Tosogu Classroom Vol 1

[lonely panet]

Hi guys,

 

im looking at buying a copy of the above title, but im not having much luck finding one, evan on Mr seskos website.

 

just interested to know how much they cost, how heavy it would be. 

 

cheers guys

[Grey Doffin]

Hi Hamish,

Contact Markus: markus.sesko at gmail.com, and he will get you a copy.  Cost is $40 a volume plus post for members of JSS/US or NBTHK American or European branch, or $60 per for non members.  The book is print on demand, which means it will be printed and mailed by a shop close to you so weight shouldn't matter.  Volume 1 & 2, both on iron, are currently available; volume 3, Kinko, is in the works.

Grey

[lonely panet]

thankyou Grey,

 

your always very helpfull. just emailed him

[lonely panet]

order placed, WOW $70 including post for approx 500 page book, deal of the week

[lonely panet]

good news guys,

 

it landed in the post today, and may i say im very happy.

 

very detailed, and covers ko-tosho, ko-katchushi, ko-shoami, ko-kinko, owari, kanayama, yagyu, onin, kamakura, nobuie, kaneie, akasaka, bushu-ito and many more. approx. 500 pages, but the best part for me is the huge amount of information on the Akasaka school and the Generations.

 

im going to order the second edition tonight.

 

I suggest every tsuba student who is serious buy this book.

 

Thankyou Mr Sesko, Curran, and Grey for your help

[Stephen]

Anxious about volume 3... then I'll buy the lot!

[Brian]

I need to find someone coming this way who can bring it with. Postage via a means that will actually get here would be about $80 
Would like to get both.
I'll see if i can find someone headed back to SA.

[Guido]

Anxious about volume 3... then I'll buy the lot!

There will be 5 volumes in all - at least I hope so, since I paid for them in advance

[Stephen]

GTK

[vajo]

I was not satisfied with my copy of Vol 2. Many worse pictures. I hope Vol. 3 will be better.

[Grey Doffin]

Since Markus doesn't have access to Mr. Fukushi's photo archive he has to use scans from Token Bijutsu, from the originally published articles.  The photos aren't great but they do show more than enough to justify the cost.

Brian, since these books are print on demand you might find that they will be printed by a shop in SA and postage will be minimal.  Have you asked Markus what your cost would be?

Grey

[Brian]

Grey,
Never found a POD that will print here. I would be very surprised if there was one. Usually we get our stuff from the UK, which is even worse than the USA

[vajo]

Grey it isn't the quality of the photos. They are damaged in technical aspects. Maybe only a few copies are worse, but i had one of them.

 

[Stephen]

yea  id not be happy with that ether.

[vajo]

I hope the next volumes will be better.

[Jussi Ekholm]

Just noticed that my copy of vol.2 seems to have similar checkerboard over some images that Chris showed in his pics. I hadn't even noticed that before as I hadn't read this volume as much as the 1st one. It's a minor detail but of course it can be bit annoying. I am not too bothered about it.

[Grey Doffin]

Give me a few page #s; I'll check my copy.

Grey

[Andi B.]

Check e.g. 256, 257, 314, 316 and so on...

It's interference of image pixels and printer dots....

[Markus]

Joining the conversation

 

I was made aware by Chris and a couple of other readers about that issue. For some reason, I thought to have narrowed it down to prints delivered to Germany as I was asking around if others are experiencing it too. Short background: I had to use a slightly different print option for international/non-US destinations (Lulu doesn't offer certain things outside of the US) and only readers from Germany told me that they too have checkerboard images to some extent. So that's why I was first positive that this is an isolated phenomenon that firstly may only concern readers outside of the US and secondly, may only concern German buyers. However, I was a little suspicious about that because from the past I know that Lulu caters German buyers from their printing partner in France, so French buyers should be affected too.

 

Now as Jussi says he too has the issue, I am getting even more nervous.

 

I have been in touch with Lulu of course since Chris and my other (German) buyers made me aware of the issue. Lulu is very courteous and always offers me to send out another copy if something is wrong with a delivery on their account but I need to know if this is something more sensitive (what I guess it is) rather than an one-time glitch with a certain printing partner.

 

Discussing concrete printing issues with them basically ended up with the "maybe baby" game, i.e. they were suggesting maybe I did something wrong with the DPI or maybe with the PDF or maybe with the raw JPGs. But that's the thing, all pics were scanned at the same time with the same scanner and everything was written with the same MS Word version and exported with the same Adobe PDF app. So I know for sure that I did not do any changes I am aware of between volumes one and two.

 

This now leaves me with a "stupid/weird" decision to make: When the identical approach yields different results, what approach do you take to achieve the same results? If you know what I mean. 

 

Still trying to wrap my head around this issue but I want to go sure that everyone who got a subpar copy gets a proper one on the one hand, and that this is not an ongoing nightmare with local Lulu print on the other hand (I have a few more book projects in the oven).

 

So if anyone is reading that and noticing, hell yeah, my copy looks like crap too, please let me know as I really have to narrow this down. Thank you!

[Markus]

Check e.g. 256, 257, 314, 316 and so on...

It's interference of image pixels and printer dots....

 

Hi Andi,

So with your copy, it is only certain but whole pages, not all pics throughout the entire book, right?

[Andi B.]

E.g. page 312: pic 71 affected, pic 72 fine...

So single images have this problem, not entire pages.

[Guido]

The photos in my book are generally of the (low) quality of the crane tsuba Chris posted, but none are as bad as his other examples. It would be nice to have better pics, but they are sufficient for illustrations accompanying the text, which is the main source of information. If I want to look at high resolution eye candy in full color, I go to some other books in my library (that are also in a completely different price range). But having said that, it certainly wouldn't hurt Lulu's reputation if they'd work on their quality control.

[Guido]

GTK

 

Do you mean Genusstauglichkeitskennzeichen (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genusstauglichkeitskennzeichen) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC_identification_and_health_marks)?

[Stephen]

[Bazza]

I believe the technical term is aliasing (google it), but for one explanation go here:

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae490.cfm

 

I am aware of this because of my technical background.  I'm also editor of a small (but high quality) magazine and bumped into this problem recently with some published dot matrix images I needed to copy from a magazine.  These were 120dpi.  I scanned them at 600dpi and saved them as jpeg images at 120dpi.  When published in the magazine they were printed at the printer's 300dpi process and came out quite OK.  The essential parameter is sampling rate.  I think its also called Shannon's Law.

 

BaZZa.

[Grey Doffin]

My copy doesn't have the problem.

Grey

[Bazza]

Grey, well, that would appear to be another kettle of fish!  Is there a REAL expert in the house, a PhD even??

 

Markus wrote:

When the identical approach yields different results, what approach do you take to achieve the same results?

 

I would have said, along with my explanation above, that Markus is scanning images with different resolutions and therein lies the problem.  With Grey's report above IMHO that puts it squarely back onto the printer - ESPECIALLY as a different printer produces the book depending on its destination.

 

BaZZa.

 

BaZZa.

[vajo]

The problem is not the pdf sheet. The printing company has response for the quality what comes out of the printer. Why they dont check thier product?

Today every holidy photo book program has a quality check up button to see what comes out after i seent it for printing.

Markus do a fantastic job. I'm a little sad with him don't get the best result for his work.

 

But as i said i hope for the further volumes. The books are very usefull.

Heads up

 

Best

Chris

[zanilu]

 

 

So if anyone is reading that and noticing, hell yeah, my copy looks like crap too, please let me know as I really have to narrow this down. 

 

Markus I have noticed the same problem too. I didn't had the chance to read the book but I have seen some bad picture rifling through the it. I will check better this evening.

My book was delivered to Switzerland so I think it is coming from Germany too.

 

Regards

Luca 

[myochin]

Markus, same problem for me.

Top of p312 is really terrible

I believe my copy was printed in France (Jouve ?)

 

Paul