To start 2015 we welcomed John Read, Managing Director ofMarrutt Ltd., to talk to us about all aspects of printing. John started the evening as a session of “Photographers Anonymous”. He held an amusing (but alarming) group therapy session which asked us to reveal how much we had invested in camera equipment to feed our habit. On the basis of this he conjectured that a £500 investment in an ink jet printer of photographic quality was something of a bargain. At the time I was persuaded that this was an entirely reasonable proposition although I was quickly disabused of this when I got home!
John’s lectures are available on-line via the Marrutt websiteso there is little point in repeating technical details here. In addition to being highly knowledgeable John is a great enthusiast for high quality printing and genuinely wants us all to produce prints of the high quality of those he was showing round – especially if we use Marrutt products to do so.
To this end he invites his audience to confront received wisdom of digital photography. For instance is it desirable, or necessary, to manipulate accurate camera data to produce data to feed an accurate printer when that manipulation is controlled on an inherently inaccurate monitor?
And, still in the realm of conjecture, if we do tinker with our data and obtain the desired style and standard of print shouldn’t the same manipulation recipe apply to every other print without needing to view each before pressing the print button?
Whatever your answer is to these, and other conundrums, it is always useful to have to think again about such matters – or consider them for the first time of course. Naturally John’s presentation had commercial content and intent but because of the expertise and enthusiasm of the presenter it was far from just a promotional pitch. Several packs of Marrutt paper were sold but certainly not enough to justify John’s trip from Uckfield and giving up his evening to talk to us. So we must be grateful to him for a very entertaining and informative evening – we are fortunate to have access to such expertise close to hand.