[filmscanners] Re: Prints from scans ... are there reallydifferences any more?

["Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com>]

Julian writes:

> Maybe nothing.
>
> At the risk of belaboring the obvious, there
> are many "pro labs" whose work is mediocre or worse.
> And some one-hour "mini labs" can turn out very
> good prints.

Well, the one-hour print actually seems to have more "pop" than the pro-lab
print, but it finally dawned on me that this was a difference in paper: the
one-hour place is using Fuji Crystal Archive, which is apparently a
high-contrast, high-saturation paper, and the pro lab is using something
else (I'm not sure what--it's not marked on the back).  The 50x60 print is
very nice, though.  But for 20x30 prints or below, I'm not convinced that
I'm getting anything better from the pro lab, so I might just go with the
one-hour prints from the Frontier for that (the difference in price is
5-to-1).

> The deciding factor is usually the meatware - the
> people running the machines, and the managers who
> supervise them.

One thing I hope to accomplish by getting scans printed directly on
Frontiers or Lambdas or whatever is to minimize human intervention.  If my
files are clean and if the settings on the printers are consistent, I can
just hand the files to the lab and tell them to print exactly what is on the
files, without touching anything.  That's what I did for the one-hour lab
and the results were great.  The pro lab fiddled with the curves a bit on
the scan (a minor improvement, but nothing I could not have done myself),
but otherwise printed it as-is, also with excellent results.

If I had really bad scans that had to be manhandled into proper condition,
the results might have been much more variable and/or worse.  Apparently
these labs get a lot of rotten digital files and scans (based on what they
told me).

> How much training have they had?  How well do they
> calibrate and maintain their processes?  Do they
> set the right filtration for your film?  Do they use
> an appropriate paper?  How much time do they take
> on each order?  Will they reprint if you do not
> like the first run?  Will the second run look better?

The pro lab seems to be doing things right, since I watched part of it and
it looked okay.  The one-hour lab is certainly more casual, but the place I
prefer is staffed mostly by photo enthusiasts (like actors, photographers
hardly ever manage to live off their passion), and they take reasonable
care, even if they are not necessarily experts.

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