Martin Bailey is a Tokyo based nature, wildlife and portraiture photographer, sharing his photographic life experiences, as well as tips and techniques, via a weekly Podcast and Blog. Martin has recently created an eBook titled “Making the Print-Printing Techniques for the Digital Photographer”. I had a chance to chat with him via a Skype video call, and he touches on various tips, tricks, and techniques for photographers and print makers.

Martin has written a fantastic eBook that I would recommend every photographer or printmaker check out. It’s packed with a wealth of valuable information, based on years of experience by Martin. It is written in a thorough, yet concise manner, making it an easy and enjoyable read.

To puchase the eBook, use the shortlink or click on the image below: http://mbp.ac/cvmtp

In this interview, we talk about the eBook, and Martin provides insight on how to achieve color accurate prints, from your camera, to your monitor, to your printer.

If you cannot see the player, PLEASE CLICK HERE (player will open in an external window).

To learn more about Martin, check out his website: www.martinbaileyphotography.com. There, you can check out his blog, podcast, eBooks, tours, workshops, and so much more.

About Martin: Martin Bailey is a professional Nature, Wildlife and Portrait photographer, born in England though now a Japanese citizen, based in Tokyo.

Martin releases a weekly photography Podcast available in iTunes and on the blog. He is also a Craft & Vision author and a member of the X-Rite Coloratti, a group of the world’s top professional photographers who understand the importance of implementing color management in their digital workflow. He leads popular wildlife and landscape photography workshops and adventures into which he incorporates color management instruction in collaboration with X-Rite.

His work has been published by Popular Photography Magazine, X-Rite, Pomegranate, Korean Air, Creation Durable (Paris), Real Music and Light of Consciousness Magazine, among others. He had five pieces in a joint exhibit Viaggiando Immaginando, in Italy in 2005, and his first solo exhibition “The Nature of Japan” was held in Aoyama, Tokyo, in December 2010.

Marcus Bell is a Master of Photography (Awarded by Australian Institute of Professional Photography) and Creative Director and Principal Photographer of Australia’s number one photography studio “Studio Impressions”. Take a look at some of his upcoming seminars…

Marcus Bell has been named in the top 10 Wedding photographers in the world by BBC Television, is the author of “Master’s Guide to Wedding Photography” published by Amherst Media NY in 2006 and is currently in the top ten photography best seller list. His images have been published in more than 20 books in 50 countries, and he has been featured in three photography documentaries.

He has conducted seminars and workshops in USA, Japan, Canada, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand and is recognised around the world as an authority on digital workflow development and Master printing techniques. And now he will be adding more to the list:

“AN EVENING WITH MARCUS BELL IN HONG KONG” 17th May 2012.

The two hour presentation will guide you through how one of the top ten wedding photographers in the world captures and creates images that have been his trademark over his career, “Bringing Photography to Life”.

For additional information visit the website: http://www.wppa.com.hk/marcusbell-hong-kong-seminar

“A DAY WITH MARCUS BELL IN PARIS” 28th May 2012.

A full day seminar about the Art of capturing unforgettable moments and the business of lasting impressions. Where you will discover the keys that are the artistic and commercial success of a photographer with international flair. The seminar will be in English and dual translated into French.

For additional information visit the English website: http://marcusbell.planchecontact.com/en/ & the French website is http://marcusbell.planchecontact.com

Are you currently using Adobe Photoshop CS5 (or a previous version) and considering an upgrade? Want a sneak peak at what’s new?

Recently, Adobe released a BETA version for Photoshop CS6. The CS6 download is FREE and works with PC or Mac. This requires an Adobe ID (If you do not have an Adobe ID, you can create one for free). If you would like to test the Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta, download it here: Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta DOWNLOAD – PC & MAC.

There are quite a few great new features that have been added, so I’ve included some videos from the Adobe team below:

Bryan O’Neil Hughes, Photoshop Senior Product Manager
Explaining the New Content-Aware Technology and tools:

Julieanne Kost, Senior Digital Imaging Evangelist
Walking through her 6 favorite features in Photoshop CS6 beta:

Russell Brown, Senior Creative Director
Walking through his 6 favorite features in Photoshop CS6 beta:

In regards to printing, not much has changed. The print window has a slightly different appearance, but you will be able to use the same print settings as you normally would. After running a few prints using the same ICC profiles, you can expect the same output results that have been obtained with previous Photoshop versions.

Here are a few screenshots with the new look from Photoshop CS6 beta. Click on the images to enlarge them:

This is the default workspace:
*Image file/photo courtesy of Michael Gilbert

Print Window from CS6 on a Windows 7 system:

Print Window from CS6 on a Mac (Snow Leopard):

The Print Driver will remain the same, with the same print settings:

Thank you to everyone who took part in our short survey last week. The results are in, and you’ve helped us select our first webinar topic! See details below for the dates, times, and the registration form…

Topic: ICC Profiles: A Guide to Achieving Color Accurate Prints
When: Monday, April 2nd, 2012
Time: 10am PST
Length: 30 minutes
Presenter: Paul Morales

Details: This webinar will focus on using ICC profiles in Adobe Photoshop CS5. We will cover embedded profiles, printer profiles, soft-proofing, gamut warning, rendering intent, and more. There will be time allotted at the end of the webinar for questions.

Please CLICK HERE to register, or use the registration form below. You will be sent a reminder via email the day before and the day of the webinar.

At Breathing Color, we have always tried to bring you the best instructional videos, articles, how-to’s, and tips from the experts. Now, we would like to offer you even more…

We are ready to begin conducting educational webinars. The focus of these webinars will be to help educate users on the best methods for creating the perfect print, gallery wrap, and so much more. To get us started, WE NEED YOUR HELP.

Please fill out the short questionnaire below. We’ve included 5 webinar topics to start with, but also encourage you to give us your ideas. After compiling the data we receive, we will announce the first webinar topic along with a signup sheet and date. By filling out the questionnaire below, you will receive a follow up email with the webinar details.

In this one day workshop, join Eddie as he shares tips and techniques to help you learn the intricate qualities of light, how the digital camera records the light you see (and don’t see), and learn the best practices for image lighting enhancement to give your images that WOW factor. Details below…

Come to the Light, The Edge of Light with Eddie Tapp and special guests Judy Host and Michael Gilbert.

Recognized as one of the top experts on digital photography and photoshop in the world, Eddie Tapp has become a tireless educator for professional photographers, holding seminars around the world, and a regular consultant to businesses large and small.

When: Tuesday, April 10th 2012
Where: The Grand Wailea – Waldorf Astoria – Wailea, Hawaii
Cost: $325 + $25 materials fee

Grand Wailea has made special arrangements for this event at $299 per night, a world class 5 star Waldorf Astoria hotel. Along with your camera, students are encouraged to bring 10 JPEG images for the “light review”.

The Edge of Light is designed for a small group starting out in the classroom then onto specific locations for the study of light, composition, camera settings, light quality, and finding the best light to photograph in. Plus, you will take home a finished 16″ canvas print of your best shot from the day.

This is the first in a series of Image Life seminars with Eddie in Hawaii with special permissions granted by the Grand Wailea – Passports to the Arts Photography Program.

This is a limited size class designed for personal instruction, so make plans and sign up today!

Contact: Michael Gilbert – gilbert1@me.com (808) 298-6988

Click on the image below for a High Res printable PDF file:

At long last, we have the results of the Go Lyve Photo on Canvas Contest. We received hundreds of contest submissions, so without further ado, here are the winners…

The winners were chosen based on how well their print excelled according to our judging criteria. There were many great prints submitted, but ultimately the judges had to pick 3. Here are the winners of Breathing Color’s Go Lyve Photo on Canvas Contest:

1st place: Timothy Bath

Title: “The Gift”
Camera: Canon 1D Mark IV, 600mm lens
Website: www.timothybathphotography.com

2nd place: Fred Newman

Title: “Rainbow – Monument Valley”
Camera: Leica S2 Medium Format, Leica Summarit-S 35mm lens
Website: www.frednewmanphotography.com

3rd place: Whitney Howle

Title: “Beauty Mark”
Camera: Nikon D300S, Nikon 18-200 VRI lens
Website: www.stairwaydesignstudio.com

Congratulations to the Winners, and thank you to everyone who participated in the contest!

Feeding canvas sheets into desktop printers can sometimes be tricky. With multiple tray loading options, which one works best? Are there any tricks to making sheet loading easier? Read on…

If you have a desktop printer, this article will help you understand not only how to utilize it’s loading capabilities, but also how to get the most out of each sheet that you print on. Did you know that how you load a sheet directly affects the printable area of that sheet? For this tutorial, we will be using the Epson Stylus Pro 3880 desktop printer. This tutorial will show you how to load sheets with ease AND expand your printing capabilities.

First, let’s understand the various loading methods with this printer:

Auto Sheet Feeder: Primarily used for photo paper or standard copy paper. Works best with thinner stock.

Front Manual Feed Slot: Loads thick media (1.2 – 1.5 mm). Works with canvas and fine art paper. This option does not allow a user to utilize the full size of sheet since it sets a .75″ margin. Border-less printing is not available with this loading method.

Rear Manual Feed Slot: Your best option for loading fine art paper and canvas. This option allows border-less printing and utilizes the entire printable area of each sheet.

Using the Rear Manual Feed Slot, you will be able to load canvas easily AND utilize the most of each sheet. However, sometimes a sheet of canvas on it’s own may be somewhat difficult to load properly.

Here is a comprehensive guide to loading canvas effectively, every time. In the following example, we are using 13” x 19” sheets of Lyve Canvas.

1. Grab your sheet of canvas.

2. Grab some plain copy paper (or similar paper). Cut 2 strips about 1″ wide to make 1” x 11” leader strips (from a standard 8.5″x11″ sheet of copy paper).

3. With your canvas sheet face down, place the strips along the leading edge of the sheet. The leader strip must be the same width as the sheet of paper, so in this case we’ve used 2 strips to cover the 13″ width of the canvas sheet.

4. Tape the leader strips to the back of the canvas sheet. Be sure that the leader strips are flush against the edge of the canvas sheet.

Note: If the paper leader is not straight OR flush against the sheet, the printer may not feed the sheet through, resulting in a paper feed error or skew error.

5. Feed the canvas into the Rear Manual Feed Slot, inserting the leader side first. The printer will automatically grab the leader and begin feeding the canvas sheet.

We are now ready to print our image. In this case, our image is 12″x18″ and we want it to print centered on a 13″x19″ sheet. In order for our print to come out properly (at the correct size and centered on our sheet), let’s open our file in Photoshop to adjust our image so we can achieve the maximum printable area on our sheet of canvas:

6. Open your image in Photoshop. Click on the Image pull-down menu and choose Canvas Size.

7. In the Height box, add 1” to the existing dimension. Our image will fit centered on a 13” x 19” sheet because we are adding 1 inch to the height (this accounts for the paper leader). Notice the arrows next to the word “Anchor”. These represent anchor points which allow you to add space to any side of your file. Click on the anchor that points straight down, which will add 1” on top of the image (and keep everything centered).

8. Go to File>Print. Set the appropriate Print Settings (Video tutorial HERE). Click on the “Print Settings” button (“Page Setup” if using a Photoshop version prior to CS5) to access the Epson print driver.

9. Under Paper Settings, set the Source to “Manual – Rear”. Next to Size, click on the “User Defined…” button.

10. Enter the Paper Size Name (13×20), and enter the Paper Width and Height. Click Save, then click OK.

You are now ready to print your image. The end result is a true 12″x18″ image print that’s centered on our sheet of canvas!

Do you have any questions regarding the steps above? Do you have your own loading method? Let’s hear them!

Get 15% OFF our 1.5″ Stretcher Bars today, or add a free sample to any order. Our affordable stretcher bars have been specifically designed to create high-quality canvas gallery wraps.

A closer look at the 1.5″ Stretcher Bars

Because stretcher bars make up the greatest material cost and are the least marketable feature of any gallery wrapped print, we have chosen to use fir wood as opposed to pine or other pricier options. Our stretcher bars feature a unique, 1.5″ deep profile, designed to provide your canvas prints with robust support and a gallery quality aesthetic on the front and back side of your prints. Each bar is rounded and beveled at the optimal angle to suspend the face of your canvas print away from the bars, eliminating visible impression lines that are commonly created by many other stretcher bars.

Our stretcher bars are pre-notched and lock together firmly and easily, eliminating the need for technical assembly and expensive framing equipment. We offer more than 20 sizes ranging from 6” to 72” inches long, and cross braces for additional support to accommodate panoramic or over-sized prints. Corner keys are also available upon request.

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• 1.5″ Stretcher Bars, 10 per box

Price per linear foot (i.e. one 12″ bar): $ 1.01
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Price per linear foot (i.e. one 12″ bar): $ 0.87
PROMO price per linear foot: $ 0.74
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*USE PROMO CODE:BAR15
Promo is for USA Customers only. Valid January 26th – January 31st, 2012.

Add a free sample to any order

Contains 2 bars, 8″ size. Add this to any order at no charge. Limit one per customer.
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As a manufacturer, we develop state-of-the-art inkjet receptive coatings that deliver the widest color gamut, highest dmax, and crispest resolution. If you already use our canvas, you probably already knew that.

Did you know we apply these same state-of-the-art inkjet receptive coatings to our line of papers?

Our papers are amazing. They deliver print quality that is second to none. And, since we sell direct, we are in a unique position to supply them at a competitive price. Simply put: You get the highest quality paper, at the most competitive price. What’s better than that?

The Sample Pack

This sample pack contains (2) unprinted 8.5″x11″ sheets of the following:

• Elegance Velvet – 310gsm, bright White, water-resistant velvet fine art paper made from 100% cotton fiber and is acid and lignin free.
• Optica One – 300gsm, bright white, matte fine art paper with a luxuriously smooth surface ideal for high resolution photographic imagery.
• 600MT – 300gsm, bright white, cotton rag-based water-resistant textured matte paper and is acid free and lignin free.
• Vibrance Rag – 325gsm, 100% cotton luxurious photography paper with a fine surface texture and a baryta gloss finish.
• Vibrance Luster – 10mil, 255gsm heavyweight photo luster paper, developed for the discerning photographer who demands maximum color gamut, dmax, and image resolution.
• Vibrance Gloss – 10mil, 255gsm heavyweight photo gloss paper, developed for the discerning photographer who demands maximum color gamut, dmax, and image resolution.

Price

$19.95 BUY NOW, or…

Take our survey and get 50% OFF

Just Take Our Survey, and as soon as you complete the survey a promo code for 50% off the Sample Pack will appear. Be sure to write this promo code down. This Promo Code can be redeemed once per customer and expires January 31st, 2012.

Note: While anyone can take our survey, we hope you understand that the promo for this sample pack can be redeemed by USA Customers only.