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PC Photo Printers Challenge Pros
zebadee writes "A survey carried out by PC Pro magazine looked at which of 100 home photo printers offered a better deal than handing your snaps to a photo lab.
The tests found that images from top PC printers kept their colour longer than professionally produced photographs.
In the report at the BBC it claims that the new generation of printers produced images with brighter colours and that were less likely to fade than many High Street developers or even some professional wedding photographers."
having actually purchased the magazine and read the article it was really informative and well written.
The main point of it was to state that it is cheaper to produce large 8*10 prints (A4) at home than on the high street and the winner for quality and light fastness was the epson r800 which i am going to buy after christmas. They have published images of the prints on different papers and different inks from the manufacturers, the inkjets that used ultrachrome inks came out on top, the epson r800 and the HP's that used their next generation ink showed no fading after 3months in direct light behind glass (taped face out against a window)
I was impressed and would recommend buiying it, even just for the cover DVD which ACTIVELY promotes using linux as it includes the latest Suse distro.
Using both traditional "wet" darkroom and the "digital" darkroom actively myself, a couple points are missing;
1) The main reason many digital prints (pro or home use) loook "better" is because of the premium "traditional" printing processes have been stopped by many of ht elarge photographic supply companies. It is not there there was not a demand for these products, but rather, more demand for digital products.
This in itself is not such a bad thing, but if any of you ever get to see, close up, in person, a properly made print using dye transfer technique or th eold Cibachrome printing process, you will see justg what can be done, and what is missing. The bototm line is that, it takes - like all other typesof art and craftsmanship - usually and extra 200% effort to improve someby only 10 or 20%. Also, since many of the premium photographic products have been discontinued in the past few years, it is very easy to make this whole issue a self full filling prophecy.
2) It would take somebody years of experience to learn the art of print making - any technique, and now, a 12 year old can produce a technically good print in seconds. This is not the bad part, the bad part is that I find it very ahrd to teach people nowadays - both young and old - some of the finer parts of the craft of printmaking - such as composition. The rules of composition go back hundreds of years, thousands even in the world of art, regardless of you medium. too many people now seem to think that because they can use a computer to produce technically correct prints, that the other "rules' are no longer needed now too.
3) if you go study graphic arts, photogrpahy, etc, of any kind for 3 or 4 years at college, you might as well give up trying ot find a decent job in your feild, or so it seems anymore. Because any and every 12 year old kid with a PC can produce technically excellent prints at home, the general level fo respect for work form any graphic art studio or photographer is not what it once was years ago. The end result, i have seen, is that many businesses can no longer afford to pay good people to do thier technical work. No offence, but there's a line form "Babylon 5" about hiring from the shallow end of the gene pool. If you are paying somebody near minim wage to run yoru machines, do your tehcnical work, well, you get what you pay for. However, it's a catch-22 situation - these places cannot often afford ot hire somebody worth the moeny because the public will not pay for it.
4) It's not always personell, sometimes it is machinery & supplies. For example, if you are a private photo-lab, and you sign a contract to do the work for a large chain store to develop 35mm filma nd do the prints, well everybody wants it doen in one hour, and done as cheaply as possible. The end result I see, is in order to keep up this leve of expectation, you run cheaper paper in your machine,a nd more importantly, you run your chemistry to past exhaustion. For exmaple, when developing film, colour or B&W, you can only do so many films (any format) per litre or gallon of developer before you have to replace or replenish it. The most common way to cut corners and save time and money is go past that point. Once you start to do that, your negatives never come out right, and afterwards, regardles of hwat print making process you are using, if you negative is poorly developed, you'll have a terrible time ever trying to make a good print out of it.
One last thought - this never comes up, but it should be made known, and it explains, IMO, exactly why Kodak, Agfa, and other are all rushing like mad to "do away" with traditional "wet" darkroom supplies.
If you go out and price the cost of any premium B&W photogrpahic paper - the very best you can find - the stuff made with real silver in it - you will find that many of the premium photo quality papers for PC printer use (either inkjet or laser) are actually more expensive.
Also, I ahve three enlargers in my darkroom, the newest is