Hi, I'm Marty Walker. Altitude Press is my service for photographers and artists who would like to outsource the production of their photo book or zine. What this means is I provide a design and layout service. I also get your book or zine ready for print.
I wish I had my own Indigo printer but they're a million bucks, so I'm more than happy to make use of printers that do have them.
If this is you, please get in touch with me on 0431 968 634 or at [email protected]
I have been a graphic designer for about 30 years and I love print. When I picked up a camera 15 years ago there really wasn't the technology around to print zines and photo books economically. Printing four colour was massively expensive. The setup costs for film and plates was substantial for commercial jobs and out-of-reach for short run productions.
When digital presses started arriving in the early 2000s, production time fell along, and to be honest, so did the quality. The early digital presses were impressively fast but the output was waxxy and had a photocopier look and feel to it. It looked cheap but wasn't.
Big companies like Hewlett Packard started looking at what was being developed by Indigo in Israel during the 90s and they eventually bought the company's superior technology. The Indigo machines came as close as you could get to traditional offset lithography.
To quote the Wikipedia page:
"It uses a proprietary printing process called Liquid Electrophotography, or LEP for short, which is similar to the process used in laser printers, but with special electrostatically charged inks instead of toner, and without using a fuser, using instead a heated transfer roller to melt the charged ink particles before applying them to the paper."
I've printed zines and photobooks on a HP Indigo and the results are stunning, especially for the cost. The equation has flipped the other way. As far as I'm concerned I wouldn't use anything else for short-run zine production.
If you have the skills in layout then you don't. Simple. But, if layout and design is foreign to you and that's something you'd like help with, then I'm here for you. I work very collaboratively and in a very supportive way. You may have your sequence sorted but need help with production and outputting the right PDF files. Digital printing may be less expensive than it used to be but when you're putting a zine or book out into the world, sending your final PDF to the printer can be nail-bitingly stressful.
I can help you with that. 0431 968 634 or at [email protected]
I acknowledge that for over 65,000 years the Blue Mountains has been home to Aboriginal people, particularly the Darug and Gundungurra tribes. I pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. This always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.