 BetterPhoto Member |
Chemical Printing Process I had a word with my local photo shop. They have a digital photo processor which utilizes a chemical process in developing digital photo images. Will it be possible to get the same quality printing by using a high quality inkjet printer?
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Ken Pang |
Let me tell you an anecdote first: I work for a very rich man. He is the finest connoisseur of all things - French and Australian wines, cigars, cars, and most of all, camera equipment. Even so, his motto is "If you can't tell the difference, don't pay any more for it". Inkjet printers are getting very good. if you have a top of the line scanner and top of the line inkjet, it's possible to tell it apart from a real photo, but not easily. Things like Dye-sub printers start getting damn near impossible to tell. The real bottleneck though, is the scanner or the digital camera, not to mention you need something beefy to deal with such large files. Have a look at the Kodak Image Magic machines. They run off Sun SPARC architecture machines which are beyond the reach of most home users. You don't see many Macs and definitely no PCs in this game. Tell you what, bring in a photo with high contrast and lots of colours in it to a shop, and figure out a ball park figure you want to spend. Ask the sales rep to match you up the quality and price you want to spend and ask him to scan and print the photo. The larger department stores will do it usually, the smaller ones might not, or might ask you to pay for the usage. Anyway, if the photo is good enough - don't pay for anything more. Cheers.
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Morgan W. Bird |
Having worked in a photo lab, I've got some first hand experience with this. Kenneth is right that inkjet printers are getting good enough that it's hard to tell the difference if you've got a good scanner/digital camera. However, real photographic prints and digital photo prints from a lab have a much longer life than inkjet prints. This is because of the inks and paper used. A good photographic print can last 100 years or so if treated properly and kept out of direct sunlight, while an inkjet print might last 25 years if you're lucky. So while it's hard to tell them apart immediately, you might begin to see a difference after you've had the prints a couple years.
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