Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Digital Photo & Printing (was: Re[2]: [OM] OM Quality images)

Subject: Re: Digital Photo & Printing (was: Re[2]: [OM] OM Quality images)
From: Andras Iklody-Szabo <isza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 06:30:31 -0400
Dave,

that's quite a treatise on photo-printing, congratulations!

I have the older Epson Photo (720x720) and can do nice things with it, I
wouldn't have dreamt of a few years ago. I also did my Christmas cards on
it.

The problem that worries me most is the stability (lightfastness) of the
inks. On the Epson list you can read some horror stories about how quickly
some prints fade, like photo color prints used to in the 50ies. Every now
and then some third party manufacturer claims to have invented some stable
inks, which will "soon" be available for Epson as well, but I think the
problem is still unresolved.

Meanwhile your effort is not totally lost, because the image is digitally
stored with all the corrections included. When better technology becomes
available, you can reprint it. But there is another potential problem: what
computers will read today's files in 20 years from now?

All in all, digital seems seductive, but there are some pitfalls beyond the
technique.

Andras Iklody-Szabo
Caracas/Venezuela






>On Thu, 17 Dec 1998 16:43:18 EST, PCACala@xxxxxxx jammed all night, and by
>sunrise was overheard remarking:
>
>> > There must be a middle of the road way to get prints that are
>> >  quality and price between competition/professional (ie $12-$20 each plus
>> >  proof) grade and poor to useless (ie $12/roll).
>
>> Sure.  Go for Wal-Mart processing, but invest in a digital film scanner,
>>Adobe
>> Photoshop or Corel PhotoPAINT and a photo quality ink jet printer (or even a
>> high end Epson 720/1440 dpi printer.  You (and/or your employees) WILL
>>get so
>> good you can turn them out in no time flat - at the size YOU want,
>>cropped the
>> way YOU want and with the color correction YOU want.  Plus you can shoot
>> prints, slides, B&W negs, or B&W slides.  It doesn't matter.
>
>That's good advice, but I would like to add a few caveats.
>
>While I think it's been discussed here before, don't go "on-the-cheap"
>for a film scanner. While quite a few of the super-affordable flatbed
>scanners around today will a wonderful job scanning 5x7s or 8x10s, and
>may even have adaptors or drawers for transparency scanning (which
>includes slides and negatives, sort of), the optical resolution isn't
>good enough. You really want something in the 2400dpi range for scanning
>35mm film, 36-bit or better color-wise, ideally (more on that next).
>
>Then there's the editing factor. Tools like Photoshop, Corel, Photoimpact,
>Kai Krause's various things, etc. are excellent -- they give you
>darkroom at your fingertips, with "undo". But like adjusting for a new
>paper, it'll take some doing to get your screen and printer colors in
>sync. Pro-quality monitors actually have feedback sensors to track the
>actual colors being displayed.
>
>You'll also find that, if you don't start with a good scan, your image
>will be substantially degraded by the time you're otherwise happy with
>it. This is an unavoidable fact of life with digital processing --
>you're limited in "headroom". While you may not be able to print even
>close to 24-bit resolution, layered effects may cut your effective
>resolution down to well below that, faster than you think. This exactly
>the same reason why most pro-audio work is moving to 24-bit sampling and
>32-bit floating-point for editing.
>
>Then there's the printer. While the printer industry would have you
>believe otherwise, there's no such thing as "photo-quality inkjet"; it's
>fairly close to an oxymoron today. It's quite true, they're much better
>than they used to be, so you can get "near" photo quality, not a bad
>match for 3x5-5x7 from the old digital camera, but nothing you're going
>to confuse with a real photo process. Though some less photo knowledgeable
>folks might. I have a Canon BJC-7000, one of the best about a year or so
>ago. This one prints at 1200x600 DPI, which sounds great, until you
>realize that, using "photo" ink, that's only 6 colors (CD, CL, MD, ML, YD,
>YL) plus black. I have printed 8x10s (scanned from normal 8x10s) that
>look nice enough, and pixel-wise, even pretty sharp, but the color detail
>is definitely missing. The other popular printers include:
>
>       Epson:  These guys make two lines, the 400-600-800 series, which
>       print a up to 1440x720 in 3 colors (C M Y) plus black, decent
>       "photo" quality for a traditional ink jet, but not as exciting
>       as it used to be, since this level of resolution is no longer
>       rare. There's also the Epson Photo series, which I believe was
>       just upgraded to 1440x720 (from 720x720). This uses five colors
>       plus black (CD, CL, MD, ML, Y), it does better photos than the
>       normal line, but it's more costly, especially since I think the
>       black is still in the single cartridge.
>
>       HP: They have some pretty cool technology in "PhototRET II",
>       which is in the 700 series and the 800 series printers. This is
>       3+1 printing, but they do overprinting or something to deliver
>       really good results, even with "only" 600x600 DPI printing. They
>       also have a "PhotoSmart" printer, which does a better job,
>       though really slowly. My Dad has this; on some stuff, it's
>       better than my Canon, but it's clearly lacking in pixel
>       resolution by comparison. HP doesn't talk too much about how it
>       works.
>
>       Canon: They have a few with 6 or 7 color printing. The BJC-7000
>       is interesting in that it uses separate color and black
>       cartridges. The black also has a prep-coat, which goes on before
>       the rest of the inks. This can deliver surprising results on
>       non-coated paper, since it slows the ink bleed. It also makes
>       the ink resistant to water ("waterproof" is stretching it, but
>       it doesn't instantly blur when wet). I'm a bit worried they may
>       have obsoleted the higher-end 7000 series by releasing some new
>       5000 series printers with similar ink and resolutions, but it's
>       worth checking out.
>
>       Lexmark. These guys have a printer that's supposedly 1200x1200,
>       which would make it the highest resolution ink jet this week.
>       They get real high marks in monochrome printing (that's like
>       magazing resolution), color is basic 3+1, but also highres. The
>       older Lexmarks had real troubles with paper feeding, which may
>       be cured by now. The Lexmarks use some sort of dry ink, so their
>       prints come out dry.
>
>If you already have a printer, you might consider a photo printer
>specifically for photos. Certainly the Epson and HP "photo" printers are
>low-cost examples of these, but they're not as far ahead of the
>general purpose ink jets as they once were.
>
>Alps Electric has a real interesting line of printers, still within the
>inkjet price range, called "micro-dry". These use either thermal dry ink
>or a thermal dye sublimation process, which delivers true continuous
>tones (eg, the inks are translucent, and the printer can deliver just as
>much as necessary for the color desired). These claim to be waterproof,
>they do look very good on normal paper, at least from the sample I have
>seen. This is 3+1 with normal ink, 3 color only with photo ink (the dye
>sub stuff), so I'm a bit leery about blacks that way (the store I
>examined the MD1300 at claimed not to have any photo ink for demos, but
>they could get it in if I was serious). The other thing that's a bit
>unnerving is that these things are either a mechanical marvel or a Rube
>Goldberg contraption, I'm not sure which. They print with ribbons,
>rather than cartridges, and make lots of mechanical noise, at least by
>modern standards. Resolution in pixels is 1200x600 for ink, 600x600 for
>dye sub -- but 600x600 continuous tone should go a long way.
>
>There are, of course, much fancier color printers, like traditional wax
>and dye sub printers, color laser printers, etc. All way out of my price
>range (probably starting around $1500 for a decent thermal printer, more
>like $3K for a color laser printer).
>
>Like all technology these days, it's rapidly advancing. The Canon I
>bought last year, which at least give you "double-take" quality photos
>(I do my Christmas cards with it, rather than buying photo cards, and on
>glossy paper in 6+1 ink, it's potentially something to be proud of).
>This replaced an HP 870ce, which did 300x300 color in 3+1, not good
>enough to be confused with a photo, no matter what you did. Rarely good
>enough for anything but illustrations.
>
>--
>Dave Haynie  | V.P. Technology, Met@box Infonet, AG |  http://www.metabox.de
>Be Dev #2024 | NB851 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One
>
>
>
>< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
>< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
>< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >


Andras Iklody-Szabo
Caracas/Venezuela



< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz