200DPI LightJet Print

"pgg" wrote in message
news
I decided to get a 6x7 transparency professionally scanned and printed by
my local pro lab.

I just got my 16x20 print back. It looks nice, but when examining the
print from 6-10 inches, I wasn't exactly blown away by the detail that I
believe exists in the Fuji Velvia transparency. The print is sharp and
looks great from a few feet away. The scan was $45 and the print was $35
for a total of $80.

I asked for more information. What I assumed was a drum scan wasn't.
They use a $39,000 Scitex flatbed scanner. The lab owner says it
outperformed their drum scanner so they got rid of it.

And the LightJet print was done at 200dpi (or it was scanned at 200dpi).
I believe the native resolution of all LightJets is 305dpi.

Does anybody have an idea how much better 300dpi looks for a
continuous-tone LightJet print?

Thanks

It is all very well discussing the hardware the lab uses, and at what
resolution.

The real point seems to be that this particular lab has not produced the
quality of work you want.

Another lab using exactly the same equipment, could produce superb results.
It is all about how much attention they pay to the job in hand. Are they
churning the stuff through and don't care if it is sub standard?

Have a look around the local Professional Photographers until you find some
large Prints on show, which are up to the standard you want, and ask the
authors where they were done. If you find they are all using that lab, and
are pleased with the quality, then go back to the lab and complain. Your
work must have been done on a bad day, and a good lab will happily re-do
substandard work.

If you find that they are all using someplace else, then you have found the
answer.

If you cannot find any Prints up to your standard, then you are going to
have to learn how to do it for yourself.

Roy G

In rec.photo.digital David J. Littleboy wrote:

The bad news is that it looks to me that if you want to get most
of what's on your film into a scan, you need to buy a Nikon 8000
or 9000 and scan them yourself. My experience is that the time and
care and effort required to get a good scan is such that there's
no way it can ever be a commercially viable operation.

That's good advice, but to save money you could buy one of the
newer flatbed scanners with film attachment. They are starting to
approach the quality of the Nikon 8000 or 9000, at a much lower
price point.

I'm baffled because AFAIK the Lightjet is incapable of printing
at 200 dpi. Maybe it was a Durst Lambda printer? They can print
at either 200 or 400 dpi. Maybe the scan was upsampled.

I'm baffled because AFAIK the Lightjet is incapable of printing
at 200 dpi. Maybe it was a Durst Lambda printer? They can print
at either 200 or 400 dpi. Maybe the scan was upsampled.

I believe they are scanning at 200dpi to save time. Yes, I believe the
LightJet will interpolate any input to 305dpi.

I asked the lab why they don't print at 300dpi for 16x20 and larger. He
answered "When we tested the Lightjet, we found almost no visual
difference between 200 and 300 dpi on prints larger than 12x18".

Can anybody point me to a solid source that would refute this claim?

I'm baffled because AFAIK the Lightjet is incapable of printing
at 200 dpi. Maybe it was a Durst Lambda printer? They can print
at either 200 or 400 dpi. Maybe the scan was upsampled.

He also said "A majority of labs run files at 200 dpi or below"

The thing is, I really like these people otherwise and the lab is a few
blocks from my home so it is damn convenient!!

Recently, pgg posted:

I'm baffled because AFAIK the Lightjet is incapable of printing
at 200 dpi. Maybe it was a Durst Lambda printer? They can print
at either 200 or 400 dpi. Maybe the scan was upsampled.

I believe they are scanning at 200dpi to save time. Yes, I believe
the LightJet will interpolate any input to 305dpi.

I asked the lab why they don't print at 300dpi for 16x20 and larger.
He answered "When we tested the Lightjet, we found almost no visual
difference between 200 and 300 dpi on prints larger than 12x18".

Can anybody point me to a solid source that would refute this claim?

You don't need a "cite" to understand that 300 ppi = 90000 pixels while
200 ppi = 40000 pixels in a 1" square. Whether or not your image can
benefit from gaining over 2x the resolution only you can say. If the
reason that you don't like the results that you got is because the print
looks soft to you, then you already answered part of that question.

Best regards,

Neil

pgg wrote:


I'm baffled because AFAIK the Lightjet is incapable of printing
at 200 dpi. Maybe it was a Durst Lambda printer? They can print
at either 200 or 400 dpi. Maybe the scan was upsampled.

I believe they are scanning at 200dpi to save time. Yes, I believe the
LightJet will interpolate any input to 305dpi.

Using a Creo scanner, the time is quite fast for a scan. The only time
savings would be placing the image on the scanner. One problem is that many
labs charge by the MB, and try to keep costs and charges lower by scanning
at lower settings. This often leads to these expensive scanners not getting
used as much as they could be, and the scanner operator not being as
skilled (or conscientious).



I asked the lab why they don't print at 300dpi for 16x20 and larger. He
answered "When we tested the Lightjet, we found almost no visual
difference between 200 and 300 dpi on prints larger than 12x18".

Can anybody point me to a solid source that would refute this claim?

I think the problem is that the equipment slows down past a certain output
size. There use to be some information about that, and I think it was on
the manufacturers web site. The older machines seem to have more of a
limitation than the newer gear. Find out which machine they are using at
your lab, and then do some investigation. You should also compare with
http://www.durst.com, who are considered by many to be the best in the
business.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com

ppg writes ...

... the LightJet print was done at 200dpi (or it was scanned at
200dpi).
I believe the native resolution of all LightJets is 305dpi.

I can help you with this part, I took a three day advanced printing lab
a couple years back with one of the digital gurus at one of the best
labs and we printed on a LightJet 5000 ... the 5000 has a native
resolution of 12 lines/mm (res 12) which calculates out to 304.8 ppi.
That's what it wants to see ... you can feed it res 8 files (203.2 ppi)
and it will interpolate these to res 12. We did all our files at res
12 for the class before printing.

Newer Lightjet models (I don't remember the number, maybe 540 or
something? ... too lazy to look it up) got away from the metric numbers
and now claim they want 300 ppi for input files and can rez up 200 ppi
files with minimal loss. The Chromira, which is similar but about
$40,000 instead of $130,000, is also a 300/200 ppi machine.

So my guess is that he has a newer LightJet ... you can check the
Symbolic Sciences site and see what the model of the newer printer is
and ask the guy at the lab which model he has. But I think you're OK
here.

Does anybody have an idea how much better 300dpi looks for a
continuous-tone LightJet print?

As mentioned we went with 304.8 ppi (not dpi) when we printed on the
LightJet but we were told by the guy running the show that the LJ did a
great job of interpolating files from res 8 to res 12 and that "you
can't see the difference". Though I noted that he personally always
went 304.8 ppi himself But he had a drum scanner and shot medium
format so had no problems generating large files.

I've never done a test of this, ie, printed the same file at two
different resolutions just to check, but that's what I was told. I
think that Bill Nordstrom at Laser Light labs (not where I took my
class), who now has a Chromira, has stated very strongly that he will
scan your files for printing at 200 ppi (relying on interpolation) or,
if you insist will scan at 300 ppi but charge more for the larger scan,
and Bill feels there is absolutely no difference in print quality
between interpolated 200 ppi and native 300 ppi on his Chromira. So I
guess you'll have to try it yourself and see.

Bill

... the LightJet print was done at 200dpi (or it was scanned at
200dpi).
I believe the native resolution of all LightJets is 305dpi.

I can help you with this part, I took a three day advanced printing lab
a couple years back with one of the digital gurus at one of the best
labs and we printed on a LightJet 5000 ... the 5000 has a native
resolution of 12 lines/mm (res 12) which calculates out to 304.8 ppi.
That's what it wants to see ... you can feed it res 8 files (203.2 ppi)
and it will interpolate these to res 12. We did all our files at res
12 for the class before printing.

Newer Lightjet models (I don't remember the number, maybe 540 or
something? ... too lazy to look it up) got away from the metric numbers
and now claim they want 300 ppi for input files and can rez up 200 ppi
files with minimal loss. The Chromira, which is similar but about
$40,000 instead of $130,000, is also a 300/200 ppi machine.

So my guess is that he has a newer LightJet ... you can check the
Symbolic Sciences site and see what the model of the newer printer is
and ask the guy at the lab which model he has. But I think you're OK
here.

Does anybody have an idea how much better 300dpi looks for a
continuous-tone LightJet print?

As mentioned we went with 304.8 ppi (not dpi) when we printed on the
LightJet but we were told by the guy running the show that the LJ did a
great job of interpolating files from res 8 to res 12 and that "you
can't see the difference". Though I noted that he personally always
went 304.8 ppi himself But he had a drum scanner and shot medium
format so had no problems generating large files.

I've never done a test of this, ie, printed the same file at two
different resolutions just to check, but that's what I was told. I
think that Bill Nordstrom at Laser Light labs (not where I took my
class), who now has a Chromira, has stated very strongly that he will
scan your files for printing at 200 ppi (relying on interpolation) or,
if you insist will scan at 300 ppi but charge more for the larger scan,
and Bill feels there is absolutely no difference in print quality
between interpolated 200 ppi and native 300 ppi on his Chromira. So I
guess you'll have to try it yourself and see.


Thanks Bill. Great post.

What I really need to do is purchase a 8x loupe and examine the
transparency closely to ensure I nailed the focus.

"Bill Tuthill" wrote in message ...
In rec.photo.digital David J. Littleboy wrote:

The bad news is that it looks to me that if you want to get most
of what's on your film into a scan, you need to buy a Nikon 8000
or 9000 and scan them yourself. My experience is that the time and
care and effort required to get a good scan is such that there's
no way it can ever be a commercially viable operation.

That's good advice, but to save money you could buy one of the
newer flatbed scanners with film attachment. They are starting to
approach the quality of the Nikon 8000 or 9000, at a much lower
price point.

Again, here's what I'm seeing with the Epson 4870 vs. the Nikon 8000.

http://www.pbase.com/davidjl/image/40078324/original

Here's the Nikon upsampled to match the Epson's 4800 dpi.

http://www.pbase.com/davidjl/image/40078325

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"Bill Tuthill" wrote in message ...
In rec.photo.digital David J. Littleboy wrote:

The bad news is that it looks to me that if you want to get most
of what's on your film into a scan, you need to buy a Nikon 8000
or 9000 and scan them yourself. My experience is that the time and
care and effort required to get a good scan is such that there's
no way it can ever be a commercially viable operation.

That's good advice, but to save money you could buy one of the
newer flatbed scanners with film attachment. They are starting to
approach the quality of the Nikon 8000 or 9000, at a much lower
price point.

Again, here's what I'm seeing with the Epson 4870 vs. the Nikon 8000.

http://www.pbase.com/davidjl/image/40078324/original

Here's the Nikon upsampled to match the Epson's 4800 dpi.

http://www.pbase.com/davidjl/image/40078325

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan