optical prints?

I just got a service brochure from allied photocolor and on one

page it gives prices for custom - optical color prints/Fuji custom

digital prints and on the next page is gives prices for machine

grade prints. What is the difference between the optical print

and the machine print? What is an optical color print?

 

Thanks

'Optical Print' refers to the print being made by conventional optical enlarger. Since conventional machine prints are basically a mini-optical enlarger in an enclosed box with gears and motors attached to it (your basic, old fashined mini-lab), it's classified as an optical enlarger as well.

 

Optical prints fall under two categories; those made by hand via conventional enlarger in a dark-room (custom prints), and those made by automated machine. Because it's a machine print doesn't mean it's inferior in quality to the custom print, and even though I like the Fuji Frontier, it produces prints that many photographers criticize for being a bit too artifically sharp. The custom print just allows you to doge and burn and get custom crops and borders.

 

I have no idea what they are referring to and their web site isn't much help either. Labs that offer multi-tier services such as this do nothing but confuse the customer.

Thanks Scott

I sat there looking at this brochure about 10 minutes and figured

it was something like that but just didn't know for sure...I felt kind

of stupid asking about this since I have been through a color

photography course and have enlarged and developed my own

color prints but I never remember my instructor nor anyone in the

student color lab calling what we were doing "optical

printing"...there brochure is very cluttered..which I guess makes

it a little confusing. Thanks !

Rhonda,

 

They mean non-Digital Prints.

 

A Local lab where I that is a favorite amoung pro Photogs does ONLY Optical Prints. It

wouldn't be that big of an attraction except the fact the Person doing the Printing is

exceptionally good. (not cheap either)

 

The "other" lab I use does fine quality Digital Prints. It was funny when I realised it. I went

in to pick up an 8x10 Enlargement. It looked good and I mentioned that I would like to

get another copy but at 11x14. They said..."oh, they probably still have the File..."

 

jmp

The term 'optical print' came about came about after the LightJet and Fuji Frontier became really popular because labs needed a way to distinguish them from from their older machines. Most established labs still have their conventional machines still in the back, and will run them along side the newer digital machines to suit the tastes of clients who prefer the softer, conventional prints. Personally I'll take the Frontier and LightJet, but some labs are known to abuse the enhancement controls of the Frontier and make ugly prints.

 

Interesting discussion I had with a lab manager last week who's main complaint about the Frontier was that it didn't come in an 11" size, but only 10". If there was an 11" version of the Frontier he'd immediatley use them to replace his remaining package/machine printers. Fuji Japan however just doesn't see the popularity in the U.S. of the 11x14 print.

Scott,

 

That's why they make the 30 inch Durst Epsilon and 30 & 50 inch ZBE Chromira... Packages come out ready to cut!

-> Personally I'll take the Frontier and LightJet

 

Agreed. It is much easier to get a digital printer running superbly than to find a lab with a darkroom wizard with what are becoming hard to find skills.

 

-> some labs are known to abuse the enhancement controls of the Frontier and make ugly prints.

 

That's also true. Some of the worst prints I have seen were made by self-styled "pro" labs whose operators thought they knew more about setting up their Frontier than did the factory service techs. Based on the print quality, they didn't.

 

-> Fuji Japan however just doesn't see the popularity in the U.S. of the 11x14 print.

 

Their standard paper sizes reflect this as well: 8, 10, and 12 inches. Noritsu machines are capable of 12x18 output, but you'll need your Rotatrim for 11x14.

I hear you loud and clear, Dan. The LED printers are catching up, and no laser heads to blow unlike the LightJet.

 

Ultimate quality control - scan your own film and have it directly printed on a Frontier.

 

Some trivia here in regards to machine printers, of which I've worked on several types. Kodak's S-series machine printers had the CMY insertion filters between the film and the paper vs between the light source and film. Given that these filters would get dusty real fast they'd have a much greater impact on image quality vs color correcting at the light source. However, customers would complain when I'd clean the filters off since the increase in contrast wasn't always preferred given we were mostly a portait lab. Consider for a moment just how flat VPS III on Portra II paper actually is, and then add a layer of dust on the correction filters.

 

Our Lucht V-7s however had the insertion filters in the lamp house, where they ought to be, and the Lucht has extremely sharp lens decks. The results were often prints our clients found way too contrasty...often identical to what our custom guys were printing.

 

That's why I'm not so hard on machine prints, because if their lenses are in focus, most of them can produce extremely sharp and accurate optical prints.

Just a quick, off topic question:

 

Is it normal that when I look at a 4x6 Fuji Frontier picture up close, I can see the individual pixels, as I would see on a computer monitor? This is particularly noticeable in fine-detail areas. From a normal viewing distance, it just seems "digital," anyone can observe that much. I'm more and more unimpressed with my Fuji Frontier operators... perhaps its time to find another.

 

~Nam

Nam,

 

I go to a Fuji Lab when I need One-Hour. I have never seen Pixels on my 4x6 prints

there....that isn't right.

 

I HAVE however seen varying levels of quality depending on who was working at the time.

They are a "Pro-Sumer" store and they do good work. However, when I go to my Pro Lab

their Machine Prints look WAY better than the Fuji lab.

 

Bottom line....it still requires talent to get good prints.

 

jmp

It is quite a shock, after spending hours and many dollars in class learning to hand print in color, to find in the outside world nobody does this or even respects it. After considerable struggle of pulling truth like teeth one learns that nobody does this kind of printing; you may be 75 percent though a large project, as I was at allied yesterday, and learn that a laser and not a human is judging your prints. The "hands on" skill brow beaten into you at school has no relevance in the world of finance, the new governing body of EVERYTHING ... which is basically fascist and anti-art. Digital has become a religion that MUST be abided by the whole world as do all technological inventions that render perfectly valid processes to extinction. Even if you wanted to print your own eventually and bought the equipment you will now have difficulty buying paper and chemistry. In 100 years there may be a nostalgia for this sort of thing but it surely is not valued in a world slave labor market where skill and experience and the resulting beauty of the art have no value. Even access to chemicals to fabricate your own papers and developers is growing ever more limited. Chemistry and optics too are drowning in the sea of the digital religion. The light of photography and science is rapidly becoming heresy worthy of persecution. No longer the art of light, Photography is become the art of darkness.