what's up with the UK B&W Photography magazine

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keithwms

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I was a bit shocked by one of the latest (Sep 07) issues of Black & White Photography magazine, the one from the UK.

I don't have any issues with film vs. digital and all that, this isn't an analogue rant! But the print quality just seemed rather poor or at least highly inconsistent, at least compared to some of the earlier issues. Some images have very obvious posterization and pixelation- tonally some of them look about as bad as what you get from Lulu.

For example, there is a wide shot of a horse's head in the sep 7 issue that I think was taken with an RD1 and it is tonally awful, way worse than what an RD1 should be able to do. And some of the advertising section at the front of the mag is highly pixelated. At the same time, some adjacent pages and exhibit pages in the central features looked quite good, as usual.

What's up?!

Has their been a decline in the print quality or is this normal practice, to print different pages at different levels of quality? Or is this just spurious? It's a shame if quality is going down because I usually enjoy this magazine and I truly don't mind seeing a bit of a mix of digital with film.
 
I subscribe to B/W Photography and my issue is as always superb with none of the problems you experienced.The wide shot with the horses head is particularly splendid and taken by a member of this forum.There was a thread at the time but I cant find the link right now.Perhaps the printers had a bad day when your copy was printed.
Regards
Steve
 
Wonder if they've changed proofing.

Most magazines now are CTP - computer to plate. You don't get to see a proper screened proof as you did in the old days (the 90s). it saves at least $100 a page, and is much quicker... but you can get faults, like pixelization, that aren't detected unless you're checking the presses.
 
Have a look at tis lengthy thread on the APUG forum about the mag. Talks about everything from the poor print quality, content to change of editors. It even has comments from the new editor, David Corfield.
 
Hi Kuvvy, it might be just me being a bit thick, but is there a link in your post above ?!

I'm curious to hear comments on the B+W Photography mag as it's the only interesting publication I can get here in NL.
 
The editor is gone as posted above. Some of this year's printing has been poor, some of the copy even poorer. The equipment reviews in a few of this year's issues have been of particularly bad quality.
 
Steve Litt said:
I subscribe to B/W Photography and my issue is as always superb with none of the problems you experienced.The wide shot with the horses head is particularly splendid and taken by a member of this forum.There was a thread at the time but I cant find the link right now.Perhaps the printers had a bad day when your copy was printed.
Regards
Steve
Click to expand...

Let me restate, my problem is not with the technique or composition of that RD1 horse shot itself, which is a clever shot, I am simply saying that it is clearly posterized in my copy, whereas other shots are not... weird.
 
>The wide shot with the horses head is particularly splendid and taken by a
>member of this forum.

That member is me. Thanks for the complement...

My copies of the magazine look fine to me. Then I was happy to see my photograph in print and I didn't look overly critically at the print quality.

I'll just say that in the mags that I have, I am happy with how my print looks.

Keep in mind that they scanned a small print to reproduce it in the magazine so this image is far from a first generation copy.
 
I have been watching the change in editor situation quite carefully, as I have subscribed for years, and noticed the increase of digital articles compared to film...but will wait and see how it pans out to the end of the year, if its not as good as I expect I simply wont subscribe any more, it would be a shame though, as it's the only good UK photography mag around.
 
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