Getting prints from slides?

I have a question...

 

What are my options for getting quality prints from slides? By

quality, I mean I want them to look at least as good as prints from

color negative film. I did a google search and found

cibachrome/ilfochrome but that's just stupid expensive. Any other

options?

 

Thanks!

Lightjet is the best, but cost more than ciba/ilfo.

Steve,

 

So lightjet is the best, eh? I just looked on my schools photo services site...they do light jet prints from slides. $16 for the first one, $3.60 additional for 2-3, $2.20 additiona for 4-9, and $1.70 additional for 10+.

 

I guess as long as I'm very discriminating about which slides I want printed, I can swing that sorta dough. Is there a place with better prices?

 

Are there any other quality options besides lightjet and ciba/ilfo?

 

Thanks!!!

Take them to the same lab you use for prints. Almost all minilab equipment scans your negatives and then prints digitally. They can usually scan a slide just as easily. I go to a pro lab that has a Fuji Frontier to get it done and get great 8x12's for $7 from a 35mm slide. Of course Walmart has the same machine and can do it cheaper but the machine is run by idiots so the quality looks like crap.

 

You could also buy a scanner and then give digital files to your lab so that you have more control over the final image.

 

If you want the absolute best quality then get a drumscan and print it with a Lightjet but that could easily be $100 for a large print.

Dorian Color in Arlington MA. They scan your chrome and print on RA-4 paper. Results are

excellent. It's a commercial lab so don't expect to see CVS prices.

i work in a lab wit the fuji frontier 570. fuji frontier machines only accept slide if your lab uses the optional film carrier which aren't overly expensive (our store doesnt have one).

 

We dont get that many requests to print from slides but we do scan using a flatbed then print on the frontier, not much colour correction can be done but for our type of customer...its enough.

Are internegatives still made from slides? You would print from them as you would with any other negative. I do not know if scanning has made internegatives obsolete or if they still serve some purpose.

 

Bill

Frontiers (and probably other similar machines) can print from slides. It's best if you have you film unmounted and in strips of 4 (or possibly entirely uncut, not sure).

Internegatives produce great color and beautiful tonality but in my experience some sharpness is lost.

 

You're kidding about "I want them to look at least as good as prints from color negative film," right? This may not turn out to be as easy as it is to say.

 

My preference is to scan at home and print on an Epson inkjet. 120 slides I have lab scans made of. These cost in the range of $25-$50 per image. The resulting prints can be very good. Prints from color negative film look different. In many subjects, it's unlikely that you will get a better print from slide than color neg, but nature subjects are an exception IMO.

"theslideprinter.com" does a good job making prints from slides, and they're very reasonably priced. I've never had anything larger done by them than a 4X6, so if you're looking for larger, art-type prints to display, a prolab might be best, but for smaller prints, theslideprinter.com does a great job!

You can get prints from slides that are as good as those from negs, but not every means of printing will provide that.

 

If you want to get lots done, and especially if you want a print from most of the slides you shoot, you should consider doing it at home via inkjet or (avoiding the capital cost and learning curve) make use of a Frontier or similar digital minilab. Be aware that it isn't just the technology that counts here, and you may have to have a few tries at finding a lab that will do a good job. The people matter much more than the process.

 

For a top quality result on prints that might end up on a wall, I'd support the LightJet (or Chromira) suggestion though the cost tends to be high for the first print from any original. What you need to understand though is that as before, process isn't everything and that different labs manage LightJet production in different ways- eg some will use a drum scan , some won't. Some will include some adjustment of the scan so that it prints well or meets your brief whereas others want to simply scan and print fast with little time on adjustment. Consequently you absolutely cannot assume that a cheaper LightJet print will be better value than a more expensive one- and frankly if there isn't a great scan or good file creation skills being applied to your print on a LightJet then frankly I can't see any reason to use one vs a Frontier unless you just want big.

 

Internegs are pretty much old hat and personally I've never seen a print made that way that will equal a well-made LightJet or Ilfochrome. Like Interneg, Ilfochrome is getting hard to find and on contrasty slides will tend not to produce a good result. Also the larger you want to print, the more you'll see the sharpness/detail advantages of the digital solutions rather than these two analogue methods.

I scan at home and send to either www.mpix.com or www.shutterfly.com just the same as a scanned negative. 8x10s are around $3, 4x6 from about 20 cents. I have a Canon film scanner that cost about $600, but you can get low cost film scanners from about $200 on up. Some of the newer Epson flat bed scanners are supposed to be able to do a good job on film but my preference is for a true film scanner.

What Mike said. The Slideprinter offers scanning at various levels for different final print sizes Their quality is excellent for 4X6 prints or enlargements and they output onto Fuji Crystal Archive paper so the prints should last as long as any other RA-4 photos.

I believed that the Epson 4990 would be able to do a decent film scan ... I bought one, it's basically a disaster in terms of sharpness. It produces detail at a 500-1000 ppi level.

 

I wouldn't go lower than a Minolta 5400 or Nikon V for home scanning.

I'd suggest to scan your slides at home, make the necassary adjustments in Photoshop and then have the files printed at a PRO LAB making sure they don't do unwanted/unasked color corrections etc.

Ilkka Nissila said: "I wouldn't go lower than a Minolta 5400 or Nikon V for home scanning."

 

There is some truth in this statement, however, I think that one can still get excellent scans with a cheaper scanner like the Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Dual IV (I happen to own one ;-)

I use a Minolta DS IV for serious work because the resolution is more than adequate and I don't care about the speed. The anti-dust feature is garbage, though, as it does not catch very much of the dust and also leaves lovely little digital artifacts in its wake. Just clean the slide beforehand and get good editing software...

When you develope your slides,most labs will give you the option of prints.

 

Also, I have found that the cheapest way is to have the lab scan the slides onto a disk when developed. Then you can have them printed out anywhere for dirt cheap!

Juergen, user skill helps a lot in scanning! What I'm trying to say really is that the current 5400 and V cost a lot less than the equivalent quality scanners some years ago, and so you might as well spend the money on them to get well off. With a cheaper film scanner you may get good results for sure, but it gets more risky as you get to lower and lower prices. The 5400 and V are well known good scanners.

forgive me...fujifilm frontier machines can indeed print from slide, only if they're unmounted though.

For the Fuji Frontier minilabs as far as I'm aware only the 135/APS automatic carrier comes as standard. This is the carrier that is used to scan 135/APS negatives or unmounted slides, as long as they are in strips of 2 frames or more.

 

To scan mounted slides one needs the manual carrier and mounted slide mask. These are optional accessories, so not all labs will have them as they are fairly expensive.