Take color management to the next level

Soft-proofing is an on-screen simulation of how your image will look when output to an inkjet printer, substrate and ink combination or an RGB printer like the lightJet. It is based on an output profile of that device made especially for a that substrate and ink combination. A calibrated monitor is crucial for viewing color accurately and soft-proofing can take your images and color control to the next level.

A printer can not reproduce the entire range of colors that are viewable on a monitor, these are known as out of gamut colors. Each printer, paper, ink combination has its own gamut or range of reproducible colors. There may also be a shift in color balance from what you see on your monitor to the print. If you’re sending images or a design project to a printer for output on their LightJet or large format printer, the need for proof prints can be minimized with soft-proofing and you can identify what colors may need a little attention.

To soft-proof your image in Photoshop, select View > Proof Setup > Custom.



The Proof Setup dialog box will pop up, in the first drop down select the profile for the output you’ll be using. You can request this from your printer or photo lab. Next, select a rendering intent. These are the methods by which out-of-gamut colors are mapped from the working space to the gamut of the printer, paper and ink. Perceptual works well for most images especially if there are many out-of-gamut colors. Relative Colorimetric can be better choice if your image doesn’t have any colors that are out-of-gamut for the intended output. Meaning there is less interpolation in the mapping of color to the output device, where as Perceptual there may be more interpolation in mapping colors, attempting to preserve the relationship of colors inside and outside the output gamut. Black Point Compensation should be checked, this ensures shadow detail will be maintained in the output gamut.



The Simulate Paper Color and Black Ink check boxes add a simulation of the whites and blacks of the profiled paper and ink. When a printer profile is made the color of the paper is one of the factors in building the profile, because the spectrophotometer is reading the combination of the ink, and the paper below it. These can be helpful if you are printing on off white or tinted substrates.

When you click OK, you will see a simulation of the image printed through your output profile. To toggle between the proof simulation and the normal view press Ctrl-Y.

Soft proofing can be a very valuable tool when preparing images for your trade show exhibit, POP poster or décor project. Feel free to email with any questions or to request one of our output profiles.

Paolo DeSanctis
Graphics Production

Planning For Your Trade Show Will Yield Results!

As mentioned in last weeks trade show blog, there are better and better prospects available on show floors these days, getting their attention and time is the trick. Here are a couple of ideas to help you to that end, while also helping to limit costs associated with attending a show.

Understanding the reason why you are at the Trade Show is they key to attracting the right people to your booth. There are tons of shows, all of which provide some sort of niche when it comes to attendees. This makes picking that right niche the most important single thing you can do in attending a show, especially if you are like most small businesses, with limited time, staffing and money to attend multiple shows. Figure out where you’ll get the most “bang for the buck” and you have taken the first step to success.

Once you have done that, crafting the right message and image to portray at the show becomes your next biggest test. Not only do you have to worry about the exhibit itself and how it looks, but also all of the pre-show marketing stuff that has to be done. It doesn’t matter how good you look, if your message falls on deaf ears, you are already behind the eight ball!

To this point, you need to know the niche that you will be selling to extremely well. Tailor your message and all of your collateral toward what you already know compels them. Invite the decision makers and influencers to your exhibit for a visit, giving them something in return for their effort. (This might be as simple as a promotional product or as elaborate as a discount off their next order.) Once they visit, be ready to accomplish what you intended to do from square one with that prospect.

Most so far is strategy, and that truly is the most important part of trade show success. Of course, if your prospects don’t recognize you when they get to the show, you have obviously done something wrong. While this sounds like a pith from a graphics company to have an elaborate exhibit, it’s really just a check to make sure that your exhibit materials look good and are on point.

If you are new to the trade show world, there are several ways to look great and not spend a ton of money in doing so. There are exhibit solutions that cater to limited budgets as well as others that may cost a little more up-front, but that save you money in the long-term by making graphic switches easier and more cost effective.

No matter what your level of need, there is a way for you to look great and achieve outstanding results at your next show. We would encourage you to speak with your trade show company (if not Bokland Custom Visuals) to discuss your options. Any good vendor will ask you the right questions to put you in the right exhibit solution for your needs, and once that is done have a selection of quality hardware and print options to fit your particular need.

Why Use Our Box Mounts?

Box Mounts Are:

• Beautiful ,simple and elegant
• Made to fit any environment or décor
• Sturdy, lightweight and ready to hang
• Quality reproductions made from any photographic, art or graphic original
• Archival, utilizing 70 year rated photographic materials
• Protected with UV lamination that can easily be cleaned
• Made up to any size from 8"x10" to 4ft'x 8ft including panoramas
• Easily  ordered online at www.digitalphotoprints.biz
• Efficiently produced  so we can provide incredible value

Please Contact Rick Bokland for details!

Photography rep needed for photo wall décor projects!

Fine Art and Nature Photographers

Try our Online Professional Photo website dedicated to Photo Wall Décor and receive a free 11x14 LightJet Box Mounted with your image!

Your images matched with our LightJet Box Mounting creates a simple and elegant treatment that will compliment any office or hospitiality environment.

Bokland will also include 3 other Box Mount molding samples and custom wall covering into a sample décor kit.

Our digitalphotoprints.biz website allows you to upload images or graphics into galleries and order LightJet Photographic Prints in Box Mount frames to fit any image, even panoramas. With our systems we can offer professional high quality reproductions as Box Mounts at exceptional value, either purchased online or worked up as a project via a quote with Bokland Custom Visuals.

You can order quantity display prints any size at low wholesale pricing and experience many unique features that can be customized to meet your professional objectives, including webstore plug-ins from your existing website.

Bokland Custom Visuals also is a complete Large Format Print producer that has a number or printing technologies to compliment any environment with printing on Fabric, Canvas, Wood, PVC, Banners, Metal ,Wall Covering or Adhesive Back Vinyls.

We are a great resource for stock art, graphic and photographic images for any décor. Matched with our printing and box mounting products or custom framing.

Bokland Custom Visuals is seeking décor reps who can meet with office and hospitality décor professionals in your area. Services offered may include photography and local imagery, your stock images , image and art consulting, display prints with custom framing or Box Mount , large format printing, logistics and on-site installation all from a single source.

Please Contact Us!

Business Décor Provides Fresh Ideas On How To Sell Prints!

For over a year Bokland has been developing our new Décor Services group, combining all of our print making capabilities with new in-house framing and a commitment to partnering with our customers!

Because of our long standing relationship with photographers and artists, we are in a unique position to approach hotels, office management companies, retail chains, hospitals and schools with wall art products that are unique to their area, not some generic, stock art solution provided by a company half way across the country!

We partner with our customers, who have great imagery , to sell unique décor solutions that go way beyond generic products. Working together means that we can offer superior products that fit the application, share in the proceeds of each project and create a sales network that keeps opening new opportunities!

Trade Show Recession Beating Tactics!

In todays business climate, dollars are more important than ever, making decisions on attending and preparing for trade shows more and more difficult. Everything you read, tells you that show traffic is down, travel costs are up and trade shows might not be the best place to spend your marketing dollars.

In reality, new business opportunities abound on the trade show floor. While traffic may be down, the people you see are probably higher echelon decision makers for the companies attending, in some cases eve owners. Keeping with this idea, with less traffic, you also have more time to spend with the people who do visit, allowing you to qualify leads better, develop better rapport with your visitors, and quite possible even close business that you might not have otherwise been able to close.

Of course, none of this will be at all possible if you don't go to the show or don't make a concerted effort to look your best while on the trade show floor. Attending a trade show if definitely an investment, but for the same reasons that companies are making decisions to incorporate trade show marketing in their mix, show organizers are much more willing to make deals for floor space, making it more affordable to attend.

It is also fortunate that there are many new, value based exhibits available that afford companies the opportunity to look professional and different from other competitors on the trade show floor, for a fraction of the cost that exhibits sold for just a few years ago. Portability, low cost printing methods and reusable hardware, all make it easier for you to attend shows without the pain of high investment.

In conclusion, don't give up on trade shows as a valuable method of increasing sales in your business. What appears to be a possible poor investment, just might turn out to be your cash cow!

We Do Trade Shows!

Over the last two years or so, trade shows have become almost a second thought when it comes to marketing expense. With the economy lagging and transportation costs having soared, it's easy to see why businesses haven't embraced the Trade Show model. The fact of the matter however, is that trade shows are still one of the most viable means of putting yourself in front of the most qualified leads available. Every show affords you the opportunity to meet face to face with the cream of the crop prospects that are out there looking for new vendors and new ways to increase their business.

At Bokland, we have adopted a slightly different approach to trade show participation. With fewer dollars to go around these days, we have several exhibit solutions that help you stretch your marketing budget further by offering great products at exceptional values! Our first step is to work with the best vendors in the industry, like Mark Bric Display. By partnering with vendors we are able to offer a variety of products that fit almost any trade show need at almost any price point.

Our product line up includes a variety of retractable banner stands, static banner stand options that emphasize value, multiple pop-up displays, even some custom look exhibits that let you stand out from your competition without paying the standard $100 psf that others charge. As a vendor we also offer multiple printing options that leverage value, "green initiatives", quality and even a combination between the three. Our exhibit and graphics solutions allow you to be creative, have a conscience, look great and save money all in the same exhibit!

We are located in Albany, NY, allowing us to service upstate NY, The western NY area including Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo as well as the metropolitan NY and Boston areas!

Here are some examples of recent work, for more please visit our Trade Show Gallery!

ICC Workflow: Monitor Calibration

If your looking for consistent color from your large format print vendor or photo lab, calibrating your monitor is a must. A monitors color output varies even from out of the box and especially over time as they age. Calibration keeps them operating in a stable and consistent way. Hardware monitor calibration is the best and most accurate way, and in recent years has become much more affordable. You can pick up a monitor calibration package from a leading color solution company like X-Rite for around $200. 10 years ago this sort of technology cost thousands.

Hardware based calibration uses light monitoring and measurement devices (spectrophotometer) with color management software to achieve more exacting and consistent results. With hardware calibration the red, green and blue phosphor colors, as well as the white points, are all accurately measured and corrected to an industry display standard. Re-calibrating every 2-4 weeks will maintain the monitor so that the way it produces color will stay consistent over time. If your monitor is not correctly displaying color, then time spent on image editing could actually be counter-productive.

Adopting and maintaining a monitor calibration and color management system will guarantee the results on every trade show, large format print, and POP display project that you work on, saving time money and frustration!

Paolo DeSanctis
Graphics Production

Beer Signs Are A Flowing!

Beer Sign Specialists (a Bokland Custom Visuals Affiliate) experienced a fantastic fall, having large orders come in from noteable Craft Brewers such as FX Matt Brewing (Matt Beer & The Entire Saranac Line), Clipper City Brewing from Baltimore Maryland, Uinta Brewing From Salt Lake City UT, And Lagunitas Brewing From Petaluma CA, are among the Breweries for whom we are creating fantastic looking POP wood sign products! Our wood signs work great as POP, retail shwag, and décor for the discerning dorm room or in house bar!

Bokland Helps Protective Industrial Celebrate 25 years!

Bokland Custom Visuals in Albany NY, worked with Protective Industrial Products, of Guilderland NY, celebrate their 25th anniversary at a recent Trade Show in Orlando FLorida. Bokland provided an Orbus Orbital Truss system to PIP with various large format graphics to round out the exhibit. This 30'x50' exhibit space featured multiple graphic panels along with individual structures that allowed PIP to display it's full line of Industrial and Commercial Protective products. Images are below, congratulations on 25 successful years PIP!

The Facts on Fonts

When submitting a file to Bokland Custom Visuals that contains text for large format graphic output, there are steps you can take to insure that your project is completed on time and to your expectations. Providing us with all the fonts used is one step. Also, many graphic applications allow fonts to be converted to outlines. Whenever possible, providing files with fonts converted to outlines is the safest way to go. Once you convert all fonts to outlines it is no longer necessary to provide us with the fonts used. Here are some application specific suggestions: Indesign: Provide a complete copy of all fonts used or provide the indesign file to us with fonts converted to outlines. Illustrator: Provide a complete copy of all fonts used or provide the Illustrator (ai) file or eps file to us with fonts converted to outlines. Quark:  Provide a complete copy of all fonts used. Photoshop: Provide all fonts used or provide a flattened tiff file. Once your file is flattened, it is no longer necessary to provide fonts. Indesign, Illustrator and Quark all have a "collect" or "collect for output" option available which will collect all the fonts used as well as linked files. Using this option is the best way to collect all the elements of your layout. Whenever possible to convert all fonts to outlines, this is the preferable option. Considering issues with fonts on your next large format printing job will potentially speed your project along and make your next exhibit, trade show or Point of Purchase project a success!

Yes Virginia there is a Hard Copy!

Regardless of wether you are making a ten foot Trade Show booth, Point of Purchase Graphic, Vinyl Banner or a Wooden Sign, a hard copy will make your job go smoother. Even if your hard copy is in Black and White it can help us catch any errors that can occur in our process. You have all ready done your work of providing your fonts (We recommend outlining fonts) and related graphics. Now we have to process your file in our RIP Software for printing. In the case of Indesign or Quark we may have to create an intermediary file like a PDF or an EPS for processing. Many things can go wrong. Fonts can sometimes can drop out or be replaced with a font of a different manufacturer. Spot colors used with transparency may yield unexpected results or even elements within you file may completely drop out. All of these things, and more, we can catch more quickly with a hard copy. With most jobs we recommend getting an approval print, but a hard copy can help avoid a second approval, saving you valuable time and money.

Shape Up your Point of Purchase Signs

Now with our CNC Routing capabilities and our Jeti UV Direct To Substrate Printer your Point of Purchase signs do not have to be rectangles anymore. Now you can make your graphics stand out! Regardless of whether you just want to round the corners of you graphics or make a life size cut out, the file set up is easy. Bring you file into Illustrator and create a new layer to draw your cut path on. Use the pen tool with a stroke. The color of the stroke or the width doesn't matter. Your path should contain as few points as possible to define your shape. Use bezier curves whenever possible and watch out for loops in your path. Draw your path so that the image has as small amount of bleed if possible. Bleed on inside corners is a must! Inside corners will have a one quarter inch radius when we are cutting with a router bit. The attached file will explain this concept further.

ShapeCutTipSheet