How to Contact FLAAR.

If you have found an error or mistake in a web page, especially a bad link (that does not function) or bad spelling or impossible grammar, please contact the webmaster.

If you have a suggestion for improvement in graphic design, or reader friendliness , please contact the webmaster. We very much value your pointing out errors of graphic design, usability, reader-friendliness. We especially appreciate your telling us about reader-unfriendliness, so we can improve the site. It helps when you point out what is wrong, to suggest specifically how it should be improved, and why. Being a non-profit institute limits our budget but within our capabilities we do wish to provide an educational experience on the FLAAR websites.

If you like a particular aspect of the web site, or educational material, naturally we like to hear this too. Contact is via the webmaster who is in-house working directly for FLAAR. We do not use outside web design or commercial web maintenance services.

If you wish help deciding what inkjet printer to buy, we cover 13x19, 24” and up (we cover primarily large format). We do not cover letter-size or office-use letter size printers. But we do cover office-use large format, indeed we have been consultants for Fortune 500 companies who needed to buy hundreds of printers at one time. But we are equally accessible to family-owned and one-person companies, as well as aficionados and hobbyists who just need to buy a single printer. Probably a third of the people who ask for help will use their printer at home or as a retirement business or second-business. Many sign franchise owners write us for guidance too. We respond to requests by providing you with either free publications (when you fill out the Wide Format Inkjet Printer Survey/Inquiry Form). Or you may opt to skip the free-reports via Survey Form and go straight to the selection of over 200 premium FLAAR Reports which you can access via credit card. Or, you may bring Dr Hellmuth as a consultant to your location or have you or your team come to FLAAR’s Latin American office in beautiful Guatemala.

If at any time you purchase any five or more series of FLAAR Reports, then you can receive 30 minutes discussion directly with Nicholas Hellmuth by telephone or direct e-mail for him to personally answer your remaining questions. You can buy all five series at once (any themes, can be unrelated), or buy them series by series. As soon as your purchase totals 5 complete series (or a total sum of over $500), then contact ReaderService@FLAAR.org, tell them what series you purchased and roughly when, and ask for how to contact Nicholas directly. Once you have bought the series, there is no extra charge for FLAAR to answer your questions personally. If you need more than 30 minutes help, however, then you want a full consulting session (see next option).

Consulting: If you as an individual, or you as a company, wish to hire Dr Hellmuth or other of the FLAAR or university staff as a consultant in color management, digital photography, inkjet printing (including RIP software, inks, media), applications, business opportunities, giclee, UV-curable inkjet technology, marketing assistance, or on any reasonable matters related to digital imaging and/or digital printing, contact us by e-mail: ReaderService@FLAAR.org

If you wish to visit FLAAR, this is usually treated as a consultation; please see above. We accept visits at our offices in Guatemala. Contact us by e-mail explaining the intended nature of our visit, ReaderService@FLAAR.org. We are accessible via Delta, NW, Continental, American, and other major airlines.

Training:if you wish to come to FLAAR to be trained in person in digital photography, color management, scanning, inkjet printing, giclee, décor, fine art photography, we offer this service in Guatemala, or we can travel to your location anywhere in the world. Please realize this is private training; this is not a public course (we are too busy to do courses but do accept individual clients). Training can be in digital photography, lenses, lighting, and fine art photography printing.

Training can be in landscape photography, flower photography, photographing animals, architectural photography, fine art photography, and other topics including both studio photography (lighting) and also exterior photography.

We can train and provide consulting services simultaneously. Contact us by e-mail providing your address and details ReaderService@FLAAR.org.

If you wish to bring Dr Hellmuth to your city to present a public or private lecture in a local university, college, museum, organization, alumni association, seminar, or other event such as a trade show or exhibit, or at your company, contact ReaderService@FLAAR.org. Nicholas lectures in three languages at venues all around the world. He has lectured in Japan, Switzerland, Dubai, India, throughout Europe, Latin America, and across the USA and Canada. He lectures on digital photography, panoramic photography, photography of art and architecture, lighting for digital photography, UV-curable inkjet printers, giclee, fine art photography (and printing), as well as architectural history, archaeology, ethno-botany of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations (Maya, Olmec, Teotihuacan especially).

Expert witness: this is treated as a consultation. Yes, we are constantly asked to be an expert witness in court cases. We prefer the pre-trial research and we need complete details before we can even respond. Yes, naturally we work under NDA, but we don’t have time to go back and forth back and forth. Tell us up front what you need an expert witness for so that we can meaningfully respond. Contact us by e-mail providing your address and details ReaderService@FLAAR.org.

If you disagree with our evaluation about a product, please provide realistic discussion of the basis of your disagreement. We realize that your experiences may be different, even better, than ours. However, merely because a favorite product, that is touted and praised on 99% of the other websites does poorly in a FLAAR review, is generally the fault of the product design, and should have been noticed in the other glowing, gushing PR releases that are disguised as reviews. We use both Mac and PC; we use both Epson and HP and Canon. But this does not make us blind to the wretched performance (compared to their alluring claims in million-dollar ad campaigns) and gas-guzzling ink appetite of one infamous brand of printer. We do notice, however, that each new model is better than the previous one. We just don’t understand how buyers of the early models had to put up with being guinea pigs and why the newer models still waste expensive ink and waste media at every opportunity. We would prefer your comments on product evaluation disagreement by email providing your address and details: ReaderService@FLAAR.org.

If you wish help in deciding what new 35mm SLR digital camera, medium format camera or large format camera to purchase, we have a Survey/Inquiry Form so that we can assist you. Naturally we also know the pros and cons of Nikon, Canon, and the other 35mm brands, but it is in medium format and large format digital cameras where an independent opinion really helps (because the cameras are costly so you don’t want to make a mistake). To avoid blindly favoring any one particular brand, we have allied with a resource that handles all four major brands of medium format camera: Phase One, Leaf, Imacon-Hasselblad, and Sinar-Jenoptik. However each brand very much has its pros and cons.

Why the FLAAR reviews cover primarily high-end solutions?

There are hundreds of commercial websites that will assist you to buy every imaginable entry-level camera and desktop printer. So there is no need for us to jump into this swamp. Our background is thirty years of museum photography of ancient art, artifacts, and historical buildings. To do this properly requires good equipment. Most archaeologists, art historians, botanists, zoologists, and geologists have not had an opportunity to experience professional camera equipment or the really good digital printing options. So we prefer to concentrate on introducing the level of equipment and software that provides an impressive professional level of results. We too use point-and-shoot cameras and 6-megapixel digital SLR (such as the Nikon D100, D200, D300, Canon EOS 5D, etc). You can do excellent photography with them, and achieve beautiful prints with a $329 desktop printer. But our area of expertise is large format (printers and cameras) and especially medium format digital camera backs.

We ourselves use point-and-shoot cameras alongside our larger cameras. And we use desktop-sized inkjet printers alongside the wide-format ones. So we can provide assistance in figuring out which brand of printer to consider at all size levels… just that we primarily do evaluations of printers 11x17” and wider, especially 24-64” water-based printers for signage, trade show displays, giclee, photographs, and a dozen other applications. But we also cover the entire range of inks: solvent, eco-solvent, mild-solvent, and UV. Naturally these printers tend to be 72” or larger and are discussed on our sister site, www.large-format-printers.org.

If you just wish to express your thoughts, opinions, or general concerns, or just say hello, we read every letter. Contact us by e-mail: ReaderService@FLAAR.org.

If you wish to volunteer to work with Dr Hellmuth in Guatemala, Contact us by e-mail: ReaderService@FLAAR.org. Include a complete resume with references and a website where we can see your work. Volunteers cover their own expenses through in exceptional cases for students we can negotiate this. German or French speaking volunteers are especially welcome because we need to maintain practice in these languages.

We read every incoming e-mail. Please realize that with only 12-14 hours in Nicholas’s workday, and the fact that he is often away in foreign countries, lecturing somewhere, or out testing cameras, it is not realistic for him to answer every incoming message. But they are all read and your message will make its point. We then reply to as many as possible. Obviously the more polite, helpful and detailed the message is, the more likely it will be answered. If relative to a website, we need the specific website and actual web page (with over 1000 pages we otherwise don’t know which page needs to be improved).

We are not able to answer e-mails for general miscellaneous matters, such as how to update software, where to get something repaired.

We are not able to answer e-mails that circumvent the preferred avenue of address for the matter under consideration.

We are not able to discuss digital imaging on the telephone unless you have a prior professional consulting relationship or are a frequent purchaser or otherwise already have a relationship with FLAAR. The best way to contact us is by e-mail.

Summary, for receiving inkjet printer information

• Option a: use the Survey/Inquiry form to receive free reports that will answer many of your questions
• Option b: use the on-line store to order your reports directly.
• Option c: if you buy any 5 series you can get direct phone of Nicholas Hellmuth and his direct e-mail to receive personal answers to your follow-up questions after you have read the reports.
• Option d: you are welcome to visit us in person (fee-based consultation) or bring Dr Hellmuth to your location anywhere in the world, as a consultant and/or speaker.

Summary, for receiving digital camera information

• Option a: download any and all free reports.
• Option b: sign up for the course. This gives access to Dr Hellmuth for over a month.
• Option c: use the on-line store to order your reports directly.
• Option d: you are welcome to visit us in person or bring Dr Hellmuth to your location anywhere in the world, as a consultant and/or speaker.
• Option e: if you want to go photographing personally with Nicholas Hellmuth, either bringing your own cameras, or borrowing his, anywhere in the orld, this can be arranged. We offer field trips December-January and June-August (obviously can be for a week, a weekend, or several weeks).

If you need help with software, repairs, older equipment, if you are a member of one of the courses, workshops, or seminar programs it is the purpose of these programs to answer your questions. Otherwise, you should be asking these questions of the people who sold you the equipment or software. Please be realistic that our mission is to test, evaluate, and write up reviews of digital imaging hardware and software. This takes all day, every day, even most weekends. If we had tons of money from kickbacks or commissions, then we could afford to have an entire staff to answer each individual. But we prefer not to be dependent on commissions, so thus do not have funding to have a staff large enough to handle the tons of incoming e-mails.

This is a polite way of saying we are NOT an appropriate place to ask why your camera does not work with some other accessory or computer or operating system or where to get repairs.

You can write in English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, or Portuguese. We tend to reply in English or Spanish. We are fluent in German; just don’t write it well.

How to meet or speak with Nicholas Hellmuthwill be covered on a separate page, though obviously the easiest way is to Invite Prof Hellmuth to your hometown to give a lecture or hire Dr Hellmuth as a consultant, at your place or at either FLAAR office

Consulting for giclee, decor, fine art photography and scanning. (FREE Download)	For all wide-format inkjet printers, RIP, Ink & Substrates. (FREE Download)	Consulting for UV printer manufacturers, available to manufacturers only: ink, media, substrate, scanner, RIP software, printer manufacturers, integrators, parts manufacturers, please request this by e-mail from ReaderService@FLAAR.org	To obtain this PDF on consulting services for financial analysts and business strategy consultants, please request this by e-mail from ReaderService@FLAAR.org

Most recently updated November 2009.
First posted July 5, 2006.