The Digital Minilab

Digital Minilabs are the modern version of how we used to have our photos developed and printed in the main street in the old days (that's around 3 years ago:-)

Rather than hand over a roll of film (which you can still do if you're a non-digital photographer), you now hand over your camera's memory card. The lab technician will download the images from the card to the minilab computer and print them to your specifications.

Some may do this immediately, others may keep the card for a little while (which is why it's a good idea to always have a spare memory card for your digital camera).

The "front-end" of the digital minilab is a very high quality negative scanner twinned with a powerful computer interface. This means that however you supply your original images they can be printed.

If you prefer, download the images from your digital camera yourself and burn them onto CD, the minilab can also read from a disc.

Although the "front-end" of a modern minilab is digital the "back-end" or the "print processing system" retains the traditional photo chemistry process.

This is because despite the massive advances in inkjet printing technology over the past few years, traditional chemistry-based print processing still has the edge when it comes to quality, speed, longevity and cost (inkjet prints are always more expensive per unit).

The benefits of using a local minilab are:

Your work is close to where you work or live

Prints are usually turned around within the hour

Costs are generally more favorable than inkjet printing

Prints are better quality and have a longer lifespan

You don't have to spend a lot of time at the computer printing out your photos

The price of a minilab can reach up to $250,000. The most popular brands are KIS, Noritsu, Doli and Fuji. Recently two manufacturers, Agfa and Konica went out of business. Minilab Factory GmbH took over the renowned minilab branch of Agfa.

Digital minilabs are much too expensive for typical home use, but many stores purchase or lease them to offer photo printing services to their customers.

Manufactures keep a close eye on their in store minilab operators. Quality control is very high on their radar as their reputation rests on the individual operators' product. So, any local minilab which runs one of the main maufacturer's systems is a good bet for top quality results from your photographs. In my experience, particularly Fuji minilabs produce consistent high quality prints.

An alternative to this service is online photo-labs which have sprung up all over the internet.

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