High Quality Desktop Printer

I’m an ardent believer that it’s better to get your photographs off of your hard drive and into print.

About ten years ago, we had a 13″ wide printer to handle some of our smaller photographs. However, after it died following a long and generous life, we chose not to replace it. Since then we’ve been using a variety of photofinishers to reproduce our photographs.

After strolling by the Epson booth and seeing some of their impressive photograph displays, I talked to one of their customer representatives and am now considering their new Surecolor P600.

The P600 is a replacement for their previous R3000 model. It connects to your computer setup via an Ethernet connection or via WiFi. You’ll need a desktop area of 24″x36″ for the printer. The top loader automatically feeds 13″x19″ paper for borderless printing. There’s a front loader for feeding single sheets of specialty fine art papers up to 1.3mm thickness. For panoramic prints up to 10 feet long, the P600 accepts the included roll feeder.

The P600 uses nine high capacity ink cartridges including three types of black ink for smooth toned black and white photographs. The many photographs on display at the Epson booth demonstrated excellent quality on a variety of papers including these panoramas. In the past, I’ve had positive experiences using many fine art papers from Epson’s wide selection.

 
 
I asked the Epson representative about my concern about clogged ink cartridges when the printer is sits unused for a short while and was told that the ink will remain usable for up to six months from installation.

The list price of the Epson Surecolor P600 is $795. For more information, see the Epson P600 webpage for details.

The P600 is now on my short list of equipment purchases. I’m anxious to print several panoramas that I’ve stored on my hard drive – again, the hard drive is not a good place to keep photographs.
 
 
Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 

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Showing Off Your Photographs

Digital gives us the opportunity to take hundreds and hundreds of photos for almost no cost at all. This is an amazing turnaround compared to the price of using film cameras that had a processing charge saddled to each roll of film that we shot.

So what are we doing with all of these “free” photos? Are they sitting on the SD memory card or cell phone? I’m sure that my friends and relatives are impressed as I flick through the tiny screen to show them my recent vacation shot – NOT!

Well, to be frank, my fingers are tired of flicking the screen. And my friends and relatives typically avoid asking to see pictures of my travels. So I decided to print – yes you heard it correctly – print some of the photos.

	One afternoon I collected a set of my favorite nature shots and sent them to the photofinisher. A few days later received back a short stack of 8″ x 10″s and 8″ x 12″s Now the issue is how do I present them? I didn’t really want to arrange them in a conventional album that would sit on the top of a coffee table. No, I longed for a different way to display them. I decided that I’d show them off by making a small gallery in an unused room. The room is well suited for this purpose with a large, uncluttered wall painted white.
Rather than “hanging” the photos, I decided to make a very miniature shelf system. I bought a few 10-foot lengths of “J-TRIM” used to install vinyl house siding. These strips are lightweight and inexpensive. Use scissors to cut to desired length.	Use a tape measure to mount the J-TRIM level about 54″ above the floor. I used these ribbed plastic anchors (3/16″ size). Here I’m drilling a hole through the J-TRIM into the drywall.
Next you push the plastic ribbed anchor into the drilled hole.	Then fasten the J-TRIM to the drywall with one of the screws.
By themselves, the prints are too flimsy to stand on the miniature shelf. I purchased these sheets of mat board precut for the 8″x10″s and 8″x12″s.	Using the 3M spray-on adhesive, I mounted the photos onto the mat board.
I found it necessary to use this Scotch “mounting putty” to keep the photos from falling from the miniature shelf.	The putty is pasted between the photo mat board and the wall to keep the top of the photograph from falling.
Here’s another view of the putty which hold the mat board agains the wall.	Here you can see the photo resting in the channel of the miniature shelf.
When all is said and done, I have a small gallery of my latest travel photographs. As you might guess, when you’re tired of looking at this group of photographs, it’s very easy to change them.

 
Material List:

2 pieces of J-Channel – 10′ Vinyl 1/2″ J_Trim @ $2.40 each (Home Depot)
1 pkg – plastic ribbed anchors #4 – 1″ @ $7.99
1 pkg – 8″ x 10″ or 8″ x 12″ mat board 25 sheets @ $12.50
1 can 3M General Purpose 45 spray mount @ $5.00
 
 
Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 

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Discovering Black American

In 1978, we founded our parent company Abacus as a publisher of books and software. So for 35 years I’ve been involved with everything that accompanies the task of books – acquisition, contracts, manuscripts, editing, rewriting, printing, marketing, reviews, etc. The books that we publish are technical books: computing, electronics, aviation. While this gives me some expertise evaluating and reviewing books of this genre, I admittedly lack experience evaluating and reviewing history books.

Consequently, the mini-review that I’m about to give here is not based on my in depth knowledge of the subject matter. Rather it’s based only on my personal interest in this topic. Professionally speaking I’m not qualified to comment on history – but can you cut me some slack when I describe the book’s attractive layout and appearance, riveting content, easy reading, and many fine photographs and illustrations?

Discovering Black America is an in depth look at the forced settlement, migration, education, struggle, emergence and contribution of the Americans of African descent. I was surprised to learn that as early as 1500’s many of the early explorers to America were accompanied by black sailors. I read how the slave trade was fueled by the demand of southern farmers to establish and maintain a plantation economy. I learned how our archrival, the British, schemed to free tens of thousands of slaves during the Revolutionary War.

And so the author’s narrative continues methodically through the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, the two World Wars leading up to the contentious Civil Rights movement and onto the surprising election of our first Afro-American President.

Discovering Black America is divided into eight chapters arranged chronologically. Each chapter has several sub-sections. I found the reading to be short and sweet – quite descriptive but without any fluff. I didn’t have any trouble reading a few pages at one sitting and being able to easily pick up from where I left off later. The chapters are generously enhanced by attractive sidebars that provide additional interesting detail. The author somehow manages to apply a matter-of-fact voice to some very depressing and disappointing periods of American history.

Overall, the 240-page hardbound book is printed on high quality stock. The large book is handsome enough to adorn your coffee table, but you’ll be much better served by reading rather than just looking at it. Oh, did I mention the fine photographs and illustrations that abound its pages?

Full disclosure: since I’ve been a Facebook user, I’ve rekindled numerous friendships from the past. One of these is with Linda Tarrant-Reid, the author of Discovering Black America. Since we both graduated from New Rochelle High School (New York) in 1967, you can judge for yourself how far back this “past” extends. Anyway I’d like to commend Linda on the fine work that she’s shared through her book.

Why a review at Stay Focused? Maybe we can attribute it to editorial privilege. While “stay focused” is a term that is commonly used in photography, it is also a phrase that suggests that we don’t become distracted from things that really matter. I’d like to think that understanding the black sub-culture in our country is one of those things that really matter.

For those interested, I bought my copy of Discovering Black America online from Amazon for about $21. I found the book to be well worth its price.
 
 
Title: Discovering Black America
Author: Linda Tarrant-Reid
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 9 780810 970984

Reviewed by: Arnie Lee
 
 

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