2006.02.14: First major foray into Adobe Illustrator

Ric, thanks for dropping me a line. =) I'm using Breathing Color Pure Silk. It looks like they may be discontinuing the product due to lack of interest and also some reports of yellowing after long term exposure to UV and air. Thanks for pointing out inkjetfabrics.com . . . I'll be ordering a swatch book from them. How are you finding the products? Anything that has a very realistic silk feel and no trouble with edge fraying? The silk that Breathing Color used is a bit rough though it does still look like silk and is just as pliable . . . wouldn't mind something more "silk-like" though. =) I'm using Ergosoft Posterprint printing at 2880 x 1440 in 8pass mode and I'm leaving about a second between each uni-directional pass and I've also allowed ink layering. The printer prints at about four square feet an hour with these print settings. It's depressing but somewhat gratifying at the same time. I looked through your website and I enjoy your work. Are you using regular panoramic stitching or did you get a Zoerk adapter and use a medium or large format lens with a dSLR to make your panoramics?

Regarding the Breathing Color silk product, I never had trouble peeling the backing paper from the fabric. I found that I can achieve excellent colour saturation with the fabric with the only weakness in gamut being blacks - I'm sure I could do better with matte black but since most of the stuff printed on silk will be worn I wouldn't want to risk the black rubbing off. Thanks for the hints on the silk products - you would have saved me from having to order the sampler pack if I was only interested in the silk. I thought about picking up an xPan once but I figured that unless I needed to switch into normal 24 x 36mm mode, shooting Hassey 6x6 made more sense - lens appertures ended up being about the same at the focal lengths most of us would use (probably even a bit faster if you could get away with the 80/2.8), you could get backs to shoot cropped frames to give you about 2.5:1 aspect ratio, and I'm guessing that scanning and processing would be a similar pain with both formats since normal 35mm film scanners wouldn't take the whole xPan frame in one shot. Anyhow, once again, beautiful panoramas. I will check back often.

Heheh . . . thanks for bringing it to my attention. The Canadian rep gave a different reason than what you and Ric noted for dropping the product . . . that's three reasons total. Anyway, let me know if you manage to get a roll . . . if you don't I could send you some of mine. Still, if the line is being dropped, it may make sense for you to look into Ric's source for silk. Making a profile is an expensive process with this material.