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Predominance of commercial lab print technologies


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Does anyone know where I might obtain figures on market penetration of

various film and digital file processing/printing technologies in

commercial/retail print labs (mainly mini-labs and full service photo

labs)? Or are any of you industry insiders who can tell me from your

own experience?

 

I'd like to know what kind of technology is most common today, optical

film exposure to RA-4 processed photo paper, digital file or film scan

with laser exposure to RA-4 processed photo paper, or digital file or

film scan to inkjet print.

 

Everywhere I go, I see mini-labs with built-in chemistry tanks. I

presume these are using photo paper in RA-4 chemistry. I don't think

I've ever seen a mini-lab printer that didn't have chemical tanks,

which might indicate that they use inkjet technology. If scans to CD

are offered, does this imply that the machine is scanning and printing

via laser or LED to photo paper, or is it possible that they may scan

and optically enlarge/print onto photo paper?

 

Do any of these mini-lab print processors ever use inkjet technology?

Do any high volume print processors use inkjet?

 

Can I tell by looking at a print what kind of technology was used,

whether scan and laser print to photo paper or inkjet print, or

optical print to photo paper, etc?

 

I'm just curious about what printing technologies are in common use

for commercial color prints, and whether or not you can see

differences in the output.

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I'm sure that there are some market research reports out there, if you have $3000 to pony up for a copy.

 

It's pretty obvious that RA-4 paper exposure remains the norm. I don't think anything else is as cheap, and the papers available in rolls for laser exposure range from really cheap and nasty to really good. (There's a market for all types.) Also, inkjet really can't produce the same quality of results, since it's a dithering of discrete ink drops, rathter than an analog slection of a distinct color for every pixel. That's why high-end inkjet is mostly for large prints.

 

Optical printing is dying in the mass market. It's all scan, process in software, and print. The software pass is what can produce passable results with minimal human input.

 

The big differences are in the exposure techniques for the RA-4 paper. I know of at least laser exposure and LED array based systems. There may be more.

 

I think Fuji's Frontier machines have two market advantages. One is that their film scanner runs really fast when scanning at just enough resolution for a 4x6 print. The speed even depends on the density of the individual negative. The second is that they did really good software, they get acceptable results in "automatic" mode. (Note that I didn't say excellent -- that takes human input.)

 

Can you see differences in the output of the RA-4 exposure systems? Sure. First is that they have different resolutions. I've seen output from one (no idea which) which was obviously pixelated, with a matrix of white stripes between the rectangular colored pixels. With most, they overlap the pixels, and probably are wise enough to unsharp the lens just enough to hide the pixel boundaries.

 

There are probably also modest differences in color gamut between different RA-4 exposure systems.

 

But, there are also very visible differences in these mini-labs, based on operator selection of options. The software can be set to over-sharpen, over-saturate the color, and to do many other obnoxious things. It does all still depend on management decisions and operator competence.

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