30 Silverglyphics Production #5 - First Proof Copy.

I received a call from CopyPress to come in and talk about an issue with the proof copy of the book. Here, I am consulting about the maximum length of the book cover, which turns out to be 320mm x 305mm rather than the 330mm x 305mm dimensions. There wasn't much to do about it, so we talked about resizing the inner and how to make the lettering on the spine sit in a more balanced way. That aside, this was a really satisfying meeting because the book looks good: it has good impact and will maintain that in the slightly smaller size, and I agree with my liason that it gives an impression of being substantial.

As you can see in this photograph, the cover falls short of the crop marks you can faintly see.

The contents sit well and the printing comes across as high quality.

The entire book is in grey-scale, which is fine, but for the chop, I think I will delete that and for the forty copies stamp in red ink - we'll see. I will make a final decision later.

The map double page spread came out really well, and I especially like how they added an extra fold. The page size stays the same for the second proof copy and I enlarged the map slighlty.

In terms of balance, I think it came out well. For the reduced size, I actually kept the map the same size and moved it a little to the left. The title on the map page also moves a little more left to the edge of the page just short of being in line with the map. Hopefully that will work.

The photographs were processed in Lightroom and then transferred to Photoshop for conversion to greyscale and then saved. I saved the photos for the Proof copy as Dot 20% but as you can see they are slightly dark. To make them more faithful to Lightroom, I have now saved them as Gray Gamma 2.2, and my impression is that this has been a good move with a 10-15% lightening of the photographs.

The outcome of the meeting last Tuesday set me on a path of reviewing the entire book in order to send it for a second Proof Copy. I gave myself two days. Just resetting the entire book took two days. After that I took the opportunity to proof read for grammar and logic as well as extra spaces and other minor errors - another two and a half days. I spent a day and a half wrapping my head around Gray Gamma 2.2 and how the photographs all came out in the PDF, so six days altogether. I was satisfied enough to send the files for another Proof Copy yesterday morning, but feel sure there are some errors I haven't picked up, so I will go through again and check. The actual content won't undergo any changes. The photographs look good, and I don't expect to adjust them, unless the second Proof Copy gives an unsatisfactory impression.

Exciting times for the production of 30 Silverglyphics - A Journey Along the Silk Road.