----- Original Message ----- From: "David Miers" Subject: RE: Film Is Dead / A Contrary View
> > > Mini labs are mass market machines. The pros who want the big files > > are doing their own scans. > > > > William Robb > > > > > > Are the pros with large size files from high res scans limited to printing > from their own resources too? What are the minilabs limitations from > customer generated files? In checking locally it costs only $.29/4 x 6 > print. That file doesn't need to be that big really. I don't actually have > that many images I need to print, since the computer serves as a good enough > viewer most of the time. Will the images from my digital files be better or > worse then the minilab directly processing the film. Commen sense would say > that I would realize a loss scanning and then having them printed elsewhere. > However I'm very dissatisfied with the operators interpretation of my > images. If I edit them myself I am hopeful of getting what I want this way. > Just print them at home you say, sure I can, but I'm cheap and at $.29 I > can't print them for that much, nor am I too happy with the way B&W looks > coming out of my printer. > > The Noritsu machines print at 320 ppi, and so want a 1280x1920 pixel file before they start interpolating. I can only speak to the equipment I work with, my machine is limited to 20,000 pixels on a side, at 8 bits per channel colour depth. If you are unhappy with what is coming off the lab's machine, you need to profile your system to the lab, and then you should be able to get non corrected prints done that look like what you want. This presumes that the lab is doing it's quality control, and is keeping it's profiles stable. Most of the machines now are fairly good at self calibrating. Noritsu and Fuji works in sRGB colour space, so any files submitted for printing should be in sRGB. If you do the conversion yourself, you will know what the file looks like. If the lab does the conversion, you don't know what they are working with. The only good black and white option that I have seen so far involve darkrooms. William Robb
