[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Photoprints from scanned images



> Just imagine if you had this technology in your reading room, and when a
> customer asked for a print of that house-going-over-the-dam snapshot (a
> best seller at the Austin History Center) you could just call up the
> stored image, print out a copy, and be about ten bucks richer...

We started thinking this same thing a couple of years ago, and
although it took me a while to convince the P-T-B that I was right, I
finally did and we purchased a Kodak 8670 PS Thermal Image
Printer (I wrote so many memos begging for the thing that I can
rattle off the name and statistics in my sleep!).  It's a four-pass
process, three of them being the color, and the fourth pass being a
UV filter layer.  It produces very beautiful photograph-quality prints
for which we charge $10 ($5 internally).  Our cost, according to the
sales rep., is about $2.30 a print.  To test the quality, also, we took a
couple of the early test prints and laid them in a window on the west
side of the building, which gets a lot of sun.  So far, they show no
fading at all, and that was the first of April.  Is it "photograph quality,"
according to photographers?  Hard sayin', not knowin', but the
patrons are sure happy and so is the business manager downstairs,
because we've all but dried up the outflow of cash to the photo lab;
now all that money comes right back to us.  Cost us $6,000, but it's
already paying for itself and so far, we think it's been well worth it.

I'll tell you two side benefits: we recently got the chance to obtain a
ranching/outlaw collection of several hundred photographs, but the
donor didn't want to give up the originals.  So we scanned every one
of them, and also copied part of them the traditional way, i.e. by
having a photograph copy made by the lab on campus.  Cost us
about twelve bucks each.  In the midst of it we got the new printer,
so, having cold feet about how this was draining our limited budget
for this sort of thing, I said print out the last album--the biggest one--
using the new printer.  By putting several prints on one sheet, we
reduced the cost to about $.50  a print.  The other benefit I realized
from this same collection; many of the old photos in one album had
been scribbled over by a child with pencil.  One of my part-timers, a
BFA student who is very familiar with Adobe Photoshop, was able to
remove all the scribbling and produce a beautiful clean print.

I won't go on, like I do about the benefits of my VitaMix, much to my
daughter's dismay, but suffice to say I think it was a very wise
purchase and confidently expect it to pay for itself within a couple of
years; after that it's all gravy.

If you have any specific questions I'd be happy to answer them.


Roy Webb, C.A.
Multimedia Archivist
Special Collections
J. Willard Marriott Library
295 South 1500 East
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah   84112
(801) 585-3073  //  fax (801) 585-3976
rwebb@library.utah.edu

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>