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FILE SETUP INSTRUCTIONSPrinting from Digital Files Instead of Film What You Need To Know... Digital Photography has arrived! Simple capture, instant access, easy sharing, reusable film, new possibilities; it’s a whole new ball game. And as in any good ball game, you can expect some surprises. That’s what this article is about. Digital is changing the rules of photography, but the final version of the rulebook isn’t done yet. At Color Services, we have fully embraced digital photo technology. It is exciting, challenging, and we are thrilled with the new levels of quality we can provide. We are learning and expanding our capabilities every day. One of the big challenges we are working with is blending the new possibilities of digital photography with the best attributes of tried-and-true photographic printing services. The following addresses one such blend: making economical photographic prints from digital files. Traditional photo printing from film is a highly evolved process. All of the critical components are covered by well-established standards. You can walk into a photo lab anywhere in the world with a 35mm negative and get a decent print without having to provide much more information than your name. This is because the lab knows what to expect. Once the image is on that film, there is little you can do to change it. Digital changes all that. In fact, that is one of the attractions of digital. It’s easy to change pictures! Fun, too! Now however, the photo lab no longer knows what to expect when called upon to make a print from a digital source. After having done this for a while, there is something we have come to expect: The unexpected! To make things a bit more interesting, digital photo printing equipment can be much like an absent-minded professor. They are absolutely brilliant at their specialty, but incomprehensibly inept at seemingly simple things. In practice, this means the printer must be provided with precisely configured files and numbingly explicit instructions. If something is not exactly right, expect the unexpected! Sometimes it is easy to figure out what the problem is, other times it requires real detective work. It always takes the time and attention of a skilled technician. We have found that more than three quarters of the files we receive will not print to client expectations without intervention. In order to keep to our delivery schedules and minimize waste, we have started checking each file before printing, a process called "preflighting". This extra work is not allowed for in our existing print pricing, yet it has significantly increased our costs. As a result we have added a $2.00 preflight charge for each file we receive for standard printing on our Fuji Frontier. We are willing to waive this charge for clients who have demonstrated that they can consistently provide print-ready files and will accept responsibility for the results. If you are willing to accept responsibility for preflighting and organize your jobs to conform to our production methods, you can actually get lower prices with our DD&P service. Following are our present guidelines for preparing files for the Frontier. These may change as we discover new facets of the software. Click on a link in the box to your left to choose a topic for specific file setup information ... |
