P3D Re: My Top 10 List

[Dave Williams <davidrw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark wrote:

> As for your double prints showing softness in
> only one print, it sounds like the second set was done at a different
> time. This makes no sense why this would happen unless they changed the
> carrier/paper or forgot the second set and ran them through again.
> Perhaps some of the lab folks can comment? 

Hi, Mark,

I addressed this in my reply to Dr. T, but I'll expand some here.  I've
seen this happen on occassion with orders from our big wholsale lab. 
(we offer two services, a one hour service, which I manage, and a two
day "send out" service, which is handled by the Fuji Trucolor lab in
Kansas City.)  The printers in these labs print at such a high rate of
speed, that sometimes things get out of sync and the gate releases the
negative while the second print is being exposed.  Since it isn't
holding the neg firm, getting ready to advance it, the second print
comes out soft or blurry.  Why this happens, I don't know, since my
experience doesn't include these monster printers.  These labs run
thousands of rolls per night, and after touring a couple of labs, I'm
amazed there aren't more problems. 

If this occurred in a one hour, or mini lab setting, it would be
possible, but difficult to print one set softer, depending on the
equipment used.  The printers used by our chain have a pre-set focus.  I
could only print a soft print if I somehow had the carrier in wrong, and
since that slides on a track, I don't think the printer would let me
anyway.  The doubles (or triples, etc) are printed consecutively, and
our carrier doesn't release the neg until all prints are made.

Going back to print another set after forgetting to print doubles, (I
confess to doing that a time or two!) would only account for color or
density shifts, not focus problems.  And only color or density shifts if
A: If I made manual adjustments to the first set and forgot what I did,
or B: If we changed paper and it was a radical new batch that we hadn't
adjusted for.

What many people don't realize is that we don't focus our printers in
minilabs.  We can't.  The focus is set either at the factory or at
installation.  So the only way we can print a soft print is by movement,
as described above, or somehow having the whole thing misaligned.  Then
all the prints would be off, not just some of them.

Hope this helps!

Dave Williams