Project Portfolio

 

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The Need, The Solution, The Results

When you are successful, we are successful. We do this with the goal of offering new ideas, incredible products and maybe even a new horn for you to toot. Your satisfaction is always at the forefront of what we do. Browse through our portfolio and discover how we may be the ideal co-creator of your next great project.
We are: Artists working for Artists since 1976


Exhibit Installation Services

Hospital / Medical Center

4Museum / Visitor Centers RS669_IMG_0311RTCr-scrNon – Profits
The wrap looks stunning from all angles

Office Art / Decor

RS512_DSCF2382-lprFine Art

Bike Source (4)Retail

Fine Art Prints| Gallery Mount | Acrylic | Wall Paper | Metal Prints |

Case Study – Pear Workspace Solutions

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Client Need:

  • The new digs we’re a bit boring and didn’t quite fit the brand image.
  • The closet doors left the island feeling too utilitarian.
  • The area felt bland and clinical.
  • Increase sales through a lift in brand perception.

The Solution:

High quality large format graphics are both effective and affordable. Whether for short-term or permanent installations, the new line of Photo-Art Wallpaper products can improve your bottom line in many ways including employee moral and your client wow-factor. Imagine the ways this solution can improve your business.

 


The Story

Moving into a new space this client wanted something other than standard artwork on the walls. They were looking for something different, something big, bold and local. They also needed to cover 2 closets located within an “island” wall in the middle of the room. The island, about 8′ high x 3′ x 12′ was meant to break up a large open floor plan and to help give some privacy for client conferences. While the island brings functionality to the space, it needed to go from being a box to looking amazing.

After having done some other amazing large-scale work for the architect designing this space, they knew right away who to call. Nothing fills a room like a huge mural so this photo-wallpaper was the obvious choice. They asked us to wrap the island in a black and white panoramic photo of downtown Denver to tie into their location. Eleven panels completely wrap the island and the clean, contemporary, and graphical look of this great black and white image is stunning.The result is that this bland box is now a decorative centerpiece that impresses clients and improves brand perception.

And to liven up the employee break room they chose a brilliant color image of Red Rocks park that stretched from floor to ceiling and wall to wall for incredible impact. The employees enjoy upscale feel of the space and are more productive after their breaks.

The Takeaway:

High quality large format graphics can be both effective and affordable. Whether for short term or permanent installations the new line of Photo-Art Wallpaper products can help improve your bottom-line and your company brand in many ways; including employee moral and your client wow factor.

Have a question about how this solution can take your space from boring to stand-out impressive?

Give us a call to speak with one of our TrueArt Professionals about this or any of our other
Photo/Graphic products. Consultations are always free as is our personalized behind the scenes tours. Co-Creating with clients is our way of life. The TrueArt Experience is the result.

 

 

Reed Celebrates 40 Years

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We’ve seen great change in the decades since we opened our doors.

Some creative mediums have shifted away from slower technologies into faster methods that allow artists to move faster into distribution of their editions.  Forty years ago, the internet was used exclusively by educational and government institutions and the idea and personal computing was limited to geeks and hobbyists.   Every print we made was exposed in total darkness and editions required very long hours (and sometimes days) of repetitive burning and dodging.

Modern technology has simplified some aspects of printing but some things haven’t changed at Reed.

Today, because your hard-earned reputation hangs in the balance,  every print is still hand-inspected for quality assurance and carefully hand-packaged prior to shipping to you or your buyers.  We continue to package as eco-friendly as we can because the planet we share deserves our respect. You wont’ find excess inks, plastics, or manufacturing in our packaging – just for the sake of making it prettier. We strive to eliminate excess material waste from the beginning of your job through delivery to your door. And we source from recycled and reclaimed materials when it’s appropriate.

Holding on to the old-ways is a good thing.

We think that old-school craftsmanship still has a place in the world of fine-art editions – that technology should be seen as a tool and not a primary focus in doing business.  While many vendors in our industry push further into electronic automation, we continue to keep the human element of craftsmanship in the areas where it matters most.  And like the old-days, you’ll find we welcome open conversations between you the artist and those who make your prints, because your artistic vision is more important to us than putting up barriers. Yes we actually see you as important – not as an inconvenience.  Some values are worth holding onto.

Thank you for everything you have done to help our continued success in this industry!

Sincerely,

  The staff and family at Reed Art & Imaging.

Art Lenses and the Photographic Print – are you wasting money?

Lightjet versus Lambda – are you wasting the money you spent on expensive art lenses?

Large format printing and why the LightJet is superior: It’s in the details – literally, The construction of the Lightjet is superior to the Lambda due to the ways that each device projects it’s laser light onto the photographic paper.

The LightJet loads it’s chromogenic print paper into a perfectly round, precision engineered drum with the laser beam that travels dead center along the axis of the drum’s circle.  This means the laser always strikes perfectly LightJetLamdaLaserCompareperpendicular to the paper, a perfectly round laser dot across the entire image area. The result is maximum sharpness and detail across the entire print – corner to corner, edge to edge.

Unfortunately the Lamda uses a stationary laser that swings in an arc as the paper moves along a track. This causes the laser to be “bologna cut” as it moves away from the center of the print towards the edges – creating longer and longer oval pattern. So the only perfectly sharp area of this print is precisely down the middle. As the laser moves towards the edges, the print increasingly suffers detail and sharpness loss. While this design allows for extremely long prints over ten feet, the loss of quality is substantial and noticeable.  Such print lengths provide productivity benefits to the company making the print, but not to the fine artist customer looking for the finest print available.

“For photographers who have invested in expensive art lenses to get edge to edge sharpness and enhanced IQ, it’s clear that the flat-transport technology is taking away the benefits you paid a bundle to get.” ~ John Harris: 30 year industry veteran.

We are a nationally recognized leader in fine-art grade large format archival printing for the professional Creative. We price competitively whether you need one print or a full edition, and our TrueArt™ Process guarantees your satisfaction.

Learn more about our chromogenic print options. 

The Difference Between Pigment Prints and LightJet Digital C-Prints

Q: What is the difference between lightjet digital c-print and Giclee? Which is better quality? Thanks! ~ A. A.

LightJet uses laser light to expose chromogenic photographic paper, which is then chemically developed and fully cleansed to create the archival dyes that render the fine-art image.

Giclee printing uses electrical impulses to deposit archival pigments onto fine art substrates such as canvas or watercolor papers, similar in the way a home ink-jet sprays inks.

As for your question about which has better quality: Though you will find fans on both sides of the fence, neither is really lesser to the other for “quality” but they each have their differences that can be appreciated. Fine art photographers tend to prefer the LightJet Digital C-Print because the photographic print has a certain look and feel that works very well with the art-form and the color tends to be less artificially saturated and thus feels natural. Giclee Pigment Prints are often favored by fine artists due to the substrate selections of watercolor paper or canvas being closer to that of their original artwork. They both posses extremely high sharpness and wonderful color, contrast and detail. The Lightjet is continuous-tone and does not use dots, allowing for smoother tones and detail in highlights with richer saturation in the shadows. The Giclee Pigments allow for more mid-tone color saturation, especially in the yellows and magentas.

Lightjet and Giclee Pigment are both for reproduction of fine art, and exceed the quality of consumer level printing by significant margins. When combined with professional archival fine art substrates and the skills of a master printer the result is a genuine fine art print. Both prints are museum quality and as such, certificates of authenticity may be used with integrity.

Our LightJet and Giclee Pigment prints have been hung in fine art museums and the Smithsonian, so rest assured you are getting the “real deal’ in a fine art grade print regardless of your choice.

Staff Wheat-pasting for Month Of Photography 2015.

 

Every two years the highly energetic creatives here at Reed turn things up to 11 when Month Of Photography(MOP) comes around. This bi-annual event has gone global in its reach and this year was no exception. MOP 2015 has seen large-scale gallery participation in support of photography as an art form, and the outdoor attraction of wheat-pasting is exploding in popularity. We’ll have a several posts covering activities around this event, but this bit of fun is one of our own.  This is the second time that we have made the exterior of our building available for wheat-pasting artists during MOP. An art form traditionally using black and white images on inexpensive paper, this year our team decided to go bold with a splash of color. We had a great time hanging the work of our in-house artists with a special section reserved for winners of our social media competition. This show’s curation and direction was handled by our own Barb Pullin and Gary Reed.

The reviews for this show have been mixed. Traditionalists don’t care for the color – some quite adamantly against it, while those willing to step outside of tradition are looking to embrace it in their works for the next MOP.   Have a look and let us know your thoughts. Should wheat-pasting be black and white only, or do you appreciate the color?

Update: We’ve had five pieces stolen from this show – peeled right off the walls!

 

Behind the Scenes – Outdoor Installation for Month of Photography

It’s a busy street corner, and the building is vacant, but an eyesore it’s not. Now dressed in the fine art of Liz Hickok, the building is now sporting jewel like colors and makes a bold statement – all in honor of a show at Michael Warren Contemporary Gallery in Denver’s Santa Fe Art District.  Part of the bi-annual Month of Photography, this is just one of dozens creating a buzz. Liz Hickok’s amazing art joins pieces from all over the globe. Kick back and relax as Gary Reed and Jody Akers install this magnificent artwork.

Reed Art & Imaging, Richo, and John Fielder Sponsor Picture Me Here Event

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Event: “Damak to Denver: A Picture Me Here Project” Exhibit Features Bhutanese Refugee’s Photographs and Stories of their last days in a refugee camp, their journey to the United States and their first days in Colorado. Location: John Fielder’s Colorado & the Denver Photo Art Gallery, 833 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO 80204
Exhibit dates: March 6 – April 25, 2015 Opening reception: March 6, First Friday, 5-9pm Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday from 9am-5pm, with extended hours on First Fridays Project Partners: United Nations Refugee Agency, International Organization for Migration, Caritas Nepal, Reed Art and Imaging, Ricoh/Pentax, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Aurora Cultural Arts District, City Museum of Kathmandu, 258 Kickstarter Donors
Denver, CO (November 22, 2014) – Last Spring, Picture Me Here (PMH), a digital storytelling program for refugees based in Denver, provided cameras and training to Bhutanese youth living in a refugee camp in Eastern Nepal. The young refugees were scheduled to resettle in Aurora and most arrived by August. This training led by photographers and storytelling mentors empowered them to document their last days in the camp, their journey to Colorado and their first impressions of life in the US. Opening on March 6th, John Fielder’s Colorado & the Denver Photo Art Gallery will host an exhibit featuring a selection of these photographs by these individuals as they reflect on the past and start building new lives in America. Photographs and books will be available for purchase. Proceeds support the photographers, the PMH program and John Fielder’s Colorado & the Denver Photo Art Gallery.
PMH started in 2012 working with local refugees. The project in Nepal is their first international project and was made possible with help from the United Nations Refugee Agency. “PMH is committed to fostering communication, integration and connection among diverse groups of people. Participants document their lives and realize the value of their stories while learning new skills in leadership, technology and English” says Brigid McAuliffe, PMH director. Exhibit is open to the public and is free admission. More details about the exhibit can be found, when available, on www.denverphotoart.com
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“Everything about the photo says Nepal, from the posters on the wall to the men. It reminds me of how much I love Nepal.” – Keshavi Neupane
“Dhaka weaving is very important and a big part of life in Nepal. The women are like a second mother to me and hold a very special place in my heart.”  – Keshavi Neupane
“This is a photograph of my neighbor. She is sieving rice to make food. Though she’s extremely old, she has the power to see the very small pebbles. This is something she does twice a day, both early in the morning and again in the evening. By seeing this photograph, I realize that every person is capable to do work.” -Bhim Bahadur Bhattarai
“This woman is my aunt. She is cooking curry with some tomatoes in the bowl beside her. The sunlight scatters from the slats in the wall of her refugee hut.” -Bhim Bahadur Bhattarai
“This is the photograph that I took Bhadrapur Airport in Nepal. At this time, I am ready to take a flight from Bhadrapur to Kathmandu, which is the capital city of Nepal. At this moment, I am feeling amazing because this is the first time I am taking the airplane. I am excited.” -Bhim Bahadur Bhattarai
“The woman has to go to the husband’s parents house, when we resettle. I came with my husband to Colorado because that is our culture. My heart was broken to leave my parents. After the camp closes they will go some place far away called Pan Cha Me, in the mountains.  They have a brother they have to take care of in the camp. My step dad does not want to come to America. There was one women who knew my mom and my stepdad. She knew they had lost their partner and told them to marry. They met and fell in love. My step dad likes to hold things in his hands when he takes pictures.“ – Aita Rani Subba
“Mohan is taking water home from the well. The water is for doing laundry. In the camp, Mohan and I did laundry together, 5-6 times a day.  A big family will carry 7-8 times because they have a lot of clothes.” -Aita Rani Subba
“In the camp, we had to follow a schedule to get water in the morning and evening. This woman is getting water for cooking and drinking. We stand in line to get water. Sometimes we wait one hour. America is very different from Nepal. This country is very fast. Very easy.  When I arrived at the Los Angeles airport I went to restroom. I put my hands under the faucet and the water came. How is it? I felt like someone was giving from above! I was surprised! The air dryer also surprised me. At that time a stranger taught me to dry my hands. I used the hand dryer and it was loud. I was afraid.” – Mohan Rai
“We came to America to make life. For our kid’s life. There are lots of Nepali people in Grace Apartments and the park is nice.”   – Mohan Rai
“We put a ceremonial scarf called a khada over the shoulders of the relatives and friends who are departing as a sign of respect and remembrance.” – Mani Kumar
“I used a camera a lot in the refugee camp to capture the last moments of our relatives before they departed for their destination.” – Mani Kumar
Picture Me Here participants and instructors in the classroom
Picture Me Here students and instructors on the last day of class.
Some of the participants at a recent exhibit featuring their photographs and stories.
Portraits of the participants at their huts (taken by the instructors)
Participants learned how to use a camera and they selected images for an exhibit in the refugee camp.

 

 

 

 

Picking the right colorspace based on image content

An often overlooked aspect of color-spaces is the ability to use them to affect the overall “look” of the image. This 3D model represents 4 color spaces:

Pro RGB (in red), Adobe1998 (translucent white), sRGB (white wire-frame) and in yellow; a professional giclee printer – the Epson 9900 on Ultra Smooth Fine Art Paper.

GamutSaturationLimits

Top view of these gamuts shows their maximum saturation limits. The yellow wire-frame in the center is the available gamut of Epson’s 9900 Inkjet Printer.

The top view shows the saturation boundaries of the colorspaces. The larger the space appears here, the more saturation the color space will support.

 

 

Gamut brightness limits of ProPhotoRGB, Adobe1998, sRGB and the Epson 9900

Gamut brightness limits of ProPhotoRGB, Adobe1998, sRGB and the Epson 9900

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The side view shows the brightness levels available in the various color spaces. White is represented at the top and black at the bottom.

 

 

Color-spaces with larger hulls allow for greater saturation limits. This means a red with an RGB build of 255, 120, 120 will appear more saturated in ProPhotoRGB than it does in Adobe 1998.  Neutral colors will appear identical for hue across the color spaces, though the density (brightness) of those neutrals may differ.

How this affects the look of the image is quite dramatic. A side effect of saturation limits is it’s affect on the visual difference between two neighboring color values.  The examples below are screen grabs of the same color build across the three most popular working color-spaces. The left side of the boxes are a build of 255R 255G 126B, and the right sides are 255R 255G 112B

The color variation is barely perceptible in sRGB, but noticeable in the slightly larger Adobe1998 and more so in the much larger ProPhotoRGB. You can also see that as the size of the colorspace increased, the saturation increased.

Images with subtle variations in tone may be adversely affected from the use of a larger colorspace such as ProPhotoRGB, however if an increased separation is what you are looking for, tagging your file as ProPhotoRGB may benefit.

These samples, like the ones above contained all identical Photoshop builds, but were assigned different spaces. As the size of the color space increased you can see that the color separation also increases resulting in a loss of subtlety.  This loss means in increase of color noise, and in 8 bit files: a potential for banding. Real 16 bit files (not files converted from 8bit to 16) have a small likelihood of banding as long as they remain in 16bit. However, large portion of professional printing devices will eventually convert your 16bit file to 8bit for printing, and this could result in banding issues. Regardless of bit-depth, saturation will be higher in the larger spaces, so it’s something to be aware of and use to your advantage when needed.

This image is in the sRGB color-space. Notice the presence of subtle tones

The variations in tones in this image are pleasant yet still fairly subtle.

The variations in tones in this Adobe1998 image are pleasant yet still fairly subtle.

The subtleties in the lilly pad are nearly lost. A visible increase in color noise is also present in the water.

The subtleties in the lilly pad are nearly lost. A visible increase in color noise is also present in the water.

You will notice in the examples that as file is moved into spaces of increasing size, subtleties in the colors can be lost.  You can see larger views by clicking on the sample images.

As saturation increases, the the visible difference between neighboring colors increases. One artifact of this is an increase in color noise. This becomes quite apparent when comparing the reflections between the sRGB and the ProPhotoRGB files.   Also worth noting is how the “sky” colors in the reflection actually lose saturation with the larger ProPhotoRGB space. This is due to Adobe1998 and sRGB having greater saturation in a significant range of values in this region of color. So if sky saturation is of critical importance in your print, do a bit of testing before you commit to ProPhotoRGB and compensate when possible. Sometimes we get to accept some benefits at the expense of others, and working color-spaces are no exception.

sRGBLillyPadsToPrintSpace

sRGB color-space file converted to the Epson 9900 print space using perceptual intent.

Adobe1998RGBLillyPadsToPrintSpace

Adobe 1998 RGB color-space file converted to the Epson 9900 print space using perceptual intent.

ProPhotoRGBLillyPadsToPrintSpace

ProPhotoRGB color-space file converted to the Epson 9900 print space using perceptual intent.

So use your colorspace selection as a tool to further optimize your print results. Be conscious that you aren’t losing or gaining numbers of colors by using a different space, you are merely matching image type to saturation limits and distance between colors. And as always, should you have any questions, reach out in the comment section below!

Today We Bid a Fond Farewell to our E6 Developing.

Today we at Reed say goodbye to our old friend E6. When the E6 slide film process was introduced, the ground-breaking technology brought amazing real-life color and contrast to an already booming sector of photographers. Decades later the advent of digital capture technology, through its instant gratification, led to a rapid decline in the interest in slide film.

Just a few years back, the demise of the Kodachrome process was a clear indicator of things to come. The momentum behind the growth of digital capture was strong and the with lure of shooting quantities of images with no cost to develop them, the decline of film as a medium was inevitable.

With all the opportunities that digital brings to the table, it has its drawbacks and expenses too. Software, storage, migration of files as storage technology changes, obsolescence of file formats, and the list goes on. Transparency has the benefits of easy storage, it’s inherently archival and easy to view. No file format changes, no technology changes, no expensive software and no paying an assistant for hours of post capture digital time. This of course meant the photographer had to get it right the first time with no tools like photoshop to save the day. It was an era of bring your skills to the set and the camera or go home.

Digital has certainly changed the way we creatives do business, and it has increased competition as excellence in image quality has become more approachable with the addition of advanced editing tools. We now have more creative minds in our industry than ever before, and they’re stretching beyond the previous limits of the medium to bring amazing images to our world.

Progress means leaving the old behind and moving into the new. There are always trade-offs with change. The smartphone instantly connects us like never before, but we spend more time on social media and less time pursuing our dreams. The automobile brings great mobility at increased speed over the horse drawn carriage. But with it also comes environmental issues. We truly are a culture of instant gratification and film just doesn’t fit that model.

We’ve been watching a renewed interest in film photography blossom as today’s generation of students begin to embrace the old-school processes. But for E6 processing at Reed, it’s just too little and too late.

We intend to keep running our dip and dunk professional C-41 color neg film and B&W film lines as long as there is enough interest in those artistic mediums. At one time, we had one of the very best E6 lines in the nation. We were proud that Kodak and chosen us to be the very first regional participant in their acclaimed Q-Lab system – requiring tolerances twice as tight as professional standards. Tolerances which we easily met and exceeded. Unfortunately, our E6 volumes have been just too low to keep the 72 gallon developer tanks in-check and the product quality was suffering.

We would rather turn it off than deliver a product to you that doesn’t meet our standards. It’s been a good run, and a big part of the foundation on which we originally built our business and our national reputation.

As we flip the power switch for the very last time today, we say “Farewell old friend”.