Lessons
Class Introduction
03:26 2Advantages & Pitfalls of Printing
17:41 3Demystifying Color Management
14:12 4Understanding Bit Depth
13:59 5Best Color Space to Work In
21:33 6Importance of Image Capture
24:59 7Live Shoot: Natural Light
12:31 8Live Shoot: Studio Lights
21:21Why Calibrate Your Monitor?
15:30 10Choosing the Right Monitor
12:56 11Calibrating a Monitor
05:06 12Color Management Policies in Lightroom
13:04 13Color Management Policies in Photoshop
02:13 14Color Management Policies in Camera RAW
06:47 15Luminosity Masks in Photoshop with the Print in Mind
25:09 16Shape the Image in Photoshop with the Print in Mind
17:47 17Edit Skin in Photoshop with the Print in Mind
25:02 18Black & White Conversions in Photoshop
23:28 19Retouch Skin in Photoshop to Optimize the Print
28:16 20Dodging & Burning in Photoshop for Black & White Images
11:40 21Split Tone Color in Photoshop for Black & White Images
05:38 22Gradient Maps in Photoshop for Black & White Images
07:35 23Choose the Right Paper
23:45 24Mechanics of Printing
05:12 25Choose the Right Printer
09:49 26Live Demo: Create Custom Paper Profile
31:16 27Scale Images with the Print in Mind
09:11 28Sharpening Workflows in Photoshop
31:10 29Soft Proofing an Image in Photoshop
22:22 30Print Through Lightroom
08:25 31The Importance of a Print
10:54 32GraphiStudio Albums and Prints
08:00 33Best Practices for Printing
12:24 34Power of the Print: Student Engagement
12:21Lesson Info
GraphiStudio Albums and Prints
I'm gonna show you some products of what I use in my work before we look at the amazing prints so let's have a look. So we're gonna begin with this one here which is this incredible presentation box in timber with the name of the studio. I'm gonna show you something, this is really special. So we open it up inside and we take out what I like to call, almost like an unbound album and it's made out of leather and we open it up and we've got this beautiful paper inside. It's easier to show with the camera, fantastic. And what happens with this one here, I sometimes like to, for very very small jobs like a portrait session, what I would do is I would print fine art prints on my printer, on my Epson printer in my studio. These come as blank pages and then what we'd do is we'd use acid-free glue to actually stick our art prints in here so it becomes a really really nice way of presenting your work and it's got that nice, beautiful art paper with the torn edge which gives it a really really n...
ice appearance and then we put our own prints. So if you wanted to do your own printing because you wanna control it to the nth degree and you're printing small, you don't have to print 100, 200 prints to stick in a book, this is beautiful. Even if sometimes to do just a little folio of your own work this is a fantastic way to present it, especially with the timber box, and you can customize these products really down to the nth degree so that is a really really cool product. Before I show the other stuff I wanna show you some of the quality of the printing beginning here with just a simple hi-definition HD deep matte paper. Going back once again, we've got a matte paper here with beautiful shadow detail and we've also got incredible dmax values so we're getting nice, beautiful richness in our prints. Let's have a look at another one here. Okay so we've got that nice, beautiful color and exactly what I see on my screen is exactly what I'm gonna get back so they're printing this time on the HD deep matte so that's one type of paper you can have. These are all off the HD machine. But there's more, wait, there's more. Then we come down into some of my crazy work that I've been working on and this is the metallic on the HD so have a look at the color rendition in that and the way the colors just jump at you. And it gives us that beautiful three-dimensional quality to the image so on something quite vibrant like that where we have a lot of the reds, okay so have a look at that. How beautiful is that? Our clients totally love that so I'm extremely overattentive when it comes to good color and good printing and this is definitely the best I've seen in a very long time in commercial printing at commercial level. And even images, this is just a wedding image. Okay so beautiful skin tones, beautiful hues of color, this is quite a delicate image and even though it's printed on the metallic, the gloss, it's absolutely stunning. So moving along. Let's go into the HD fine art now which is the fine art paper, the fine art base with the wide-gamut printing and Adobe RGB. Pretty awesome, the color is exactly like I wanted, it's exactly like I see on the screen working in Adobe RGB. Sending the file in Adobe RGB, printing the file in Adobe RGB, I can be assured that I'm leaving all those beautiful colors exactly like I intended it to be and of course when we start to go down the road of subtle colors and more of the art kind of feel, it definitely handles those absolutely beautiful. So this is more of the type of printing that we're doing, we're doing more and more of the HD fine art for our clients purely because of the fine art aspect of the nature of the business but also the archival permanency and all that with the printing side of things. So that is the HD fine art. So the quality of the printing is absolutely beautiful. And then we go into folios like this where, very similar to what we had earlier except they print and map for you so the printing is done and presented on this gorgeous, beautiful fine art folio. Isn't that just stunning? It's absolutely beautiful. So there it is, it's really really really really amazing and they love customizing products for their clients which is something that I really really love. And then of course, taking it a step further, this is my favorite, this beautiful leather pouch. And then these beautiful prints that are already matted and printed on the HD fine art. And they're ready for the customer to put into frames, behind glass and frame away so ready to go. So if you're a portrait photographer, there is no excuse why you're not printing. Why aren't you printing, you must print. So the nice, beautiful fine art product, beautiful presentation. To a standard matte size that you can easily find frames and it's a really nice way of displaying your work. So really really beautiful products. So check out the website and have a look at what they do but for me it's been a game changer in commercial printing because doing albums was always part of the business but we where very reluctant about where to print due to quality and this is above and beyond what we could ever imagine as far as printing and for what we've been discussing over the past two days, what I feel about printing and how I feel about printing and that is the only thing that comes close to what I love and the quality is really second to none. Order a HD fine art book as a sample and I'll guarantee you, you will be blown away. So if you're not printing yourself, that is the road to take.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Roberto Valenzuela
I honestly consider many courses to be great, but optional. However, this course by Rocco Ancora is a MUST! It helps the photographer complete the circle of being a photographic artist. Our job doesn't end at the edit, it ends with the print. When your clients can hold and enjoy your creative vision physically, that is when the magic of being a photographer happens. I have been so fortunate to travel the world teaching and meeting some of the best photographers in the world. That being said, I can say with confidence that nobody can teach this combination of Photoshop retouching / fine-art printing better than Rocco Ancora. I believe in this class so much, I traveled to Seattle to attend this course to be part of the live studio audience. I have never done that before. But that's how important I consider this material to be. I am so happy I took the time to go and learn from the man himself. Now, I will get this course to watch it, dissect it, study it, and practice it. Very excited to see how the knowledge in this course will propel my career further. --Roberto Valenzuela
a Creativelive Student
I was fortunate enough to attend this class in person and got to experience Rocco's prints in person. The quality is absolutely breathtaking and a game changer, Learning these skills will really help my business in a number of ways. In the past, I have had a difficult time convincing clients to purchase typical lab prints through my studio, as opposed to buying them through Walmart or Costco where the quality was "close enough." Rocco's method that he shared in this class creates three dimensional images of unmatched quality and images that just jump off the page. The knowledge from this course will empower me to help run a sustainable business and thrive as a photographer. You would be foolish to not learn these methods and incorporate them into your business. Highly Recommend!!
April S.
I have invested time into learning Lightroom and Photoshop, my own gear, and my particular photographic style, but the one thing I am really lacking is a solid understanding about preparing an image for print, and the various print options (e.g., paper types). When I saw this course come up on the CL schedule it caught my eye immediately so I RSVP'd for the live broadcast. I was at work when it started and couldn't watch at that time. I do listen in from work sometimes, but after 2 minutes of listening to this course I realized it was one I really needed to watch closely and focus on. So, I stopped the stream after a couple minutes and bought the course. I have never done that before. I always wait and watch as much as I can in the initial broadcast (or rebroadcast) to decide if a course is one that I really should spend for. I knew right away though that Rocco was presenting the very information I was lacking and needed, and I wanted it! In addition, it was clear to me after looking him up online that he's a consummate professional with lots of experience and his delivery style even in just the couple of minutes that I listened reflected that. I already have X-rite ColorMunki Display and Colorchecker, a good monitor, and I have a photo printer (Canon Pixma Pro-100) but I'm lacking that technical understanding of color and know I'm not using my resources to their fullest. I use my Canon Pixma to test-print images before uploading to the print service I use. My method isn't ideal since the service uses different printers and ink, and paper depending on what I choose, but at least I have a much better idea of what my image file will give me in print form. After Rocco's course I believe I will be much better equipped to prepare my images and choose the options best suited to each image. I'll still test print if only because it's fun to see something on paper, but I expect the results I get from the print service to be much better once I really know how to put this knowledge to work for me.
Student Work
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Adobe Photoshop