photo labs in Toronto

[Bosscat]

My guess is that most of the employees of places like Blacks and Wal-mart etc photo finishing have very litte clue as far as photography goes based on what i have seen. I once had dropped off some films for processing and then went and ate dinner........when i came back the person who did the prints was wondering how i got the subject to appear clear....and the background to be blurry. Being tired i looked puzzled and then she said" you don't understand".......i laughed and said "oh you mean panning with a slow shutter speed"

A knowledgeable person would have known how it was done wouldn't ya think???

 

[AIRIC]

Is it all done through software, or does someone actually sit there analysing the photo?

At BLacks every print is printed by a technician. Some more knowledgeable than others. They have a lot of part timers and kids so as I said you really have to make it clear who should print your pics. Some stores are very strong on employees and others not. When I was at the Ajax Superstore we had 6 semi-professional shooters, all of us had a CPC rating and two of us have a SPFE rating. Again we had some part timers that new nothing but we were a very strong store. If you have a printer that has not been trained it is better to just throw the machine on auto rather than have them screw with the pics.

Beleive me you can't lump BLacks and Walmart in a group anymore than you can put Blacks and a pro lab in the same group. Three different market levels.

Eric

 

[fadingaway1986]

If it helps - if their machines are anything like ours...

We have a special keyboard, that has things like a yellow, magenta, cyan and darkness button. That is basically all the post-processing we do. No contrast changes or anything like that...

Hope that helps

 

[AIRIC]

Every Blacks has a Fuji Frontier printer. Each negative is scanned and printed with a laser. This gives us the option adjusting focus tints, shadow and highlite detail.

Check it out on the net. This is just some info I came across at the first site I looked at.

Nothing satisfies a photographer’s vision more than a truly beautiful photographic print. Many of us have spent years in the darkroom, honing our craft and learning how to make really fine prints. Others have long standing relationships with professional labs that they depend on to translate their negatives into excellent prints.
Meanwhile, technology has been quietly at work, bestowing new powers on the humble one hour mini lab business. In older mini labs the machines printed negatives optically, just as you would in a darkroom, but with far less control and quality. The newest devices are far more sophisticated, scanning images in, digitally processing them, and then using solid state RGB lasers to print them on traditional photographic paper. The results are outstanding quality photographic prints, produced quickly and inexpensively.

Of all the new machines being introduced, our current favorite is the Fuji Frontier line of mini lab printers. These machines are amazing in their capabilities. They can print photos directly from your digital camera media, or work with images you have optimized in Photoshop. You don’t even have to be a digital camera enthusiast to benefit; they also do a great job printing 35mm, APS and medium format films.

How does it work?
The key to their quality is a combination of a high quality scanner, sophisticated digital image processing software and RGB lasers that image directly to the photographic paper, eliminating optical degradation of the image.
Fuji’s “Hyper-Tone Image Processing” software automatically performs localized density adjustments for high contrast and backlit scenes, essentially burning and dodging the images, while the “Hyper Sharpness Image Processing” creates crisper images by improving edge definition of objects, shadows, and colors. There is also an automatic “Grain Control Processing” function which reduces unwanted film grain.

The VPS software that comes with each machine also gives you the choice of having your images printed with a variety of borders, as well as on calendars and greeting cards.

The newest Frontier model, the 330, employees Fujifilm's proprietary scratch and dust elimination system that uses an infrared scan to pinpoint film defects and then digitally removes them from the print.

All models use RGB lasers to expose the photographic paper, and process the prints in a modified RA4 chemistry. The CP-48S chemicals have been optimized to improve the print D-max for richer blacks. Fuji Crystal Archive paper is a fine material to print on, and when matched with a Frontier printer the results can be outstanding.

Fuji currently has four Frontier models on the market. Models 330 and 390 are capable of making prints up to 8” x 12”, while the models 350 and 370 can print up to 10” x 15”.

Scanning 35mm Slides with the Frontier Printer
Not many people know about this, but the Frontier printer can also produce high resolution scans (3000 pixels per inch) from 35mm slides and negatives for a remarkably low cost. (Costco's price was 59 cents each!) Over a one week period we had 100 of Larry’s old slides scanned to create a new Film Gallery and two galleries of images for sale on BermanArt.com. The scanned files were 4535x3035 pixels and were saved as 12 to 19 megabyte high quality Jpeg’s. These opened in Photoshop as a 39 megabyte PSD files. Not all Frontiers’ will output at this resolution; it will depend on the IC (image control) software in use. Ask the operator to scan for a 10x15 inch print and that will set the unit to output at its highest quality.
Printing Your Digital Files
If you one of the many photographers who use an image editing program like Photoshop to create optimized digital files, the Frontier can be an excellent output choice. Depending on where you have the printing done, the cost of an 8x10 photographic print can actually be lower than the cost of paper and ink for a high quality inkjet print. And in tests done by Wilhelm Imaging Research, Fuji Crystal Archive paper was rated as having a 60 year display-life, far longer than most inkjet materials.
The Frontier has been designed to treat images that are brought to it on digital media differently than when it scans the film itself. It won’t automatically try to adjust your optimized Photoshop files, but it may crop them if you have not prepared them correctly ahead of time.

Profiling Your Local Frontier
To achieve the ultimate in quality and consistency, consider making your local mini lab part of your calibrated work flow. Ethan Hansen, a professional photographer from Oregon, has created a web site with a database of freely available Fuji Frontier and Noritsu digital printer Icc profiles for mini labs all over the country. The purpose of his project is to be able to hand a client a color accurate proof when shooting on location. Go to DrycreekPhoto.com, and see if a mini lab near you has been profiled. If not, download Ethan’s Frontier or Noritsu profiling target and have it printed at your local lab. Mail him the target and he will profile it at no charge, and add the data to his online database.
The DrycreekPhoto.com site also has a very good primer on color management issues, and explicit instructions on how to use its ICC profiles with Photoshop. If you are serious about consistent, optimized color these tools can help you achieve excellent results with the inexpensive prints you can get from a Fuji Frontier printer.

Step by Step Guide to Optimal Prints
We have outlined three different ways of working with the Frontier printer. The beginner workflow is for people who are used to dropping their point and shoot film off at a one-hour photo and want the same easy way to obtain similar results with their new digital camera. The intermediate workflow is for those people who are experienced in Photoshop or similar image editing programs and like to manipulate their images prior to printing. The advanced workflow is similar to the intermediate workflow with one major difference. This is recommended for professional photographers who want to use the Frontier printer for color accurate proofs to provide clients. We’ve been using the intermediate workflow for our own prints and have been very satisfied.
Note that the features and steps may vary from printer to printer, based on the currently installed software and what the operator has permission to do.

Beginner – You can bring your digital camera or just your memory card to your local 1-hour photo and they will be able to make prints directly from your digital files. In our testing with the files from our own camera we were able to get very good prints straight out of camera. The only issue you will run into is that the images will be cropped when printed at standard sizes, like 4x6 or 8x10. You need to tell the operator to size the images so they won’t be cropped, which will make them slightly smaller with an added white border around them. For example, digital camera files are proportional to 7-1/2x10 and will be cropped if printed on 8x10 paper when the 7-1/2 inch side is expanded to 8 inches.
Intermediate (assuming you’re using Photoshop) – Fuji recommends your image to be in a sRGB color space. Be sure to tell the operator that you do not want any additional adjustment, for although the machine will not automatically compensate, the operator still might try to be helpful by making changes.
1 - Open your file in Photoshop (or your choice of image editing programs) and Save As an uncompressed file as either a PSD or TIF which will become your working original.
2 - Do your editing, correct color, open shadows, crop etc., then Save As "working original 2".
3 - Resize your finished image. Go to Image>Image Size. Make sure Constraint Proportions and Resample Image (Bicubic) is checked. Enter 300 for the resolution and 10 for the width (or height if it’s a vertical). Depending on the aspect ration of the original scan, the size in the height box will vary. Pay attention to the Pixel Dimensions above the size in inches. It should now read 2250x3000 pixels. That's the same as 7.5 x 10 inches at 300 pixels per inch.
4 - Add Unsharp Mask if the image needs to be sharpened. This is a judgment call based on your personal vision and the particular image.
5 - Add a canvas so the image will print properly as an 8x10. Go to Image>Canvas Size. If you're working in inches, change the 7.5 to 8 inches. If you're working in pixels, change the 2250 to 2400 pixels. In both cases, the exact same size border will be added to the 7.5 inch sides to make it centered on an 8 inch canvas. We have gotten into the habit of adding copyright, contact and image file numbers in that border area, but you could choose to leave it white, or black, if you want.
6 - Save As a TIF adding 8x10 to the file name. This will be the file you burn to a CD or copy to a zip disk to be printed. An 8x10 becomes a 20+ megabyte Tif file.
Advanced (assuming you’re using Photoshop on a color calibrated system and have the profile on your computer for the Frontier printer you’re going to create your file for.
Thanks to Ethan Hansen for this example work flow:
A critical element in getting the most accurate color from any printer is the use of a printer Icc profile. Profiles are a translation aid. They allow color-savvy software such as Adobe Photoshop to convert the colors in an image to a range that a printer can produce. Profiles also allow correction of the image data so the final print matches what you see on your monitor. These corrections are made to compensate for how a specific printer outputs color.
Note that using profiles requires disabling all the automatic image enhancement and correction routines that a Frontier offers. Profiles assume that your image is already correct and needs no further work at print time.

Before beginning, start with a well-calibrated and profiled monitor. This is essential: you need to be able to trust what your eyes see on the screen. After your monitor is brought into line, using printer profiles requires some setup, but then becomes a fairly straightforward process.

 

[Sash[DSL]]

All of this is very interesting but really mostly applies to digital printing.
So the bottom line is: you need some place where technicians will listen to what you have to say about how you want your pics printed. What about the printer they're using? Is there a website that lists all these printing machines and says which ones good and which ones suck.

 

[AIRIC]

One thing I should have mentioned in the last post is the printer is only as good as the person operating it. The Frontier is mostly for 35mm negative film and is the best around but it can also print digital files, slides, 120 and such.

Eric

 

[Sash[DSL]]

One thing I should have mentioned in the last post is the printer is only as good as the person operating it

Why is that? Cant you just load the film into the machine and have it proccessed all on automatic?

 

[AIRIC]

Sash

When a person prints your roll he can see and understand what your subject is. On automatic it will only expose the shot judjing the over all image. If you have a back lit photo your dubject will be a silhouette as the machine will read all the back light. A printer will see that and lighten the photo to see the subject. A good operator on the Frontier will also use a highlite soft tone to bring out some detail in the highlite area.

HTH,

Eric

 

[Sash[DSL]]

AIRIC
Yes, the prints might not be the best, BUT what matters the most is whether your negatives/slides are developed properly or not and whether they are taken a good care of. If blacks use fuji frontier machine, naturally it will be more careful with negatives than the older ones.