In love with Pantone 8005

More digital proofs arrived in the mail this week. First came all of the pages, every beautiful image. There's something breathtaking about seeing them full-size done by the printer. We're still adjusting density, tonal range, and contrast on a couple of the images, and catching places that need to be spotted. Sometimes there is a speck of dust on the negative, or a scratch, and when you blow up the photo, it suddenly is very apparent.

And then the cover. Incredible. This is where the Pantone 8005 comes in: Besides the black and gray, the designer added in the 8005. It's gold. Beautiful, shimmering gold. The magic that makes the whole cover just ring. I hope you can see it in the photo here. The big patch of 8005 on the right: the endpapers. Incredibly rich and beautiful.

Yolanda said it best:"Jacket, case and endsheet proofs are here and they look oh so beautiful, strong and sweet."

Here's the corner of my writing room right now.

Working with the publisher to get the images just right

Dorothea Lange is in the final prepress stages. Caitlin Kirkpatrick at Chronicle Books sent me one huge page of what the printer is coming up with, using the paper and ink we'll have for the book. A few of the images were too dark, so the next day I went in to Chronicle -- the joy of having a publisher a short BART ride away!

Sheet of pages for color correction

I worked with the production coordinator, Yolanda Cazares, and the editorial assistant, Caitlin Kirkpatrick, on  figuring out the best way to show Dorothea's photos. We were going to do duotone, but there were just not enough mid-tones, so Chronicle is doing tritone! Do you know how gorgeous this will be? 

Yolanda Cazares and Caitlin Kirkpatrick in the worlds best-ever, walk-in light box

Yolanda is using two blacks and a third color to add the tonal range they want. In her words, "not sepia, but a touch of gold." See how hard it is to talk about color using words? After the printer lays down the ink, the whole thing gets a very light coating of varnish, which adds to the warmth of the image.


This is the next best thing to holding an actual, archival print in your hands.