Matt Quinn wrote: ↑Sat Dec 30, 2017 1:38 am
Charles, I just received my Mixbook but they didn't provide and electronic copy that I can share with you the way you did. How did you do it? Thanks. The book contains only bw photos but the prints have a pinkish color cast. I will email them and ask why. Matt
Try going back to your Projects page. Hover over your book's title until it highlights and click it. It will open in a preview pane. Scroll down a little bit until you see the box marked
display like the one here:
If you copy the entire URL in the display box (I have no clue what the embed box does) you can post or send the URL to anyone you wish, or publish it here, and anyone with the URL can then get to the preview pane and view the book on a monitor. They do not have to be logged in to see it.
I am distressed that you have a color cast. They of course do everything in CMYK, but I have my physical book of Jeannie's Remembrance open alongside my monitor: The color is nailed and the B&W is neutral unless I provided a toned or hand tinted original, or unless I took something in color and converted it within Mixbook to B&W (I did that a couple of times). I don't know what equipment you use, but one of the things I'm sure is important is to have a well-calibrated monitor. I used to use nothing but Macs and I calibrated with Mac's onboard "eyeball" system, but since switching to a Windows machine I bought a Spyder 5 Elite calibration tool. That particular model is very $pendy, but I was lucky when bought it, hit a sale plus a coupon I think. I got it for under $150, which is still $pendy but nowhere near the $250 they're currently listing for. There are others in the same line that are less expensive, and a competitor called X-Rite. They're all good, but for me it's not just the accurate color I am after, it's the brightness and contrast. I calibrate every month on the first, and I run two monitors so they are both calibrated to match, although one is an older LCD so it never perfectly matches the main LED monitor, but use it to keep thumbnails visible or enlargements or something; it is never used to actually edit. Only the LED monitor is.
If you don't already have a good means of calibration I am not suggesting you need to spend the rent to get one of these tools, but I swear by mine instead of swearing at prints that don't match the monitor.
In this case, of course, your book is all B&W and clean neutral tones were what you expected. I don't know for sure but I suspect that, just as you feared, it picked up a cast owing to their printing process being CMYK but if the files had no color in them then where did it come from? My experience has long been that I never get such a cast, and I am fanatical about calibrating the monitor, but other than that I haven't paid a lot of attention. Sometimes I am sending them B&W that is already toned (Jeannie's cover shot was sepia toned). Everything I get back from them always matches my monitor. Since most if not all of your B&W is made with a camera that does not record color (??) I assume when you are processing there is no need to convert (??)
Please let us see what the book should have looked like, and let's ask Duck and Ernst! This is above my pay grade.
