Digital Negatives from Copy Centers (FedExOffice/Kinkos, etc)

So I stopped into FedExOffice the other day and asked about transparency printing. For an 8x10", it's only 75 for b&w or $2 for colour.

They can do up to 11x19" IIRC.

Any idea what kind of quality one can expect from them? For instance, what type of printer do they use?

I intend to do this soon and will post a scan once I get my belongings all back together (I just moved!).

I'm also wondering about how to calibrate the file for the best results. I'll probably just tweak an image on my computer until it looks good, turn it into a negative and go from there.

I'm thinking this could be quite a useful service, if the results are adequate.

You will probably need the $2.00 color negative because you might not get enough density with black ink. Just tweaking a file in photoshop and inverting works for some folks. I have a friend who made some digital negatives that way and they look just great.

Calibrating the file comes about after you make the print. I have used a reflection densitometer to measure the tones of the final print and compared that to readings in photoshop. Then you can make a curve to fit the negative to the final print.

Hi Joe,

I was considering doing one of the various "array" calibrations in color. I might try the b&w and just see what it's capable of, afterall I'm mainly wanting these negatives for tri-color printing, and in that case, I need 1/3 the density to begin with.

Any idea how a transparency print from a place like this will stack up, quality wise?

Don't have a clue as to the level of quality available because I have not tried it. For a couple of bucks and your time, you can't afford not to give it a test.

It's on my list of things to do this week and I'll scan the result and share it here.

If someone out there knew what equipment they used, what resolution they printed at, etcetra, I thought it would be interesting for them to discourse on the topic; that's why I ask.

So last night I took a color photo scan that I'm fond of and split it into CMY separations and then also one overall grayscale (panchromatic if you will), put it on a flash drive and took it to FedEx Office.

Preliminary results were somewhat disappointing, but I'm still optimistic. To be honest, my vocabulary and knowledge base is not up to snuff when it comes to digital, and combined with the lack of any photographic sensibilities on their part, we didn't get too far.

She opened the files and I asked her natively what size they would be and she said 14"x21". So, it's a plenty large enough file, and the scan is quite large (can get specifics later) and should've been totally acceptable for an 8x10" print or so.

Anyways, so I told her to make it 9" wide, which put it at abotu 6x9". The first transparency she printed out looked terrible; very pixelated. Apparently she opened this at 72 DPI and I told her that I'd like to get it at 300 DPI at least. She went on to say that well that's inherent in my file and I need to scan it differently, but that's crazy talk, because it's a pretty good sized scan (again, 14"x21"). Then, another guy hopped on the computer and did a little song and dance, apparently opening it up at 300 DPI and the next print looked quite a bit better, though not amazing by any means.

They're using a laser printer, which might be the problem here. Also, the density was indeed quite low, but I suspect that this could be worked out ok with the proper curves or printing in color as suggested.

But, I'm not sure what they're doing with the file behind the scenes. I gave them tiff files, and I think they're opening them up with PS, but beyond that, it's kind of like the blind leading the blind.

I'd appreciate any insight or assistance in this matter. Thanks much!

My experience:

I have taken some files to Staples for making some enlarged negatives for an alternative printing workshop I recently took. The files where prepared in lightroom, sharpened, and inverted in PS. They were sized for 8x10, 300 dpi , and ended up being flattened tiff files with no color profile attached to them.

The copy center was not that busy so I was able to observe what the clerk did with the files on the computer. I told them nothing other than I wanted them printed on an 8.5 x 11 acetate film. The clerk used preview in windows XP to print them out. I played with this later on my own and I believe you don't have a lot of control using this approach which may be a good thing. Even though I sized the file for 8x10, it was stretched out to fill the long dimension of the paper.

They came out OK, I used them for a van dyke brown print. I will need to make another print from them to determine the quality since the first print had the negative shift during inspection while it was exposed. From what I can tell, the quality is not that bad for experimentation.

I have made some myself using a laser printer which has 1200 dpi resolution and kimoto paper which is used for burning screen print screen emulsions. They look better than the staples ones, but I have yet to make a direct comparison. I hope to do that soon, same image file, same final print process, different "negatives". I used PS to print my versions.

BTW I have been doing this only for digital files, not scanned negatives. For negatives I have had really good results using litho film or x-ray duplicating film in my enlarger.

Do you know if Staple used a laser printer or an inkjet printer?

Sounds somewhat promising.

And yeah, I've got some x-ray film, but I really want to make color separations from negs & e6, which requires panchromaticity. However, I did just get a box of Efke 100 8x10".

The print from Staples was done with a laser jet, I told them that is what I wanted.

I think that inkjet does not have enough density for exposures that require a lot of intensity. I think some of the ink colors for inkjets are more UV opaque, but I need to read up on that. I have printed some halftone screens using my inkjet, but I'm using my enlarger to make the exposures with those so it seems that there is enough density. It's how I am making films for burning onto screen print screens.

I still need to make that comparison between the acetate laser print and the kimoto paper laser print.