EPIC RAGE
The following is a letter I JUST SENT in respond to the WORST PRINTING I'VE EVER RECEIVED.
"To the operators of CopyKats at UTSC,
I must admit, I am sorely disappointed with a print I purchased today,
and it is a problem that needs addressing.
My name is Greg Beaton, I'm a 5th year student in the New Media and
Studio Arts programs here at UTSC campus, and this is my graduating
year. With both of my programs comes a great deal of assignment work,
particularly for Studio, and it's work I take pride in. This past
year, I've been doing a significant amount of work in Pixel art
styles, using very low resolution images in large sizes.
Today I submitted a print -- a print which contains images that I was
to cut out later and mend in to a completed piece. It was 40.6" x
116.8", at a resolution of 5 DPI -- an image that SHOULD appear crisp,
made of tiles that are a fifth of an inch square. These images were
for three of five piece being produced for a 4th year class, VPSD56 --
Advanced Studio Practice. Pieces that are VITAL to my success in the
class. Not important, VITAL.
There's a lot of additional work to be done on the print after I
receive it -- it has to be cut and mounted. A process I was expecting
to take me all weekend. However, I will not be able to complete this,
as the print was botched.
I've attached an image that is a sample of imagery from the work I got
printed today. Both samples are from the same 16x32 pixel original,
both of which have been resized -- Any normal monitor should display
these at the size it was printed. The image on the LEFT was resized in
Photoshop with the bicubic method, while the left half was resized
with the Nearest Neighbor method.
Now, frankly, I have never seen a printer make this mistake. I
regularly print low resolution proofs in the Bladen Wing computer
labs. I printed a copy of this image there to show to my class without
resizing it; just by using the original low resolution image, and it
came out as per the right half; crisp and clean. While I don't
understand how your printing process works, I somehow can't imagine
the printer doing this on its own -- it's just contrary to how I
understand printers to work.
So, what I'm left with is the theory that someone SECOND GUESSED my
document and resized it to the dimensions I specified at a different
resolution, likely 300dpi, and they did it with the default bicubic
method in Photoshop or in some similar piece of software. This I find
especially shocking because I was CALLED and they confirmed what I was
looking to have done.
This whole thing would have been resolved earlier if I was able to
pick up the print personally, but it was collected by a friend of mine
as I was unable to return to campus before 10pm this evening, when I
discovered the problem.
To sum up the issue: The print is unusably blurry. It was expensive,
and now the amount of time I have to work has been reduced by days.
I am very angry about this incident, but that aside, I can believe it
was an honest mistake. I am more frustrated than anything else, as
this is important to me and this problem is very stress inducing. I
need some sort of resolution to this, as soon as possible.
Additionally, when I looked at my memory key this evening to make sure
that the images hadn't been altered since I placed them on to it
earlier today, I discovered a virus on the drive -- my Antivirus
quickly quarantined it, but it certainly was not there before I
submitted the memory key to your printing service. This kind of thing
is exceptionally unprofessional and should be addressed immediately."
Attached Image:
I don't think I can put in to words or violence (metaphorically speaking, of course) how angry this makes me.
"To the operators of CopyKats at UTSC,
I must admit, I am sorely disappointed with a print I purchased today,
and it is a problem that needs addressing.
My name is Greg Beaton, I'm a 5th year student in the New Media and
Studio Arts programs here at UTSC campus, and this is my graduating
year. With both of my programs comes a great deal of assignment work,
particularly for Studio, and it's work I take pride in. This past
year, I've been doing a significant amount of work in Pixel art
styles, using very low resolution images in large sizes.
Today I submitted a print -- a print which contains images that I was
to cut out later and mend in to a completed piece. It was 40.6" x
116.8", at a resolution of 5 DPI -- an image that SHOULD appear crisp,
made of tiles that are a fifth of an inch square. These images were
for three of five piece being produced for a 4th year class, VPSD56 --
Advanced Studio Practice. Pieces that are VITAL to my success in the
class. Not important, VITAL.
There's a lot of additional work to be done on the print after I
receive it -- it has to be cut and mounted. A process I was expecting
to take me all weekend. However, I will not be able to complete this,
as the print was botched.
I've attached an image that is a sample of imagery from the work I got
printed today. Both samples are from the same 16x32 pixel original,
both of which have been resized -- Any normal monitor should display
these at the size it was printed. The image on the LEFT was resized in
Photoshop with the bicubic method, while the left half was resized
with the Nearest Neighbor method.
Now, frankly, I have never seen a printer make this mistake. I
regularly print low resolution proofs in the Bladen Wing computer
labs. I printed a copy of this image there to show to my class without
resizing it; just by using the original low resolution image, and it
came out as per the right half; crisp and clean. While I don't
understand how your printing process works, I somehow can't imagine
the printer doing this on its own -- it's just contrary to how I
understand printers to work.
So, what I'm left with is the theory that someone SECOND GUESSED my
document and resized it to the dimensions I specified at a different
resolution, likely 300dpi, and they did it with the default bicubic
method in Photoshop or in some similar piece of software. This I find
especially shocking because I was CALLED and they confirmed what I was
looking to have done.
This whole thing would have been resolved earlier if I was able to
pick up the print personally, but it was collected by a friend of mine
as I was unable to return to campus before 10pm this evening, when I
discovered the problem.
To sum up the issue: The print is unusably blurry. It was expensive,
and now the amount of time I have to work has been reduced by days.
I am very angry about this incident, but that aside, I can believe it
was an honest mistake. I am more frustrated than anything else, as
this is important to me and this problem is very stress inducing. I
need some sort of resolution to this, as soon as possible.
Additionally, when I looked at my memory key this evening to make sure
that the images hadn't been altered since I placed them on to it
earlier today, I discovered a virus on the drive -- my Antivirus
quickly quarantined it, but it certainly was not there before I
submitted the memory key to your printing service. This kind of thing
is exceptionally unprofessional and should be addressed immediately."
Attached Image:
I don't think I can put in to words or violence (metaphorically speaking, of course) how angry this makes me.