16.7 million monitor colours into the ~500,000 colours that the best printers from Epson are apparently capable of reproducing) to use perceptual intent for colour prints; and absolute colorimetric for black and whites (or risk getting muddy blacks). If you're familiar with rendering intents, it makes sense - absolute colorimetric maps the out of gamut colour points to the closest in gamut colour; and leaves the in gamut colours alone, whereas perceptual shifts all colours around to maintain the tonal relationship between them.

He advocates the use of 16bit workflow where possible, to optimise light levels (makes sense); and has a personal dislike of in-camera sharpening and (surprisingly) USM. He demonstrated a technique he said was better than USM - the 'high pass' method of sharpening: Duplicate a layer, goto menu Filters, Other, High Pass, select a radius of a few pixels (experiment). Then in the Layers menu, select overlay to overlay this high pass layer on top of the original image, and voila! Sharper looking images without destroying edge detail (main reason he was against USM).

Highly worthwhile workshop IMHO, even if I didn't end up getting a free mousepad.

[Nnnnsic]

I refuse to believe it's worth going to if I don't get a free mousepad... or at the very least, a free Canon cleaning cloth...

[jethro]

hmmm!

Nnnnsic's Edit: Jeeze Jethro... what made you delete the wording you had previously?

[Nnnnsic]

I'm not sure if Jethro's post (or mine for that matter) are even remotely on topic, but I feel the obligation to rip several parts of it apart... much like the laptop one from last week.

First of all, I'm not sure why you'd ever buy an HP printer even for sub A3 prints. They do not print as good as any lab, nor are they extremely good quality and they tend not to be economical. If you're going to buy a printer, please let it be a decent Epson or if not, pick a Canon. In fact, as a computer specialist, I urge people to stay well away from brands like HP for printers.

I don't know how many workshops or seminars you've actually been to, Jethro, but for the most part, while yes -- you may find a lot of the representatives at seminars are only there to attempt to sell you the latest product he or she may actually have no real idea about -- you still find a hell of a lot of them who know a lot more than you or I will ever know... and that's usually because a lot of them actually help in this stage of product development fittingly called "development" or even "testing"...

Unless you happen to own some of the really high-end large format Epson printers with the UltraChrome pigment inks, your cartridges should not even hit that mark.
Seriously, if you're complaining about the prices of ink from an extremely high-end printer, you need to get a life.



Honestly, I'm still waiting for Jethro to put together a sentence that makes any sense.

[Onyx]

Speaking of HP - which we weren't, but now we are... according to The Epson Guy™, the sRGB colourspace was a joint invention by HP and Microsoft to describe the colours that could be outputted to HP's colour laser printers at the time of its inception. Hence why it's not such a good colourspace to use in image editing if your output is to print.

However you will want to convert your images to sRGB if you intend to upload them to the web. If you don't, you'll get bad results. (ie. other people won't be seeing what you're seeing in their browsers).

[Nnnnsic]

Bloody Microsoft.

Maybe we should just order everyone to buy Adobe RGB calibrated monitors if they want to look at pictures online.

[birddog114]

Onyx,
Back to the workshop! did they show you all their latest Epson "bloody" gears as Epson P-2000, and third party refill for inkjet cartridges?

[Onyx]

I don't know what's new or old in the Epson printer lineup, but the 2100 like yours was there, along with a massive 9600(?), and every other printer they make... Also the RD-1? the digital rangefinder. No P2000 that I could see - perhaps yours is the only one in the country!

[birddog114]

I don't know what's new or old in the Epson printer lineup, but the 2100 like yours was there, along with a massive 9600(?), and every other printer they make... Also the RD-1? the digital rangefinder. No P2000 that I could see - perhaps yours is the only one in the country!

You should bring back the RD-1 for Gary to try out
I knew the 9600 and can get it at the unreal price but I don't bother cos no use for me.
Have you tried the Epson RD-1?

[gstark]

I don't know what's new or old in the Epson printer lineup, but the 2100 like yours was there, along with a massive 9600(?), and every other printer they make... Also the RD-1? the digital rangefinder. No P2000 that I could see - perhaps yours is the only one in the country!

You should bring back the RD-1 for Gary to try out

Absobloodylutely !!!!!!

[birddog114]

Gary,
I knew, Leigh is going to look after you w/ this baby on your coming birthday

[gstark]

Birddog,

I wish.

If I can't afford one, I know damn well he can't!

Maybe a new dribble with a couple of bottles of Coke??

[Nnnnsic]

I'm buying two $5 scratchies today. Who knows.

[birddog114]

I'm buying two $5 scratchies today. Who knows.

Good on ya!

[leek]

Highly worthwhile workshop IMHO, even if I didn't end up getting a free mousepad.

Hi Onyx,

Glad to hear it was worthwhile... I'm just off to the Photography workshop now... Hopefully that will be as good... I might do a little photography around the Rocks while I'm there...

I'll have my D70 pro-loop strap poking out of my bag as a secret sign to the other D70 Users that are going tonight...

[gstark]

John,

I'll have my D70 pro-loop strap poking out of my bag as a secret sign to the other D70 Users that are going tonight...

Don't forget the secret handshake.

And do have a great time.

[xorl]

Speaking of HP - which we weren't, but now we are... according to The Epson Guy™, the sRGB colourspace was a joint invention by HP and Microsoft to describe the colours that could be outputted to HP's colour laser printers at the time of its inception.

I think the The Epson Guy™ might have been taking a cheap shot . The biggest concern was defining a colourspace that most monitors would be able to output. More details can be found in http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB.

[leek]

OK... the Photography workshop was very worthwhile as well IMHO... It was essentially a 2-3 hour talk by a pro-photographer, Grenville Turner who makes a living from advertising and photo-journalism and takes amazing landscapes for fun... There were about 30-40 people there of varying backgrounds... It was just about the right level for me, but some people were lost on some of the terminology and jargon... ( Newbie: what exactly is ISO? )

The Epson printer carked it about 10mins into the talk , so it hardly featured in the event.

Grenville talked about his approach to photography and his observations about digital photography in particular.

Some themes from the talk:

Advantages of digital photography:
- immediacy - ability to check exposure with histogram
- white balance adjustments
- variable ISO (able to take shots not possible with film)
- savings on film cost

Disadvantages:
- Moire effect (due to linear layout of sensors, rather than random layout of film grain)
- Replacement costs (upgrade every 2 years)?
- Digital noise (but he actually likes noise)
- post processing time

Advised to always shoot RAW and to get all the technical elements right in the camera wherever possible to avoid loss during editing.

Composition:
- Think: Why am I taking this photo? What do I want it to say?
- Frame the subject
- Don't be afraid to wait or come back for the right light
- Walk around the subject
- Think: when would this subject look better? morning, evening, winter, summer?

He talked about the photographers magic hours - one hour after sunrise, one hour before sunset. the best light for landscapes...

He was very critical of the retailers and their lack of knowledge (or lack of honesty). They didn't advise him that most of his older Canon lenses would be useless with his new Canon 1DS... He said that most of them came up with errors!!!

They also didn't tell him about the problems that he would have with dust on the sensor... Another pro-photographer said that he took his camera to Canon for cleaning every 2 weeks !!!

Grenville was very modest and said that just because he was a professional didn't necessarily make him a better photographer than us... He was just lucky enough to get paid for it... Having seen some of his beautiful landscapes, I would probably take issue with that statement...

He talked about the importance of monitor calibration and using the correct colour management within Photoshop and in communication with the printer... recommended Europe Pre-press defaults and Adobe RGB 1998.

As an aside, he touched on using a scanner in 48 bit mode for amazing photographs of botanical specimens and insects. He said that the cheapest scanners produce sharper images than the best cameras, but that the depth of field is almost nothing...

He explained the importance of the in-camera histogram and using it to ensure that exposure is correct... (this was useful for me...)

He then walked us through his digital workflow:
- convert RAW to PSD
- ensure resolution is 300ppi at an early stage to keep options open later
- duplicate the background layer
- make tonal adjustments in layers
- apply unsharp mask (but not too much) 50-125%
- if needed, set white and black points using Alt & Shadow or Exposure sliders...

He then demonstrated the Contrast Mask technique and was still talking when I left because my parking meter had run out...

An excellent event and it gave me a lot of inspiration...

I didn't manage to catch up with any of the other members, but did spot a D70 down in the middle of the front row... Who was that?

[gstark]

John,

Thanx for that. Sounds like you had an enjoyable and enlightening time. You can't ask for much more than that, can you?

[stubbsy]

John

I've just caught your post. Thanks for the great (and useful) summary. Seems like I need to keep an eye out for one of these in Newcastle

[marcus]

I had a post here but wandered so far away from the topic I decided it was'nt worth reading.....Sorry!

I'll be back with something more worthwhile later.

[Onyx]

I just got a little follow up email from Epson regarding these workshops. Attached to it were PDFs going into greater detail about various stuff and some Photoshop actions, which I presume are to do with what was demonstrated during the workshop (which I have unfortunately forgotten).