>From my observations that is a very fair assessment. Neither set of prints blew the other away in overall quality. I do have to say that Herb's prints were of very nice quality and I was impressed with how they turned out on the Epson 1270.
If anyone else wants to see how the Agfa D-Lab can do, you are welcome to send some images/prints for some comparisons. Anyone not wanting to print at home, but do the digital manipulation may also want to take a crack at it. Just let me know. Bruce Wednesday, January 8, 2003, 7:16:27 PM, you wrote: HC> you may remember that Bruce Dayton requested samples of work for printing HC> on an Agfa D-labs digital photographic printer in his area to compare with HC> high quality inkjet printer output. i sent him seven images on CD-ROM, each HC> in Photoshop and in JPG format, for trial printing at roughly 8x10 size. HC> accompanying the CD-ROM were printouts i made on my Epson 1270 printer on HC> Epson Professional Lustre Paper. the images represent a sample of my recent HC> work, all shot on 35mm film, scanned on my Nikon 4000ED film scanner, and HC> tweaked in Photoshop 7 to my liking. the operator who received and printed HC> my files did not look at my prints for color reference. they looked at the HC> files and did their best job of producing a quality print. overall print HC> quality is excellent. i don't know whether it was coincidence or not, but HC> the operator chose to use Lustre finish paper too, so the paper finishes HC> were essentially identical. HC> according to Bruce, the operator had no color profile to work with for HC> their printer so they were unable to do exact color matching. i supplied my HC> images in sRGB profile and if they had a profile for conversion or they HC> sent it to me, i could have sent my files in the Agfa D-labs profile. that HC> should ensure better color match. as it was, the prints are different in HC> color, but not a great deal. the tendency is toward yellow/green compared HC> to my Epson prints. the difference is a matter of taste and if you had not HC> seen my prints, you would not see anything worth commenting about as far as HC> color is concerned. for absolute color accuracy, the operator would have to HC> look at my prints as reference or to have the files come in already set to HC> the correct color profile for the photographic printer. shadow detail and HC> highlights rendered fine with basically identical results between the HC> inkjet printer and the photographic print. HC> i looked at the 7x10 prints with an 8X loupe and compared the two. the dot HC> pattern is clearly visible in the inkjet prints but there is no dot pattern HC> visible in the photographic prints. it is just possible to see the scan HC> lines from the lasers, so overall resolution is excellent. there are some HC> differences in edge detail though. for some reason, the D-labs prints show HC> slightly less detail, as if a small amount of blurring was applied. also, HC> if there are dark edges against light backgrounds, there seems to be a HC> small amount of hard edges added that are not in the inkjet prints, sort of HC> like an small amount of unsharp mask. looking at the prints at normal HC> viewing distances, the D-labs output has a slight more snap to it, a subtle HC> added sharpness, because the edges are slightly sharper. HC> one of the files was blown up to about 12x18. on that print, the places HC> where the hard edges showed up are softened but the subtle tone changes are HC> lost. there seems to be some image processing taking place. between the HC> original file and the commands to the lasers that is causing this. the HC> original file shows a more gradual edge and it appears that way on the HC> Epson print. however, i have to say that this is looking with an 8X loupe HC> on a 12x18 print. HC> i would have no trouble being satisfied with the quality of the prints i HC> received. owning a large format Epson printer means i can produce the HC> prints i want up to 12x18 with excellent quality. i think it is possible to HC> get excellent quality too from the D-labs printer at the same sizes. color HC> matching is the only sticking point, but that is a procedural and training HC> thing that the operator needs to know about if you want to blind submit HC> files for printing. HC> Herb...
