I talked with the owner of my lab about the digital end. It was interesting because they are quite well equipped to handle the digital flow. They have 2 Agfa D-Labs that are fed jobs by an Express Digital server that can take feeds from email, several internet based services and disk in some form or other.
His opinion is that they are more or less treating it as the digital file is prepped already by the photographer. They are planning on a somewhat unattended workflow where the jobs are cranked through and leaving the image and order definition to the photographer. Obviously, the turn around time would be very short and the pricing could be lower due to less labor cost. A good friend of mine got a Nikon D100 (I already talked about him) a while back. After using it on a trip, he was dismayed to find that most of his 400+ images needed at least some minor tweaking before printing. He was thinking that already being digital would reduce the workload rather than increasing it. It almost seems like there is this post processing work that needs to be done and can be as time intensive or more so than film. But the photographer thinks the lab is going to do it and the lab thinks the photographer is going to do it. Anyone printing at home is dead meat unless they aren't printing very many. Time is indeed a precious commodity. I guess one has to decide if they are more of a photographer or more of a darkroom wizard. Certainly the low volume amateur or pro might be able to be both, but not the volume photographers. Bruce Thursday, December 5, 2002, 2:42:47 PM, you wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Bruce Dayton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] >> Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 4:59 PM >> To: Bruce Dayton >> Subject: Re: Interesting read >> >> >> I guess I should follow on with this, that it may be >> heavily affected >> by the type of photography you do. If you are shooting scenics and >> only have to prepare a few per session, it may well be >> worth it. If, >> like me, you shoot a wedding with 200 salable prints, then the task >> becomes daunting. It is far easier to take it to the lab >> and let them >> deal with it. >> >> So, what do you all think? t> I think higher end labs these days are learning to adjust. Many t> high-end wedding/portait labs let you upload your raw files to their t> sites, and when you need prints, they make the adjustments, just like t> they do on a Frontier. If there are a few that need tweaking, either t> the photographer or the lab can do it. If there's a big problem, the t> lab will let you know so you can make adjustments next time (for t> instance if your white balance was off all day). t> What he's talking about is editorial/advertising output where color t> and density can be super important and have to be spot-on. I think t> most editors haven't learned to adjust. I think they will - it's a t> matter of adjusting to a new workflow. t> I think. t> ;) t> tv
