Making Lab Quality Digital Photos? 41
photoFinished asks: How do most photo labs produce their digital prints? It seems to me that there should be a machine that uses an LCD to create a virtual negative to expose standard photo paper to, resulting in a standard-type photograph as the end result. However, since just about every CVS, Walgreens and other pharmacy advertises the ability to produce prints from your digital photos, I'm wondering if there's a quality difference between the various stores? I can produce a 4x6 on a $100 name-brand ink jet that appears virtually identical to a lab print when you look at it behind glass, the only difference is a light reduction in the smooth/glossiness you get from a regular print. Does anyone have information on the methods used by the various chain pharmacies produce their prints? I'd hate to think that the $0.40 I'm paying for each 4x6 is actually nothing more then the result of an expensive ink jet printer. Sorry if this is one of those 'you should try google' type of questions, but I couldn't find the answers I was looking for."
Already what you expect (Score:5, Informative)
You must also be nuts (or desperate) to pay $0.40 for prints. $0.20 is typical for Costco/Sam's club/Wal-Mart Costco is $0.17 [costcophotocenter.com] Sam's claims to be as low as $0.11 [samsphotoclub.com]
FYI: The Nortisu I usually use at my local Costco recommends preparing digital files at 320 dpi, as that is the printer's native resolution. So you might be able to do higher resolution from a home printer, but it's hard to beat the durability of standard prints.
BRe:Already what you expect (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know about you, but I think there's no way that price could be touched at home, and the photos look absolutely beautiful to boot.
Personally, I just can't see any reason to get pictures printed anywhere but Costco. Good quality
Re:Already what you expect (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Already what you expect (Score:2, Informative)
Cheap Prints (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cheap Prints (Score:1)
Actually DP Review is where I came to the conclusion that Costco was fine for my purposes. Most of the articles on printing there end up with "I just take them to Costco" or "just take them to Costco". ;-)
For 4x6 prints of the pictures I take of my little ones it's hard to beat the quality/price I get at Costco. Remember the OP was asking about the drugstore chains, and in my albeit limited experience Costco give better quality at much cheaper prices.
I should note however that for providing scanned phot
Re:Already what you expect (Score:2)
Inkjet prints are quite expensive as well.
As for scanning your negs, that also has to do with the fact that a laser th
LED Mini-Labs (Score:5, Informative)
It then takes the inverted image and uses colored LEDs to expose the piece of print paper in the size that you have picked.
The reason these machines are called "mini-labs" is they have a full photo lab inside of them. Once the film is exposed by the LEDs it is then developed, fixed, rinsed, and dried all inside that box. Then the final print emerges.
Re:LED Mini-Labs (Score:2)
Re:LED Mini-Labs (Score:2)
I get my digital photos developed through Ofoto (Kodak Gallery), thinking they probably use the best mini-lab available from Kodak. The prints are absolutely beautiful, but I don't know their longivity at this point.
No... (Score:1)
Re:No... (Score:1)
Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
And quit spending so much for prints. Try someone else. I've had great results from Clark Color Labs, but they are not the only ones that do good quality cheap prints. Clark charges 11 cents when you get 50 or more 4x6 prints, or 12 cents for less than 50 prints. There's some others that are even cheaper. Check out your local grocery store, Ta
MLVA (Score:3, Informative)
I did this years ago, to pay the bills. (Score:3, Interesting)
You could use a digital copy, which was rare at the time, scan a neg in, or scan a positive in. Did not matter, enlarge, reduce..etc..etc. to photo quality paper. That did and actual photo chemical bath process. It was rather revolutionary to have it in a mall at the time about 13 years ago.
Hell I did all my photo homework on it for 2 years. What took people 20 hours of lab work I could do in 45 seconds. I still think the director of photography might be confused to this day.....
Dye sublimination (Score:5, Informative)
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question583.ht
http://www.digital-photography.org/alps_color_i
http://en.wi
Re:Dye sublimination (Score:1)
Re:Dye sublimination (Score:2)
Re:Dye sublimination (Score:1)
KPTV (Score:2)
However, as a home photo printer user, I can tell you that I think the paper they use might be different -- more likely to last longer without discoloration. While I have never really had problems on most of my photos, a few
Modern Minilabs, a little history + bonus rambling (Score:5, Informative)
Most modern minilabs (be they Kodak/Noritsu, Fuji, etc. (a lot of these minilab systems are actually contracted out, but that's another discussion) use digital subsystems with wet front and back ends where appropriate.
Digital images are imported directly through obvious means - bits go in the hole. Silver halide negatives are developed and then scanned and stored locally on the minilab. The digital images are then adjusted through a combination of automated improvements (such as Kodak PerfectTouch) and manual tweaking, depending on the shop you go to and the level of service they offer. Automated only = cheaper. Current systems then use rastered or scanned LEDs in an RGB configuration (Some may also use lasers, but all the ones I've seen were LEDs - they're cheap) to expose the photographic paper, which is developed using traditional wet processes.
In the past, the first digital Kodak minilabs used little 6" CRTs with 4000 lines of resolution (made in New Jersey, I think) to project the images onto the paper. There was talk of stepping that up to 6000 lines, but I don't know if that ever happened. I could be a little off on those numbers - I'm pulling them from memory from years ago. But they certainly ended the NTSC/PAL resolution debate
Note that wholesale photofinishing labs still use traditional optics - for all the grooviness of digital systems, it's hard to beat a massive spinning system of traditional optics churning out thousands of prints an hour (we're talking on the scale of a print a second - fast!)
Most walk-up kiosks use thermal/dye sublimation printing systems, which have excellent print quality and durability, though they're expensive. A mylar donor ribbon coated with CMYK+finisher dyes is heated by a pagewidth linear array of diodes at ~300dpi and pressed against the receiver paper. A separate pass is made for each color. I'm not aware of any minilabs that use dye dub printers because of the speed limitations.
Inkjet technology is starting to penetrate the kiosk market, but there's a lot of maturing to still take place.
Your immediate observations are correct: silver halide photographic paper is more durable and usually glossier, which most consumers associate with quality. Since there are a wide range of inks available on the market (every printer manufacturer has many types of inks), paper manufacturers have and optimization problem in balancing quality/durability/color reproduction/light fastness.
As for the quality between vendors, there certainly are differences - though how much of that is tied to the digital algorithms and how much is tied to the processing hardware these days I'm not sure. I suspect it's much more the former. Your best bet is to find a local shop with well-trained staff that actually knows how to use the minilab, rather than the summer job teenager who doodled pictures of Bevis and Butthead (or Spongebob, or Thundercats, or whatever the kids are into these days) during their training class.
At this stage, throughput is the big technical bottleneck remaining for inkjet technologies to penetrate the kiosk and minilab markets. Ecologically and economically it's a 'no brainer', so all the major players are trying to produce solutions. Kiosks will probably be the first to make the transition. Brother, Sony, and another company that escapes me at the moment (in the UK?) have publicly demonstrated pagewide technologies, and I think Xerox had one operating in their labs before they shut down the inkjet effort a few years back. Some of these demos have been around for years. Someone from the inside needs to write a book about the Kodak-HP joint venture ("Phogenix") in making an inkjet minlab system - but it's probably still a little early, since the technologies the two companies were bringing to the table for the joint venture will appear in future products of their own. There are some entertaining stories involved - classic corporate America.
Re:Modern Minilabs, a little history + bonus rambl (Score:1)
Then again, I almost always just use my hp psc 2510 photosmart to print my photos (on glossy paper if the importance warrants it), and I have been ver
Re:Modern Minilabs, a little history + bonus rambl (Score:2)
Re:Modern Minilabs, a little history + bonus rambl (Score:1)
Let the labs handle it (Score:1)
Better, buy a cheap HP laser off eBay, have it take up the same space, suck less at B&W, never run out of ink, never clog, and for those pictures you need every once in a while, upload them to ritzcamera.com, and have them MAIL you back the prints in a few days.
There's quite a difference (Score:3, Informative)
Re:There's quite a difference (Score:2)
Fading? (Score:2)
Agfa works the same way. (Score:1)
As far as inkjet goes... (Score:1, Informative)
Working with Fuji and some of the major photo companies, the shortcoming lies in their printers not being able to do full bleed 8x10.
Hope that helps a little.
Longevity (Score:2)
What really frosts me is each new process claims print longevity comparable to each previous process. That is, dye-sub prints are claimed to be "virtually as durable" as true photographic color prints, ink-jets are "comparable to" dye-sub, and so forth. The claims, are of course, exagge
Online labs (Score:1)
For slightly better quality, better large size prints, and not too much more money, there is mpix.com.
Both of these sights have Mac friendly upload options, and with Adorama, for really big orders, I can send them
Why do we hang on to analog? (Score:2)
Of these items though, I don't understand this need by humans to continue seeing the photographic process as something that can only be appreciated in an analog, on-paper format. I would never suggest the others be strictly digital - a painting can have texture and depth, dep
Re:Why do we hang on to analog? (Score:1)
Do you want to buy an expensive LCD virtual picture frame for every room in the house, or do you just want to stick a 10x8 print in a clip frame?
Do you enjoy the tactile sense of flicking through an album as opposed to scrolling through thumbnails?
There a
Re:Why do we hang on to analog? (Score:3, Interesting)
No - I want to whip out my high-resolution PDA and use the thumbwheel to scroll through the images.
Do you want to buy an expensive LCD virtual picture frame for every room in the house, or do you just want to stick a 10x8 print in a clip frame?
Actually
Re:Why do we hang on to analog? (Score:1)
That's one good reason why I use digital imaging and minilab printing. Although I will admit, I've taken thousands of digital images and only printed out a handful of "keepers" to frame or give away.
Re:Why do we hang on to analog? (Score:2)
CostCo Photos (Score:1)
1) Most CostCo warehouses have ICC profiles made and updated frequently. They're available for download at http://drycreekphoto.com/Frontier/ [drycreekphoto.com]. If you do photo post-processing in an ICC-aware app (ie Photoshop) and have a profiled monitor, your colors will match from screen to print.
2) Large prints