I've shelved my mafioso vendetta hat and put on my book guy hat to talk a bit about Peter Nicholson's Student Instructor. It's a short book of his that was a highly popular title for the student of architecture during the late 18th through the early 19th centuries.
In the book trade, it's considered to be a fairly common title of his largely because it does turn up quite regularly. The problem is that those copies that do turn up quite regularly are usually a mess. This was one well used book. I see them in all states of rebinding, dis-binding, lacking covers, busted hinges, missing pages and plates, foxed, torn pages, notations, etc.
This book is sort of like Introduction To Architecture 101. I finally have a copy that I can pull a decent set of images from. It's ex-library, as many of these are. I must have four copies by now of which two are ex-lib.
The problem with reproducing a book such as this is the fine detail of the engravings. Digital printers such as those used in Print On Demand print from the center out to the edge. Halftone images as well as fine line engravings will often produce all sorts of unusual patterns that didn't exist in the original and that's a problem.
I have a theory to test out with this edition of Nicholson, along with Martin's Circle Of The Mechanical Arts. Typically, when an engraved plate is imaged by scanner or camera, it's done at 300 dpi or 400 dpi, with descreening to correct for halftone problems. The image is taken at the orignal physical dimensions.
Then, when it comes time to print, the image is adjusted slightly or grossly in physical dimensions to fit the needs of the book size. Even starting with TIFF images, things happen in that Photoshop/Desktop Publishing/Adobe Acrobat/Distiller/Digital Printer that mess up the final result.
I intend to leave the physical dimensions exactly, precisely, absolutely as they are in the original. Nicholson will be done in gray scale, much as was done with Moxon, at 300 dpi and kept at it's full dimensions. There is no modern book size that matches, so the margins will be adjusted to accommodate the original. For Circle, which clocks in at 8.5x11 to begin with, more care will be needed to ensure the plates are not altered.
Preliminary tests say this will work. The catch is that engravings have those little lines running at all different angles with curves and circles and all sorts of bothersome details that printers don't like. 18th Century meets 21st Century.
Till next, Gary
