Black Is (And Isn't) A Color

James Gurney has just published the best explanation of the properties of black that I have ever seen. He has done a four part examination of its use as a pigment, in composition, and properties as a color...or not.  This last installment was my favorite.  As it turns out, it depends on the context of the discussion, and its relation to other colors.  This man is a heck of an educator!

If you don't read his blog yet, I highly recommend it.  GurneyJourney.blogspot.com

New Scanner!

A Scanner Darkly: It might be the name of a really weird movie.  It might also be the addictive behavior of a person who just purchased an Epson Workforce 7510. 

We bought it for the large-format printing and scanning ability.  Now, I'm not planning to make art prints for sale with this thing, though I hear it does ok with that.  I was really interested in the scanning ability.  The reviews were great, and I've been a scanning fiend since it arrived!  It's got an 11x17" bed, and prints up to the same size.  It's not a plug-and-play scanner, but the software and network setup is not complicated, and the directions were quite clear. And all of that setup comes from it being WIRELESS!  Here's a fun feature: any apple mobile device connected to the same network can print without any setup!

Check out the detail it captured in one of my new drawings:

Primary - Female Eastern Bluebird

I'm still tweaking the color settings.  It seems to read white as white, without letting its natural transparency appear.  Much of this can be corrected in Photoshop without too much effort.  I did change the gamma setting, which helped a great deal.

I also prefer to start my scans through the PC application, because you can crop out the extra scan area before the image is captured.  If you use the buttons on the scanner itself, you cannot perform this function. 

Yes, I've only had this thing for a few days, but I really could not be happier!  Scanning is so much faster than setting up a photo for these small drawings!