Effective viewing of Margulis' latest tome

Question

I just got Modern Photoshop Color Workflow by Dan Margulis, and it appears to be self-produced and only available from him (via Amazon or other brokers, though). Given the subject, I suppose he has very carwful control over the printing and is quite auteur.

However, I immediatly noticed that some of the examples don't show difference, and I suspect my reading light. More interestingly, picking up the book after using a tablet I found that it looked funny.

Just as we have to let monitors warm up, I seem to have to give my eyes time to adjust to the different white balance! In life that's instantaneous or takes a few seconds usually accompanied by brightness adapting anyway, so goes unnoticed.

So tell me (if you have a copy of that book), what color is the paper?

An unbleached or yellow paper might be nice for black text, and I use Finch vanilla or Crest natural white myself. But as I write this I realize that such would not be good for printing photos on, so it's probably "white".

So does one need to read it using an Ott-lamp or outside in the shade or something? Is it meant for a low color temperature (which looks normal when dim to indoor levels) or 6400K lamps?

More generally, how can I get the most out of this material?

Answer 1

I asked Dan to answer your questions. Here is what he wrote:

"Anything prepared with color fidelity in mind is best viewed in a graphic arts viewing booth or, if none is available, sunlight or equivalent. That said, one shouldn't take a product printed on an offset press too seriously as there will be unavoidable slight variation between copies.

The poster stated that he looked at the book immediately after working on a tablet. This is a poor idea because any printed product will look dull when the eye has adjusted to the bright light of any type of computer screen. This is one of the points made in the book: I advocate making an extremely colorful version of every file and then deciding how to back off it. But the decision has to be reviewed afterward, because after the eye has been dazzled by something very bright, it is not suited to make fine artistic decisions.

I have no other reports of anyone not seeing the difference between versions (although admittedly some of the distinctions are subtle)."