A bit off topic, perhaps, but I'evbeen aving trouble coming up with solutions here... as I get closer to finishing my senior project, I need to start worrying more about getting it printed up. 120+ pages of raw text plus around 80 images (most of which are of people), ranging in size from 3x4 to full page. Text and images will appear on the same pagse, which I'd like to be printed on a decent weight paper at around 9.5x13 inches.

Problem is I'm a student with not a lot of money.

Does anyone here have any ideas or resources they could suggest? I know this isn't strictly people photography but other forums have been pretty clueless, and internet searches lead to floods of nothing but adverts, it seems.

Thanks to any and all~

-- Eamonn Aiken (aikene@bc.edu), September 25, 2001

Answers

can't help with your question, but like your photo. What film did you use? I like the muted colours although it may be a little oversharpened?

-- Charles C-H (charles@chho.com,au), September 26, 2001.

I have no idea but what sort of budget have you got for this? I imagine the text aspect won't be that expensive but getting the photos incorporated at your required quality my be pricey! How many copies do you want? If it's one or two, I'd be looking to set it out in Pagemaker and get it printed on some low volume setup. If it's for a greater number of copies, then you'll need to talk to a commercial printer I'd imagine.

I like this picture too, interesting composition that places the lady in her environment. All the pictures from this series you've posted have been interesting/great and I'd love to see the finished product!

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@unite.com.au), September 26, 2001.

Charles, it's NPH shot at 250, shot the last minutes before dusk. The scan is from a print, and the sharpening needed to bring proper definition on my monitor I guess clashed with the jpeg compression it was given for web use. The print scanned was on Fuji Crystal Archive glossy, but I now really lean towards matte finish Kodak Portra for anything with people in it; where brilliant greens and blues come second to warmth, a wide, soft tone, and surface texture. as for budget, I don't have much of a quotable figure yet, and I imagine I can scrounge together as much as I'll need, within reason. Production will certainly be small; I sure don't want to sit around with 250 copies of my book sitting next to me. I've spent a lot on film, travel expenses, and tons of othe things so I don't plan to cheap out on the actual production. I'd just like to make it as student-budget-friendly as possible! Thanks again to all!

-- Eamonn Aiken (aikene@bc.edu), September 27, 2001.

Put it on a CD-rom. Seriously.

For all the problems with screen calibration, electronic pubishing is the best way to distribute quality images at a reasonable price. We do short-run printing of theses and institutional brochures all the time here, and the sort of print and paper quality which will do justice to your photographs doesn't come cheap.

If you relax the requirement to have high quality colour images intermingled with your text the options open up. Like many exhibition catalogues, you could have B+W images with the text, and then a portfolio-like set of high-quality prints bound in at the end. That way you can use two different print technologies, and make the best of both. Binding in actual photographic prints would probably be the simplest option, but there are other print technologies if you want double-sided pages or a particular surface finish.

Does your university have a print shop? Most do, and the people there will be better at answering this sort of question than us, and will be able to show you examples from the various print technologies and explain the quality and cost tradeoffs.

-- Struan Gray (struan.gray@sljus.lu.se), September 27, 2001.

just following up Straun's CD idea... if you can limit it to 45MB you can put it on a credit card sized CD (see Nuraltek (Aussie site but these things would be available everywhere) for an idea of what available (they have a CDR version) The pocket size one's (same diameter as the card but the full circle) hold 150MB but don't come as CDR's it seems (from this mob anyway)

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@unite.com.au), September 27, 2001.

CD would certainly be easier. This being my final project though, I'm expected to produce a printed version... not to mention I'd very much like to have one, as would my family and some of those who've been involved in the project before and after.

I plan to do the layouts myself in Quark Xpress, a double edged sword in that I don't have to pay anyone else to do it, but I'll have colour correction issues to deal with. I've done fairly well with web colour, but having ust bought an Epson 780, I'm again tossed into the frustrating world of colour profile management... those who remember my previous clumsy attempts at HTML posting here know I'm no techie!

and again, thanks to all for your ideas and comments on the images so far. I've got a few more images (most of which lack any accompanying text) up on that other site, http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=135972 in case anyone wants to see more. Thanks!

-- Eamonn Aiken (aikene@bc.edu), September 27, 2001.

1. pick a printer. 2. pick a paper. 3. pick a binding. 4. estimate a page count. 5. pick the number of copies 6. estimate the total cost. 7. estimate the cost per copy.

then you'll be a lot closer to finding a solution.

-- edward kang (ekang@cse.nd.edu), September 29, 2001.