Category Archives: Software

Software for the graphic arts or photography

The birth of Bauschrift

Posted on February 15, 2022 by Brian Lawler

I went on a journey last week to buy some foam-core board. En route, I saw a handsome metal sign at the Technische Universität München. In English, this translates (roughly) to: MATERIAL TESTINGOFFICE FOR CONSTRUCTIONFACULTY CHAIRLARGE SCALE CONSTRUCTION The sign … Continue reading →

Posted in Adventures, Art, Software, Typography | Tagged Adobe Illustrator, Bauschrift, Blognosticator, Brian P. Lawler, FontLab, FontLab 7, Technische Universität München, Type deisgn, Type design in Illustrator | Leave a comment

A visit to FOGRA

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Brian Lawler

A few days before Christmas I rode a subway to a regional train to another subway, then walked a bit to reach the headquarters of FOGRA, the Research Institute for Media Technologies in the town of Aschheim, just outside Munich. This for me … Continue reading →

Posted in Color Management, Printing and Printing Processes, Software | Tagged Blognosticator, Blueprint, Blueprint Munich, Brian Lawler, FOGRA, Hochschule München, Landa Nanopress, Munich, Nanopress | 3 Comments

An analysis of the Image P3 color space

Posted on November 13, 2021 by Brian Lawler

About four years ago, Apple changed the color space of the iPhone from whatever it was (maybe sRGB?) to a new color space called Image P3. This is the color space used by flat panel TV screens. This was a … Continue reading →

Posted in Color Management, Photography, Printing and Printing Processes, Software | Tagged Apple iPhone color space, Brian Lawler, Chromix, ColorThink Pro, Image P3, iPhone embedded color space, Steve Upton, The Blognosticator | Leave a comment

AppleScript solves my grid mask challenge in Adobe Photoshop

Posted on August 21, 2021 by Brian Lawler

I pride myself on being a competent user of Adobe Photoshop. I know how to make my photos look good by sliding sliders and pushing buttons and applying filters and adding Layer Effects and all sorts of visual things. Occasionally I need … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Imposition and Pagination, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Software | Tagged Adobe Photoshop, AppleScript, AppleScripting Photoshop, Bishop Peak, Bishop Peak Portrait Project, Brian Lawler, Cal Poly, Image collage technique, O, The Blognosticator | Leave a comment

Illustrator graphs show me how my solar system is working

Posted on January 9, 2021 by Brian Lawler

Greetings Blognosticator readers! I (sort of) apologize for my long absence from this blog. I retired from my teaching position at Cal Poly in mid-June, and have been relaxing since then by not contributing essays to this forum. Instead, I … Continue reading →

Posted in New technology, Software | Tagged Brian Lawler, Illustrator graph, Illustrator graphing, Solar energy graph, The Blognosticator | Leave a comment

Running the five-color
Pearl press postcard

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Brian Lawler

In 2019 I began the restoration of an 1895 Pearl press, a treadle-powered letterpress that was donated to the Cal Poly Shakespeare Press Museum. That press was a rusty machine when we took delivery of it. I took it to … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Printing and Printing Processes, Software, Technology, Typography, Uncategorized | Tagged Brian Lawler, Heidelberg Windmill, letterpress printing, multicolor printing, Pearl press, precise printing, Shakespeare Press Museum | 4 Comments

Reminiscences of a prepress guy

Posted on September 12, 2019 by Brian Lawler

I am an old prepress guy. I owned one of the first PostScript service bureaus in the U.S. I was there at the beginning. It was painful, but overall it was a great business. We had been traditional typographers, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Color Management, History, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes, Software | Tagged Antique press, Cal Poly, Color separation files from Illustrator, Golding Pearl restoration, Shakespeare Press Museum, Spot-color separations from Illustrator | Leave a comment

My new Canon EOS R mirrorless camera
and a new world of high ISO shooting

Posted on May 3, 2019 by Brian Lawler

I was excited when Canon and Nikon both announced their mirrorless pro (or semi-pro) cameras last fall. The time had come. Sony has been in the market for three generations now, and Canon had made a few attempts (EOS M, … Continue reading →

Posted in Color Management, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Software, Web | Tagged Adobe Camera Raw, Brian Lawler, Canon EOS R, EOS R, Festival Mozaic, mirrorless camera, noise reduction, Scott Yoo | Leave a comment

The case for using DNG as your primary file type

Posted on July 17, 2018 by Brian Lawler

I have files created by a Kodak-branded, Canon digital camera from this century that can no longer be read. This is my second case of file obsolescence; the first being Kodak Photo CD files that cannot be read by any … Continue reading →

Posted in Photography, Photoshop techniques, Software, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged Adobe Camera Raw, Blognosticator, Brian Lawler, Camera Raw, Canon cr3 file type, converting to DNG, DNG file, DNG files, file obsolescence, obsolescence-proofing, preventing obsolescence | Leave a comment

A pretty good argument for using ProPhoto RGB
as your working color space

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Brian Lawler

Photographers discovered 20 years ago that sRGB is a really bad color space for professional photography. So we all changed to Adobe RGB 1998. The reasons for doing so are important: Adobe RGB has a larger overall gamut, and conversion … Continue reading →

Posted in Color Management, Photography, Photoshop techniques, Printing and Printing Processes, Software, Technology, Uncategorized | Tagged Adobe RGB 1998, Blognosticator, Brian Lawler, Canon 6D, Christopher Campbell, color gamuts, ColorThink Pro, fine art photography, ProPhoto RGB | Leave a comment