PWDP Part Six - preparing for assessment

Project Revise and rework

Exercise:Review your work

Having confirmed that I am going to have my work formally assessed the final task was reviewing and reworking previous assignments and preparing for assessment. Those of you following my blog know that where necessary I have overhauled and reworked troublesome assignments! So much so I don't really want to look at them anymore :oP Hopefully I have responded to all feedback given and reflected about the processes on this blog and in my learning log.

So just how am I going to put together my assessment portfolio?

For assessment I need to send the reworked versions of all five assignments together with the original Assignments Two-Five. Glad about that as Assignment One original feedback was pretty pants! My tutor reports and learning log (s) also need to be included. Previously I had to send all tutor correspondence but this module doesn't seem to ask for that. However as some of my alterations and learning came about through this correspondence I shall also include a folder which can be looked at or disregarded as the assessors see fit. Link to my Blog will be sent as well as my learning logs, sample prints from each assignment, mock-up book, folders with documentation to support the assignments, flash drive with all assignment jpegs and anything else I think needs to be sent as a digital file.

A pre-assessment review

I spoke to my tutor for a while to clarify some points, we discussed the importance of labelling everything, packaging it well, inclusion of sample prints, importance of communication, anything in my learning log should be annotated as to why it was included, what did I like, how did it influence me? What did I learn from it? Ensure labels were on Blog posts, that my Blog was easy to navigate etc. I asked Keith if he would review my reworked assignment one seeing as it was a completely different project from the first rather than a tweaking to feedback, He kindly agreed and feedback has been added to the relevant blog posts and tutor feedback page, but in summary I was a happy bunny. Thank you Keith :o)

That all done and sorted, hopefully, the time has come (The Walrus said) to print things out, label it up, post it off and suffer until the results come out.....

Printing

• Calibrate monitor

• Process images - size, sharpen
• Soft proof images

https://files.support.epson.com/docid/cpd3/cpd39134.pdf
http://www.epson.co.uk/gb/en/viewcon/corporatesite/products/mainunits/faq/11350/1104

handy links :o)

• Open Photoshop
• Edit>colour settings

• Set to Adobe RGB (1998)
• Select File>Print
• Select your printer from the Printer List 

• Select Photoshop Manages Colours
• Assign ICC/ paper and print quality
• Rendering Intent select Relative Colorimetric
• Select the Black Point Compensation check box

• Turn off High Speed and Edge Smoothing
• Select ICM and OFF (no colour management) click OK
• Print

Sounds quite simple! However in practice it doesn't always run as smoothly or as quickly as you anticipate. Some of my prints I had no issue with at all. I accept that what you see on screen will not be precisely what comes out but the majority of mine did. Soft proofing also seemed different from image to image. Some the colours/density did alter, other changed totally. I noticed this particularly with the Abstract Bokeh and the Nigella, even though I compensated for this, both were quite flat, the images were dark and the colours a bit off. Luckily I was only printing these on A4 so experimented with brightness/vibrance and printed a few off until they were more representative. The blue especially in the Nigella was profoundly purple, even now it isn't spot on colour wise but is the best I can do with my set up and printing budget :o/

The other issue I had was printing full bleed/ borderless. My assignment 3, a photographic commission -  the magazine spread - was designed to be printed full bleed but when printing some of the spread was outside of the printing area, I expected this to occur slightly, and although I printed a few draft versions I could not get the sizing right. Ordinarily I guess it would not have been as noticeable if a few mm were off at the edge but on the third spread I had 3 square photographs next to each other and it was very obvious that the end one was badly cropped. I eventually had to settle for printing with a border. A slight compromise but I have at least learnt that either my printer will not satisfactorily produce full bleed or I need to find out how to do it. Most obvious choice would appear to be buying larger paper, for example A3 Plus, and trim. (awaiting A3 Plus paper to arrive, if it comes in time I shall re-print and trim. Should I wish to print full bleed at any time in the future I'd probably approach a commercial printer.

*Update

I bought some larger A3 Plus paper and trimmed to size. The bonus is that you can see how it was designed to look, the downside is that in trimming the excess there isn't a border to hold for viewing, as in leaving one meant it would not fit into my Seawhite box. If I had thought about this in advance I could have bought an A3 plus archival box, which would have allowed for crop marks/ cutting lines to be left in and provide a border.

Below are 3 incarnations of the prints, the first set was a draft on ordinary paper, just to check the layout worked, and before I altered all  the final images, the middle set were prints on A3 paper, with a small white margin, and the final set on A3 plus and trimmed.

Investigating other avenues to present work came across Moo http://uk.moo.com/ and I am thinking about printing some postcards if I can understand how to use the website ;oD

Moo guidelines

If you are uploading photography or non-vector artwork (e.g. JPEGs), please make sure they are no less than 96dpi (ideally at 300dpi). If your designs are a mix of photography and design, make sure the embedded photographs used are above the recommended pixel sizes.

Remember large, high-quality JPEGs will produce the best results for photography. See the table below with the minimum and recommended pixel dimensions, for each product.

Product	Minimum (96dpi)	Recommended (300dpi)
MiniCards	280 x 121 pixels	874 x 378 pixels
Business Cards	333 x 223 pixels	1039 x 697 pixels
Postcards and Greeting Cards	575 x 412 pixels	1795 x 1287 pixels
StickerBooks and Mini Labels	138 x 138 pixels	283 x 283 pixels
Round Stickers and Labels	151 x 151 pixels	472 x 472 pixels
Rectangular Stickers and Labels, Mailing Labels	325 x 215 pixels	1016 x 673 pixels
A4 Letterheads	809 x 1138 pixels	2528 x 3555 pixels

MOO’s printers use a 4 colour ink process (CMYK). Please be aware that screen colours (RGB) may appear duller or lacking in contrast when printed.

Always preview your work in CMYK where possible.

We use public ICC profiles, so if you preview and save your files the 'Coated FOGRA39' colourspace, they will not be altered by our back end processes.

Presentation Box

Seawhite A3 archival presentation box.

Folders of Work/Prints/Learning Logs/Extras

So here it all is after all those hours of work....if I haven't done it now only a few days to tweak before I need to parcel it up and post!

*update

I ordered some postcards from Moo

Several points to make. Their service is fantastic. Helpful on the phone when I wasn't sure what I was doing and very prompt delivery. The standard of card and finish is excellent. As they point out colours are not always 100% accurate but as a first attempt at this I was fairly pleased with the results. What would I alter? The most obvious thing I would do is definitely sharpen the images more prior to uploading. What looked fine when I previewed them has actually come out on the soft side. I'd also lighten them just a tad and make the colours more punchy. Having said that I was really pleased to hold something physically in my hand that I had made....does that sound daft?