From machine to custom: ranges of color printing quality

[zelig]

It's taken me about 10 years to finally come to terms with the fact

that fabulous color prints simply cannot be had without paying big

bucks for custom processing and printing. I've been shooting slides

now for awhile and loving the colors, but am still frustrated with

the expenses of converting them over to prints (or scanning them

well, for that matter). I'm interested in finding some middle

ground.

 

I live in New York City and want to find a way to get great color

prints without having to pay to get them custom printed. (I do my own

black and white work but haven't gotten into color yet...) What are

the varying degrees of quality that can be had from mini-labs and/or

machine printing? What should I look/ask for if I want the best

quality just short of having them custom done? Any recommendations

of labs in the NYC area?

[david_henderson]

Two suggestions. First find the best Frontier lab you can by

getting several to experiment with your images. Second, select

images for printing that aren't too contrasty, and don't need the

sort of file manipulation that costs a lot of money when using

LightJets etc.

 

If you pick the right images, work at the very top end of the

Frontier management spectrum, and you're content with the size

limitations of the machine, you'll get very good prints indeed

[roger___3]

If your budget allows, you can take all of the guess work out by getting a decent scan and then doing you own Photoshop work to adjust the photo in a way that would best please you. There is a learning curve to this, but I think if you do a moderate amount of printing it can pay off both in terms of quality and cost.

 

That is what I do and can have 16X20 prints printed consistently for $20 each from my prepared CD's. I do smaller prints on my home printer and with some experimenting I have better results than commercial prints. It is my humble and amateur estimation that wet chemistry printing for color is all but dead except for die hards and those with special needs. And there are enough mail order printers as those recommended here and elsewhere that local printing is no longer a must.

 

If this is beyond you means or availible efforts, you might at least try the Slideprinter in Denver. For cost effective prints, they do the best and most consistent job of the many mail order printers that I've tried. If they don't meet you expectations and you don't want to mess with scanning, I think the only remaining choices may be to keep trying different printers until one works for you, or pay the extra money for prints from higher end printers.