Bokland Introduces KaseMake POP / POP Software

Innovative

Today, more than ever, markets are demanding new and creative job production steps. KaseMake allows us to design, print, cut and score all types of 3D retail store displays. Even view the actual piece in 3D on the computer prior to printing!

Economical & Ecological

By using corrugated cardboard along with eco-friendly UV inks as the main raw materials in your displays, not only will you save money because of the process but also create display products that are green and fully recycleable.

Easy & Practical

Using KaseMake POP software you can go very quickly and accurately from your idea or hand sketch to the finished display. The built in 3D CAD rendering system lets you look from any angle. There is even a library of pre-developed designs to make things even easier!

Make custom POS pieces like these! Call us today!

The President Likes Our Handy Signs!

Last week President Obama visited GE Energy, in Schenectady, NY, to discuss his plan for creating jobs in our country.  During his tour of the facility, incidentally the birth place of GE, he learned about the products that are manufactured there with the help of some signs that we created just for the visit!  In fact, he thought the signs were "handy" and told everyone about them.  Bokland was lucky enough to produce the project through EP&M international (Exhibit Planning & Management of Menands, NY) who handles the trade show and event needs of GE Energy.  Any way you cut it, it was a great project with kudos that don't come around that often!

Resolution 101

A very important technical concept to understand when starting any digital imaging project is image resolution.

A pixel is the smallest measurable interval of a digital bitmap image. Resolution is a measurement of pixels. It determines how an image will appear on the screen and how the pixels are distributed in the output, or how the pixel information will be used on a printer. The original pixel dimensions of an image are determined by the capabilities of the hardware that was used to capture the image, usually a digital camera or scanner. More captured pixels in an image means more detail, better gradations and depth of color.

Like many other things in a digital workflow resolution can be thought of in two ways: input and output.

Input is the capturing of pixel information weather through a digital camera, scanner or created/rendered with bitmap image software.

Output is how that captured information is going to be used or distributed. On a monitor, projector, television or output through a printer to paper, canvas, wood, metal or any other substrate.

Even though they are often used interchangeably, pixels per inch (PPI) and dots per inch (DPI) are not the same thing. PPI refers to the number of pixels found in one inch of a digital image or a monitor. DPI refers to the amount of resolution a printer is capable of outputting. Printers use dots of ink to render an image; the more dots a printer can produce per square inch (DPI), the better its quality. The finer the dots and the pattern by which the dots of ink are laidd down also contribute to the quality of the printed image. But this is only half the equation. No matter how great the printer resolution is the quality of output will be determined by the resolution of the original capture. In an ideal situation you want the needed input resolution for the intended output.

Lets say you're working on a large trade show exhibit with multiple images from multiple sources and the main part of your exhibit is a large paneled wall printed about 8 feet by 10 feet. It would be best to set up and edit the images to output size before beginning any layout or design. This will give you an idea of how big you can go and possibly save you from having to rework anything later for lack of resolution. Viewing distance is a key factor in determining how big you can go. It is best to speak to a technician for information on resolution guidelines, but most likely this will be anywhere from 100 DPI to 300 DPI at actual print size for most printers.

To see how much image resolution you have for your intended print size open the image size dialog box in Photoshop under the image menu.

Here is a 10" x 15" image at 180 ppi resolution. Uncheck the resample box and enter a new document size.

This resizes the image and changes the image dimensions without changing the total pixel dimensions. Note how the pixel dimension is locked out and doesn't change. Here at 20" x 30" the resolution is 90 ppi. By doubling the document size the resolution is cut in half. Essentially the original pixels of this image are going to be distributed further apart to cover the new larger size. This also works in reverse when scaling down an image. Making the size smaller gives you more pixels per inch.

If you check the resample image box and change the dimension size the software uses interpolation to create new pixels, in effect adding pixels to the image. The interpolation process estimates the values of the pixels needed based on the existing pixels in the image. Interpolation can introduce a loss of quality even though it is adding pixel data. This depends on the quality of the image that is being resampled and the amount of resampling being done. The trick is to use it sparingly. It only really works if the original pixel data is of good quality, sharp, not grainy and not compressed. Then you have a shot at increasing your pixel dimension 15% to 25%. Another tip would be to size up in increments of 5% to 10% at time rather than all at once. This allows the software to make better estimates on the new pixel data.

Image resolution is a complex subject matter with many facets. Hopefully this will bring some light to the base concept and be of aid in your next large format printing project.

Paolo DeSanctis
Graphics Production

Portable & Modular Trade Show Hardware Makes Sense!

The days of huge custom exhibits that shipped to the show in huge crates that could hold large animals and cost you an arm and a leg to store and move around the show floor are becoming more and more a thing of the past. Fortunately, it is no longer necessary to spend ungodly amounts of money to achieve custom looks.


A typical custom trade show crate like this. That might hold an exhibit like this.

Compared To:

3 cases like this, that can hold a display like this


As a matter of fact, many of todays newer exhibit systems allow you to create substantial looking structures that fit in to wheeled cases that can be shipped via UPS for a fraction of the cost a full sized booth would be. Not only do you save on the shipping aspects of the exhibit, but also drayage, storage and setup. Many times one person can set a portable trade show exhibit up in less than a day.

At Bokland Custom Visuals we handle several different exhibit makers hardware, but focus primarily on products from Mark Bric Display. We choose Mark Bric for the quality of the products they bring to the table as well the diversity of hardware they manufacture. Remember that at the end of the day, whatever money you save on the exhibit hard costs, you can spend on stronger marketing and promotion of the show!

Free 11x14 LightJet Box Mount From Famous Nature Photographer Carl Heilman.

We are offering a free 11x14 LightJet Box Mounted print from renowned Adirondack photographer Carl Heilman. Carl has produced a number of published table books and has worked with Bokland Custom Visuals on a number of décor projects.

Just select from a gallery of 30 Carl Heilman images on our Digitalphotoprints.biz website and then order one of his fine prints with a 2" cherry Box Mount frame. We believe that you will be so impressed with the simple elegance and adaptability of our LightJet Box Mounts that you will realize that this can be a perfect resource for many office and hospitality environments.

Bokland will also include 3 other Box Mount molding samples and custom wall covering in this 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 production systems we can offer professional high quality reproductions in Box Mounting at exceptional value, either purchased online or worked up as a project via a quote with Bokland Custom Visuals.

Bokland can be a great resource for art, graphic and photographic images for your next décor project. We can direct you to some wonderful resources and websites that can be utilized and matched with our printing and box mounting products at reasonable prices.

Bokland Custom Visuals also is a complete Large Format Print producer that has a number or printing technologies to compliment any environment. If you need printing on Fabric, Canvas ,Wood, PVC, Banners, Metal ,Wall Covering, Adhesive Back Vinyls we can be your resource.

Click here to learn more about Bokland and all of our services!

Trade Show Awareness

Trade Shows these days are a funny thing, as mentioned in my previous article, costs are up and attendance is down. There still are those heavy hitting decision makers walking the floors however, making choices on whether to attend, how much to spend, how to niche your services, etc., etc, harder to figure out. I just read this past week that McCormick Place in Chicago just lost 2 of it’s largest shows for 2010. The trade show business is definitely a fluid one at best, but I think that there are some ways in which you can leverage the chaos in your favor, especially if you are a small or medium sized business that may not have to rely entirely on tier one, national trade shows to increase your business.

The fact of the matter is that national venues like McCormick Place, The Javitz Center, The Moscone Center are losing their luster in favor of venues like Orlando and even smaller places like The World Trade Center Boston, and resort settings. No, these smaller halls can’t handle big shows, but they do a very good job hosting targeted, niche trade shows and conferences. The question every business considering a trade show must answer is, “Is there enough business to be had in these “boutique” type events?”

A real world example of making these decisions is Bokland’s own experience in trade shows. Twice we have attended the national “Global Shop” trade show, focussing on the point of purchase market on a national level. There were great national prospects walking the show, but there were also literally thousands hundreds of companies competing for their attention. In the end, we walked away with the warm and fuzzy feeling that we had done a national show and looked pretty good doing it, only to find that the ROI never quite came around.

Bokland, At Global Shop 2005, a $30,000 investment in a Trade Show

By contrast, last year Bokland attended the National Brewers Conference in Boston at the World Trade Center. This particular show was two days, cost 1/10 of the amount it cost to do the national show and focussed very specifically on a small niche market. We were able to make a smaller space work for us, we could identify our prospects easily, and weren’t competing with the proverbial 800 lb. gorillas of our industry. We walked away with more business from this specialty trade show than we did displaying twice at the national level. We also advanced our presence as a leader in our particular field within this industry and continue to do so by leveraging this strategy.

Bokland at The National Brewers Conference, a $3000 Trade Show Investment

At the end of the day, we all have to ask ourselves where we fit within our industries. Some, unquestionably, have to work on a national level, but the vast majority of small and medium sized service companies do have a choice in regard to what trade shows they attend, and should without question make this a part of their decision making process!

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