How do they do it?

willg133 · Feb 26, 2005

I am taking my first darkroom class...color photography and after working for a while in the darkroom with the color adjustments and exposure adjustments, I just can't help but wonder how do the one hour photo places get the colors right for all those photos in one hour. their computers must have some technique that I am missing. My instructor said that they do have some secrets but she didn't ellaborate much past that. Anyone have any insight?

ksmattfish · Feb 26, 2005

I'm not often impressed by the printing skills of most one hour places. Most econo-labs have the machines set to auto; it reads the DX code and prints as Kodak or whoever has recommended.

In the labs where human operators actually look at the prints and make decisions about color corrections there are a couple of things going on. First hopefully the operator has plenty of experience. The more you look at prints and make color corrections, the faster and better you'll get at it also. The second big help is in the speed in which the machines can crank out prints. It's a lot faster than you can do it under and enlarger and in trays or a print processor. The paper is on huge rolls and the machine does all the messing with setting up the negs and the paper. They can see if they made the right decisions in a minute or so, and redo if they have to.

KevinR · Feb 27, 2005

I use to work and manage some mini labs for about 7 yrs. The printers are fast enough that you could reprint a roll a couple of times in an hour. I was doing this before the printers where as high tech as they are now. After awhile, you would learn the dendencies of the different film. If you didn't know how it would come out, you can run a test print and adjust from there. Certain films I would have a preset adjustment and when it came in, I could just hit that preset and print the roll. You also get to know how to identify the incadescent and flourecent lights by set, and adjust those. Back then, it really was about experiance. I don't trust alot of places now.