Preface

I'll admit it: I'm obsessed with digital imaging. I have been since 1987, when I first used a Mac for desktop publishing. I was 17.

Professionally, I come from a design and production background. As a teenager I started in graphic design, ran printing presses and worked in the litho darkroom. In my 20s, I became enthralled with digital imaging technology and worked as a prepress technician. On the side, I produced digital video and computer animation. At 28, I founded a Web and multimedia design firm that served corporate clients worldwide.

Sure, I always took pictures, but back then it was just for fun. In my daily work, I most enjoyed being the person responsible for making other people's photographs look great in print and digital media.

For several years, during the early- to mid-1990s, I managed a Scitex prepress service bureau in the Los Angeles area. Producing high-end imagesetter film separations and contract proofs, my staff and I were routinely processing images and layout files made by people with varying skill and expertise. These early desktop publishers all had one thing in common: everyone wanted to know how to get the printed piece to look like what they saw on their computer monitors. Thus I was forced to confront color management, device gamuts and calibration profiles before there were any real industry standards, and we handled huge numbers of high-resolution files on systems barely capable of it. During this time, I was also becoming enchanted with photography. ...

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