really no purpose anymore for traditional films (negative or diapositve) (by 2006) ?

babelfish wrote:
Well gee wiz. It's about time someone said the obvious. As a custom lab
owner for thirty years I'm still truly amazed at the number of people who
convince themselves that all photo lab work is exactly the same except for
the price. Then there are those more sophisticated folks who like to believe
that the same equipment produces the same work no matter who's at the
controls, just like the same cameras produce the same shots in every
photographer's hands. Right? Get real. People make the difference in all
professions and you have to pay for expertise. So just go on running to
WalMart and Costco for 13 cent prints. When the last real custom lab dies,
you'll all just complain that no one does good work.


You slam Costco, but for digital printing, they are hard to beat. The price
is right for sure. They only print to 8x10, which is a real limitation
sometimes. They do do a very good job with the images, especially if you
download their profiles and apply the profiles to your images for upload. The
only catch in this workflow that I really have noticed is that they have a
file size limit and do not accept TIFF.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

In article ,
Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:

They only print to 8x10

Actually the go to 12x18.

On 2006-11-07 09:36:50 -0500, said:

Hello,

I heard, that today there is no need anymore for traditional films
(negative or diapositve) because by postprocessing digital camera
shots(e.g. with Photoshop) everything can be done/achieved?


Is that true and is it really that simple?


Any feedback is appreciated very much. Thank you!

John

No.
--
Michael | "He's dead, Jim."

Then I should send you a Colorthink screenshot of our profile matched
against Costco's as proof of the difference. You would clearly see that we
have about a 20 percent greater gamut volume, mostly in dark saturated
colors and deeper blacks. IOW, we print more color than they do. If you're
serious about photography, and you must be or you wouldn't be here, then you
shouldn't assume that all processing is the same except for the price. The
mere pennies that Costco charges makes for quite a deal for the average
person who isn't concerned with getting all that is possible from your
files, but you DO get what you pay for. We drive our lasers harder to
achieve greater Dmax and color gamut, but this reduces the lifespan of the
equipment and it's more difficult for our technicians as well. Our workflow
places no restrictions on file types and we do any required profile
conversions and sizing as a matter of course. Anyone who comes to my lab for
reprints with work that was done first at Costco immediately sees the
improvement, but most don't remain as steady customers because of our
increased cost of doing a great job. Consequently, we get the problem files
and most important images while Costco gets the quantity.

This is the world we live in where price is the ONLY thing that matters to
most people and it's sad when even professionals and corporations are
willing to compromise the majority of their images to save a paltry amount
of money. In this environment, anyone who attempts to do his best is quickly
driven out of business and soon only the shoddy mediocrity of hucksters will
remain.


"Thomas T. Veldhouse" wrote in message
.. .
babelfish wrote:
Well gee wiz. It's about time someone said the obvious. As a custom lab
owner for thirty years I'm still truly amazed at the number of people who
convince themselves that all photo lab work is exactly the same except
for
the price. Then there are those more sophisticated folks who like to
believe
that the same equipment produces the same work no matter who's at the
controls, just like the same cameras produce the same shots in every
photographer's hands. Right? Get real. People make the difference in all
professions and you have to pay for expertise. So just go on running to
WalMart and Costco for 13 cent prints. When the last real custom lab
dies,
you'll all just complain that no one does good work.


You slam Costco, but for digital printing, they are hard to beat. The
price
is right for sure. They only print to 8x10, which is a real limitation
sometimes. They do do a very good job with the images, especially if you
download their profiles and apply the profiles to your images for upload.
The
only catch in this workflow that I really have noticed is that they have a
file size limit and do not accept TIFF.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

"babelfish" wrote in message
news:sLS7h.893$a_2.185@trnddc01...

We drive our lasers harder to
achieve greater Dmax and color gamut, but this reduces the lifespan of the
equipment and it's more difficult for our technicians as well. Our
workflow
places no restrictions on file types and we do any required profile
conversions and sizing as a matter of course. Anyone who comes to my lab
for
reprints with work that was done first at Costco immediately sees the
improvement, but most don't remain as steady customers because of our
increased cost of doing a great job. Consequently, we get the problem
files
and most important images while Costco gets the quantity.

The competition from stores that may not give the attention to detail that
you obviously do must be very frustrating. However, I have to pick you up on
your comment about driving the lasers harder. Either you are trying to
mislead or someone's been pulling your chain.

Cheers,

Dooey.

The competition from stores that may not give the attention to detail that
you obviously do must be very frustrating. However, I have to pick you up
on
your comment about driving the lasers harder. Either you are trying to
mislead or someone's been pulling your chain.

Not at all. How hard the lasers are driven depends on the Dmax aims that we
establish for our paper calibration. Darker exposures are the result of
running more power through the lasers resulting in more heat and shorter
life. If one is willing to accept a dark gray instead of the maximum black
that the paper can produce, then the machine works much less as a lot of
leeway is allowed in the system of lasers, power supply and processor. Some
leeway is mandatory because maximum aims aren't always possible, but the
more we allow the less downtime there will be for out of calibration errors
and repairs. Pushing the envelope like this costs real money but the results
are quantifiable and quite visible.

"babelfish" wrote in message
news:Qv28h.2615$oP6.1634@trnddc03...

The competition from stores that may not give the attention to detail
that
you obviously do must be very frustrating. However, I have to pick you up
on
your comment about driving the lasers harder. Either you are trying to
mislead or someone's been pulling your chain.

Not at all. How hard the lasers are driven depends on the Dmax aims that
we establish for our paper calibration. Darker exposures are the result of
running more power through the lasers resulting in more heat and shorter
life. If one is willing to accept a dark gray instead of the maximum black
that the paper can produce, then the machine works much less as a lot of
leeway is allowed in the system of lasers, power supply and processor.
Some leeway is mandatory because maximum aims aren't always possible, but
the more we allow the less downtime there will be for out of calibration
errors and repairs. Pushing the envelope like this costs real money but
the results are quantifiable and quite visible.


What is the web page for your service? I'd like to give it a try.

In article Qv28h.2615$oP6.1634@trnddc03,
babelfish wrote:
Not at all. How hard the lasers are driven depends on the Dmax aims that we
establish for our paper calibration. Darker exposures are the result of
running more power through the lasers resulting in more heat and shorter
life.

Can you tell us what the Dmax is that you deliver and the Dmax of what
typical low cost RA-4 printing gives?

One thing I find annoying is the lack details companies provide on their
web-site (at least where I live). If you are lucky, you can find their
prices there. Even details like optimal output resolution are almost
never there.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

In article Qv28h.2615$oP6.1634@trnddc03,
babelfish wrote:

If one is willing to accept a dark gray instead of the maximum black

That reminds me of the terrible b&w prints one would get from the
"drug store" processing in the 60's. Not a hint of black anywhere
on the paper.

--
http://www.spinics.net/lists/

The 60's nothing! I still see such b&w prints from many big box store
operations. Worse yet, they're printed on color paper with a severe color
cast as well as very low contrast. Most amazingly, people buy it thinking
that's what they shot. They get upset with film and their cameras and they
blame everything except for the store because that would blow a hole in
their belief that all processing is the same except for the price. Once that
happens, it gets expensive.

For those interested parties, I looked up our data and the profiles show the
following black vales as measured in LAB color space:

The local Costco = 11
Tech Photo = 2

Absolute black is 0 in LAB space and white is 100. Using the LAB or L*
values which are in the profiles themselves removes any discrepancies about
which densitometry was used to measure a print because the LAB numbers are
measured by a calibrated spectrophotometer in both cases.

The actual comparison wireframes which show the increased gamut as well as
maximum density are at
ftp://ftp.technicalphoto.com/pub/col...e_view_RGB.jpg



wrote in message ...
In article Qv28h.2615$oP6.1634@trnddc03,
babelfish wrote:

If one is willing to accept a dark gray instead of the maximum black

That reminds me of the terrible b&w prints one would get from the
"drug store" processing in the 60's. Not a hint of black anywhere
on the paper.

--
http://www.spinics.net/lists/