Here offered are prints I will make from my TVK collection of catalogs and magazines : to keep all this in boxes when the content would be so interesting to so many of you seems... silly.
I will therefore roam through those stacks, scan the best images and gradually make them available for purchase. The TVK Archives are going... public :)
"Best" here covers two notions :
Technically, the images have to withstand enlargement and must therefore be well printed in the first place.
Artistically, the images must be surprising, mysterious, moody, typical, schmaltzy, cheesy, breathtaking, charming - anything but basic packshots with bland lighting.
The result being beautiful A2-sized prints of the best hi-fi images ever made between the 1950s and early 2000s, spread in three sections : gear, mood and, yes, pinups.
This is NOT your average eBay ad sale made with shabby laser copies marred by fingerprints and the backside seeping through, plus blurred screening as thick as 10% THD
and 2cm missing in the middle. This offer is for very serious, tedious, painstaking, rrrrrghgrgrah work, technically at the very limit of what can be done with pre-printed material :
poster-size archival prints here, not table-top thumbnails.
Technique :
> Scanning
For opaque documents the machine I have been using since 2006 is the Epson V700 : perfect, reliable and very sharp.
Absolutely NO descreening system is applied as that always makes for ugly murky whatevers ; instead, the scanning resolution is chosen after multiple tests in direct relation
to the final output size : the images thus remain as sharp as can be.
Original documents are handled with white gloves, double-page spreads are stiched with utmost precision, respective screening grids included. What looks like a very clean
800px-wide image on TVK in fact comes from a file often 10x bigger, processed in a calibrated environment from scanning to printing, with a big 2500$ Eizo monitor in the middle.
I am a professional photographer (http://www.axeldahl.com) and I ain't kidding about this. The scanner I use for my photographic work is an Imacon 848, an industry
standard which still costs 15,000€ today - "quality".
> Post-processing
White points, scuffs and age marks are done with, original color casts gotten rid of, paper yellowing minimized, sharpening used minimally - etc ; the result is as clean as can be,
without any grid patterns or typically Photoshop-esque artefacts getting in the way. I will not, however, clean up a 1967 image thoroughly enough to make it look like it was printed
last week - thou shalt not cheat on time.
> Printing
The printer I now use is the Epson SC-P800 with the A2 roll-paper option installed ; I've been professionally using Epson printers since 1999 - they work.
Epson's UltraChrome HD inks are pigment-based therefore not subject to fading, yellowing or hue changes over the years.
> Output size
The DIN A2 equals 17" inches so this format allows 42,5cm in width and up to anything in length - even 30 meters if I wanted to (…and had the fitting original).
Actually the maximum width is 43,5cm but I have to leave some margin for the framing ; the enlargement ratio ranges between x3 and x6.
> Paper
There's a choice of two : standard and deluxe. Previsibly, too, deluxe is pricier but both are matte : it's a necessity with large prints, otherwise they act as mirrors and shiny-glossy
papers mark too easily and don't last as long either ; I coat all of my prints with an invisible spray for further protection against UV exposure.
Standard
is Epson's Enhanced Matte (aka Archival Matte) : 189g in thickness with a soft, flat but velvet-ish surface ; this is the paper I use daily for my clients and for just about everything.
Print longevity is of about 15 years (...probably twice as much).
Deluxe
is Hahnemuehle's Museum Etching : a 350g pure cotton and slightly textured archival paper ; no alpha-cellulose, no optical brighteners and a neutral pH so print longevity is...
you're in for a full century. Truly magnificent paper.
Numbers :
Each image will be printed on order only and within limited runs of 10 for each paper type ; that's 20 prints in toto ; once the 20th print of the same image will have been made… no more.
Prints will be signed, numbered and identified as such ; this is not ego, just an ID method to avoid scams.
Prints will be shipped in expensive heavyweight cardboard boxes (snapshot below) with added full-size cardboard plates inside, prints padded in cristal paper wraps.
Notes :
> Remember that prints have to be framed, properly, with a glass window, to avoid drastic humidity changes, dust, ever possible bolognese sauce throwaways and kids' sudden
urge to draw hectic worlds with permanent markers of the color black.
> If you want to keep your prints for a very long time : no sunlight or halogen lamps directly on them.
> Remember the image you will choose will be BIG : choose carefully, no hurry, at all, so you do not get tired of it after a week.
> Again : this is NOT your average eBay cutout ad sales but poster-size archival prints.
Here it is, dedicated website :
>>> http://www.pristine-audio-posters.com <<<
Besides recent prints made for active supporters of the TVK project throughout the years, you can see below an original magazine and its A2 enlargement above it - big, isn't it ?
> ctrl-click all images for full-size view in new window <
And an early TVK pinup from 1970 :
And an example of post-processing work :
This original april 1982 catalog for the TX-1000 was in bad shape when I received it from Japan ; black-on-black doesn't help and Nakamichi never spent much on printing quality anyway.
Original size is 21cm in width. As you can see, the scan is weak in contrast and saturation... there's a reason : to preserve a maximum of detail.
The result, after quite a few hours of work, here shown at 25% of the file's size and made to be printed at about 55cm in width :
The process summarized in three steps with the cover of the original catalog for the DP-100, none too well printed in standard A4 size.
The same, printed on standard paper ; image size is now of 39x45cm (x2 ratio).
(the yello is due to my room lighting : the prints are white and bright, of course !)
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Clean, ain't it ? This is the closest one can get to the original Ektachrome. Now you may wonder why go to such lengths to scan and print properly ?
Because the printed catalogs are all that is left : all original slides /negatives /printing plates /4x5" duplicates etc were almost always junked right after printing. Trash can. Out.
This is preservation, archive work, not fiddly-do quickies.
