Some University Presses dont like digital images

[Graeme Nattress]

It does indeed sound like the press is completely out of date and doesn't know what they're on about.

I think you'll find that there a lot of people, especially in universities, who don't know what they're talking about. One head of graphic design department thought the "K" in CMYK stood for "Khaki"....

Graeme

[Jonathan Wienke]

When Stewart insisted they said they looked at the images
with Microsoft Paint and saw that the resolution was 96DPI, so not good enough for the publication!!
It looks like these people are still living in the 1980's.

They may or may not have a point, but looking at the DPI tag in the file is a totally stupid way to tell if the file is suitable or not. You need to look at the pixel dimensions and figure out the print PPI from the pixel count and intended print size. THe file PPI tag is meaningless; you can set a 400 pixel web JPEG to 400PPI and a full-res 1Ds-MkII file to 5 PPI, but that won't make the web JPEG ook better than the 1Ds-MkII shot.

[howard smith]

"... called Stewart. He took some shots of an old church in France for an academic who is going to publish... ."

It isn't a blame game.  The photographer is completely responsible for delivering to the client want he needs or asks for.  If the client does not make a specific request, then the photographer is responsible for asking and finding out.

A good business practice is to get all this in writing so there will no question about what was ordered by whom.  I always had the client initial a polaroid of a specific shot so there would be no questions later regarding what was expected.

[BryanHansel]

I ran into this once when retouching some photos.  The company I had to send the final pictures to wanted them to be 300 dpi, and that's all the info they'd give me.  So, I resized the photo for him.  It wasn't a high quality picture I was working with, and it ended up being something like 300 at 3"x5" or something like that.  It worked out perfectly for them.  
It ended up that the guy I was working with was running the operation, but he wasn't the guy doing the layout. Maybe the same case is at work here.

[feraudy]

Let me describe an experience by a friend called Stewart. He took some shots of an old church in France for an academic who is going to publish with a nameless university press.
He sent them JPEG files, and was then told that they would rather he sent them printed images.

Does this mean the university press wants to scan the prints?

When Stewart insisted they said they looked at the images
with Microsoft Paint and saw that the resolution was 96DPI, so not good enough for the publication!!
It looks like these people are still living in the 1980's.

[howard smith]

Out dated or not, it is their process.  The photogrpaher needs to understand what the client needs and wants.  Regardless of how good the images may be, if the printer can't use them, it is the photographer's problem.  The presses will likely roll on with images it can use.

[pfigen]

They all have a point, and the point is to try and blame the other guy. That's pretty much par for the industry. The photographer or whoever is submitting the file should have checked to make sure it was correct and obviously didn't. The printer should have looked to see if there was enough data to resize the image to make it right and either couldn't or didn't know how and the fact that they're using Microsoft Paint doesn't bode well for anyone here. No one is to blame and everyone is to blame. Sounds familiar.

[pfigen]

Howard,

I absolutely agree with you. The photographer *should* be responsible for delivering what's required, but it's clear that this one wasn't. The printer isn't being responsible either and they both appear to be blaming each other. Nothing gets accomplished.