Noritsu 3501 mini review

[mcpix]

I've had my new Noritsu 3501 for a little over a month now, so I thought I would write a mini review. Keep in mind I previously was using a D-Carrier, so this is a real step up for me.

The Noritsu 3501 is very compact. Noritsu has returned to an older design where the dryer slides over the last rack. This makes the machine smaller than my Noritsu 2612. The racks are very similar in design to my 2612 and the paper magazines are exactly the same. This works great for me, because it gives me 4 extra magazines (a savings of almost $6,000 US).

The 3501 can be set up for 3 different paper manufacturers. There are look up tables for most papers. I'm currently using Fuji Crystal Archive Type II with great results.

The machine has an internal profile that is very accurate. As previously discussed in another thread, you can choose to have cutomer files automatically converted to this profile. This is what we do, and the output looks great. How good is the profile? Previously, for our studio work, we used a Pictrography 4000 for which we paid to have a custom profile created. We would take our studio files, convert them to the PG 4000 profile and then print them. With our 3501, we simply send the files to the printer and they look better than the files from our PG 4000! The only waste we have on our studio work is when we print the wrong file, everything else looks great.

The 3501 has also greatly improved the quality and quantity of our digital output. The 3501 can produce 580 4"x6" prints an hour. Plus, we find that it does a good job of improving customer files. Recently a customer asked me to do some special cropping on a file I had previously printed on the 3501. The 4x6 looked great, however once I opened the file in Photoshop I discovered that it was actually too dark. The printer must do some kind of levels adjustment, because that is what I had to do manually in Photoshop to get it to look as good.

Daily set up is a breeze. The machine automatically prints and reads a step wedge test print each morning. You can even set the machine to turn itself on and run the test before you get there, so it's ready the moment you walk in the door. It's also very easy to keep other surfaces and sizes in balance by periodically running the same test. We do most of our studio work on 8" paper except for the 4x6's. We run those on 4" paper and they match perfectly.  

Since I've never had another digital lab, I can't compare the user interface. However my other photographer worked on Fuji Frontiers and says the Noritsu is much easier to work on. You can easily grab files from the kiosk, a memory card or a networked computer.

The 3501 also makes it easy to handle the problem of printing full frame 4" prints. There are several different ways you can choose to print a file, but we use two. One way forces a 4x6 print from the file, resulting in some of the top and bottom being cropped. The other way fits the short side to 4" and the long side prints as long as needed. We just ask customers what they want. So far, most people opt for "full frame" or 4x5.5.

The 3501 takes up to 8" paper and will print up to a 8"x36".

I really don't have any complaints about this machine. It works great, and so far we haven't had a moments problem with it.

Maybe all new digital labs are this easy to use, but I was surprised how well thought out and productive this machine was. Plus it produces beautiful work!

[philspectrum]

Great idea posting machine reviews, - yours reads almost too good - are you sure you don't work for Noritsu ?

Thanks

Phil

[NeilT]

Good review, and thank you for taking the time and trouble to write it, really nice to read.

[kikskiks]

I changed from a 3000 to the  3501 with S1-II scanner end of march and more or less everything is perfect and a lot quicker. The only thing that seems very slow to me are APS prints.

[AjantaKVS]

Good to see the reviews of new models of minilabs by the actual users and if it is unbiased and not  some sort indirect marketing for a company.

By publishing  actual user unbiased reviews and feed back we all will be helping each other, Thanks mcpix for the review.

I have been using noritsu digital mini labs right from 3001. From your review i don't see any revolutionary changes in the machine it looks they are just evolutionary.

I feel following short comings in default  basic   Noritsu and other digital mini lab machines(not considering expensive options) :

# Ability to print directly from Photoshop, When 100 dollar ink jet can do that why not Noritsu minilabs?

#ICC CMS, when whole world considering this international standard why not  our favorite Noritsu ?

# Such an expensive printer is not a 'network printer' , when a simple  desk-top hp laser printer is capable of, with hot folder and Que management facility, Why not Noritsu?

# They had monitor calibration using colorimeter (HW/SW combination) in older models like 3001, in later models they switched to SW only calibration methods like in 3202.When whole world is moving towards HW/SW method of calibrating display monitors for precise color re-production.

# To prepare precise color printer profiles what we need is a spectrophotometer not a densitometer or colorimeter,

     what our present minilabs providing.

# A front end SW tool to receive print orders in some industry standard format like DPOF ,in addtion to the printer being DPOF compatible

# try to print a cmyk file on our minilabs asking it convert to rgb by itself and try to print the same file after converting to rgb externally from a SW like photoshop and see how badly Noritsu sw converts from cmyk to rgb.

# Ability to print PDF files, because most graphic designers and document people prefer PDF format

#Ability to print RAW files, Because now most pro photographers shoot in RAW and they want prints immediately like how we give prints from their jpegs

# Many Many  more innovative work flow solutions and products are possible when we go for digital compared to optical methods, which i feel not yet available in this expensive minilabs compared to other printers like ink jet , desk top lasers (photo- electro machines) and digital presses. Why not such innovations in mini labs ?.

KVS

[prodpi]

# Ability to print directly from Photoshop, When 100 dollar ink jet can do that why not Noritsu minilabs?

Noritsu can do this, with their Printer Driver software.

#ICC CMS, when whole world considering this international standard why not  our favorite Noritsu ?

# Such an expensive printer is not a 'network printer' , when a simple  desk-top hp laser printer is capable of, with hot folder and Que management facility, Why not Noritsu?

This is available in Net-Order mode.  we only print in this mode to our 33's and 34.

# They had monitor calibration using colorimeter (HW/SW combination) in older models like 3001, in later models they switched to SW only calibration methods like in 3202.When whole world is moving towards HW/SW method of calibrating display monitors for precise color re-production.

I agree on this one, only if you are doing color correction on the QSS itself.  With workflow software and Netorder mode this would be a n option that most users wouldn't need to pay for.

# To prepare precise color printer profiles what we need is a spectrophotometer not a densitometer or colorimeter,

     what our present minilabs providing.

This is correct, however the purpose of the colorimeter is to setup the the paper and doesn't need a spectrophotometer to do this task.  We use an Eye 1 and a xrite DTP for ICC profiles.

# A front end SW tool to receive print orders in some industry standard format like DPOF ,in addtion to the printer being DPOF compatible

# try to print a cmyk file on our minilabs asking it convert to rgb by itself and try to print the same file after converting to rgb externally from a SW like photoshop and see how badly Noritsu sw converts from cmyk to rgb.

Like all RGB printers, this is the case, you must convert prior to printing.  This is the same with most inkjet printers that are run without a RIP.

# Ability to print PDF files, because most graphic designers and document people prefer PDF format

Valid point for labs that work with this typ of client, though I would think that this would be a smaller group of Noritsu Labs.

#Ability to print RAW files, Because now most pro photographers shoot in RAW and they want prints immediately like how we give prints from their jpegs

I would guess that the raw workflows out there, DP-2 (bibble), adobe camera raw, light room, etc would be better suited for better RAw conversion than Noritsu.  Speed of the computer is greatly important for raw process, and I would never want to slow down print speed due to raw conversion happeneing at the same time.

# Many Many  more innovative work flow solutions and products are possible when we go for digital compared to optical methods, which i feel not yet available in this expensive minilabs compared to other printers like ink jet , desk top lasers (photo- electro machines) and digital presses. Why not such innovations in mini labs ?.

I think a lot of the workflow items that you are looking for are avaible in software packages that can drive the Noritsu:

Kodak's Dp2

Frontline

Express Digital

ZBE's Workstream

[IndyJones]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the minireview. Let me share my experience too with the 3501 since I've had it for about two and half months now. I have a 3501i which is a iBeam version and not a regular 3501 which is laser based. As mentioned in the minireview, the machine is very compact with a sliding dryer unit. A little fragile I'd say on that part, wish Noritsu designed it a little different. Since most of everything is covered in the minireview, I won't repeat much of it. Because it's using iBeam head(VFP+RGB LED), there's an extra calibration setup using a flatbed scanner after the printer outputs the calibration colour prints. And then the regular setup. That would be the only difference I'd say between the iBeam and the Laser version. I am using Fuji Crystal Archive Type II and the prints look stunning depending on how the photos are taken. I had a 2611 before and the prints on that optical printer for negs was much superior than the S1-II scanned prints. The scanner applies DigitalICE to the scanned negs and that gives it a little bit of blur and takes off noise and so the scanned pics look like crap. Some of my customers who still use film have actually complained to me as to why their prints don't look as sharp as when I had the 2611. And I have lost a few Pro Photographers still shooting film because of that. Even turning off DigitalICE hasn't helped much. That's the only drawback with printing from negs on the 3501i. About digital prints, well there's not much to say, photos taken with a Pro SLR camera looks really nice if the customer knows how to use a SLR while the digital point and shoot cameras are just decent enough. The printer does a pretty good job on the prints using the Fuji paper. And it's actually fast enough for me to tell some customers that it'll take just five mins for a few prints. The new software version also has the ability to move the CROP, of digital pics up or down in the six frame correction screen which I know the previous 3000-3300 series didn't have(those were only able to do left to right or go into the edit mode to move the pic up or down based on the composition). The new version allows you to move the crop up or down which saves a lot of time without going into the edit mode. The machine also has a DVD burner and it's about time they did as there are higher capacity cards in the market these days. The computer on this 3501i is a SLOWPOKE celeron as opposed to the Xeon processors on the 3000 series. But then again, it's made for low volume minilabs and it costs half of the 3000 series brand new machines. And it's much better than the dDp series inkjet printers. For the Opening setup and Closing checkups daily, noritsu has done something nice, they have included pics and instructions with different steps in each stage as to what needs to be done during the opening and closing. A neat feature most helpful for employees to not screw up. And I had 4 paper mags from the 2611 and I was able to use them on this 3501i along with two new ones that I got along with the machine.

I also got a CT-SL 52 kiosk machine along with the 3501i. I have the latest version and this actually allows you to write CDs/DVDs right on the machine itself from memory cards (It even tells you that the CD is full and to insert a new CD for the rest of the pics if the first one gets filled up). It has audio which will walk the customer through different interfaces all the way to the end, very neat feature like the Kodak G3/G4. It also has the option of duplicating a CD if someone walks in with a CD and wants to make another copy of it. Of course, it can also be setup with a channel so that CD writing is sent to the 3501i. Numerous print channels can be set, configured with different prices on quantity, time of delivery, title of those options, base prices, receipt printing or not, editing, frames and borders(purchased separately from noritsu) and a whole bunch of other options are available to set as valid/invalid. Even the interface theme can be changed so that colours of the interface reflect the different seasons or cater more towards women with pink or men with blue. Accepts all major memory cards out there. Sometimes has problems reading those USB keys that either have a password protect on them or they work as boot drives. Sometimes doesn't read bmp files. But the most I hate about is the editing part. A little complicated to use the crop/zoom feature and colour correction feature and don't get me started with red eye removal. It's not as user friendly as the Kodak G3/G4, but what I like is the part where the photos pop up really fast as opposed to the Kodak machines where they take more time to load, even on the G4. There is no upsell feature like in the Kodak asking if a CD needs to be made of all the pics or selected pics in the final stage(the CD option has to be chosen in beginning itself as an option), no photo gifts, no adding of text, no multi language option for the customer, the design and colour of the kiosk is very pleasing to the eye, although touch sensivity of the buttons on the screen has to be done at the corners of the buttons and doesn't work if pressed right in the middle sometimes, no need to use Kodak PictureCD, use any blank CDs to write, has a default promo flash screensaver that can be enabled/disabled or even a own flash screensaver can be used. Although not as user friendly as the G4, it's faster than a G4. Would I get another one in the future?, probably not, just bcos of the hard to use editing features and no options to upsell other photo gift items. It's a great machine for a customer to come into the store, pop his digital media into the machine, either choose all prints or select prints with quantities and finish the order in no time. It really is fast when images pop up for selection and that's something that I have noticed the G4, Lucidiom, Whitech, Fuji kiosks lack. If the pic file sizes are a little big, these machines take forever to show the pics for selection, but not on the noritsu, it's fast on that part. I also have a Mitsubishi DPS Click Kiosk that I use for instant printing and it has very powerful editing features, it can be called a mini photoshop in that it has the clone feature and selection tools and paint tools. My customers are really amazed as to what the machine can do in seconds like fixing up a tear in the picture, taking someone/something out of the picture, powerful histogram for auto correction and different crop sizes. Although again not user friendly for the customer, I would do all the work in front of them.

About the 3501i, I am able to print upto 24" from a 4", 5", 6" and 8", but not upto 36". Is that a software upgrade. I know the newer 3501 PLUS series introduced at the 2007 PMA can do upto 36" but not sure if the regular 3501 can do upto 36". If it's possible, please let me know if an upgrade needs to be done or if it's something  I can change in the settings.

Well that's it for now. I will report on here any errors or problems that I may encounter in the future.

IndyJones

[exarom]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the minireview. Let me share my experience too with the 3501 since I've had it for about two and half months now. I have a 3501i which is a iBeam version and not a regular 3501 which is laser based. As mentioned in the minireview, the machine is very compact with a sliding dryer unit. A little fragile I'd say on that part, wish Noritsu designed it a little different. Since most of everything is covered in the minireview, I won't repeat much of it. Because it's using iBeam head(VFP+RGB LED), there's an extra calibration setup using a flatbed scanner after the printer outputs the calibration colour prints. And then the regular setup. That would be the only difference I'd say between the iBeam and the Laser version. I am using Fuji Crystal Archive Type II and the prints look stunning depending on how the photos are taken. I had a 2611 before and the prints on that optical printer for negs was much superior than the S1-II scanned prints. The scanner applies DigitalICE to the scanned negs and that gives it a little bit of blur and takes off noise and so the scanned pics look like crap. Some of my customers who still use film have actually complained to me as to why their prints don't look as sharp as when I had the 2611. And I have lost a few Pro Photographers still shooting film because of that. Even turning off DigitalICE hasn't helped much. That's the only drawback with printing from negs on the 3501i. About digital prints, well there's not much to say, photos taken with a Pro SLR camera looks really nice if the customer knows how to use a SLR while the digital point and shoot cameras are just decent enough. The printer does a pretty good job on the prints using the Fuji paper. And it's actually fast enough for me to tell some customers that it'll take just five mins for a few prints. The new software version also has the ability to move the CROP, of digital pics up or down in the six frame correction screen which I know the previous 3000-3300 series didn't have(those were only able to do left to right or go into the edit mode to move the pic up or down based on the composition). The new version allows you to move the crop up or down which saves a lot of time without going into the edit mode. The machine also has a DVD burner and it's about time they did as there are higher capacity cards in the market these days. The computer on this 3501i is a SLOWPOKE celeron as opposed to the Xeon processors on the 3000 series. But then again, it's made for low volume minilabs and it costs half of the 3000 series brand new machines. And it's much better than the dDp series inkjet printers. For the Opening setup and Closing checkups daily, noritsu has done something nice, they have included pics and instructions with different steps in each stage as to what needs to be done during the opening and closing. A neat feature most helpful for employees to not screw up. And I had 4 paper mags from the 2611 and I was able to use them on this 3501i along with two new ones that I got along with the machine.

I also got a CT-SL 52 kiosk machine along with the 3501i. I have the latest version and this actually allows you to write CDs/DVDs right on the machine itself from memory cards (It even tells you that the CD is full and to insert a new CD for the rest of the pics if the first one gets filled up). It has audio which will walk the customer through different interfaces all the way to the end, very neat feature like the Kodak G3/G4. It also has the option of duplicating a CD if someone walks in with a CD and wants to make another copy of it. Of course, it can also be setup with a channel so that CD writing is sent to the 3501i. Numerous print channels can be set, configured with different prices on quantity, time of delivery, title of those options, base prices, receipt printing or not, editing, frames and borders(purchased separately from noritsu) and a whole bunch of other options are available to set as valid/invalid. Even the interface theme can be changed so that colours of the interface reflect the different seasons or cater more towards women with pink or men with blue. Accepts all major memory cards out there. Sometimes has problems reading those USB keys that either have a password protect on them or they work as boot drives. Sometimes doesn't read bmp files. But the most I hate about is the editing part. A little complicated to use the crop/zoom feature and colour correction feature and don't get me started with red eye removal. It's not as user friendly as the Kodak G3/G4, but what I like is the part where the photos pop up really fast as opposed to the Kodak machines where they take more time to load, even on the G4. There is no upsell feature like in the Kodak asking if a CD needs to be made of all the pics or selected pics in the final stage(the CD option has to be chosen in beginning itself as an option), no photo gifts, no adding of text, no multi language option for the customer, the design and colour of the kiosk is very pleasing to the eye, although touch sensivity of the buttons on the screen has to be done at the corners of the buttons and doesn't work if pressed right in the middle sometimes, no need to use Kodak PictureCD, use any blank CDs to write, has a default promo flash screensaver that can be enabled/disabled or even a own flash screensaver can be used. Although not as user friendly as the G4, it's faster than a G4. Would I get another one in the future?, probably not, just bcos of the hard to use editing features and no options to upsell other photo gift items. It's a great machine for a customer to come into the store, pop his digital media into the machine, either choose all prints or select prints with quantities and finish the order in no time. It really is fast when images pop up for selection and that's something that I have noticed the G4, Lucidiom, Whitech, Fuji kiosks lack. If the pic file sizes are a little big, these machines take forever to show the pics for selection, but not on the noritsu, it's fast on that part. I also have a Mitsubishi DPS Click Kiosk that I use for instant printing and it has very powerful editing features, it can be called a mini photoshop in that it has the clone feature and selection tools and paint tools. My customers are really amazed as to what the machine can do in seconds like fixing up a tear in the picture, taking someone/something out of the picture, powerful histogram for auto correction and different crop sizes. Although again not user friendly for the customer, I would do all the work in front of them.

About the 3501i, I am able to print upto 24" from a 4", 5", 6" and 8", but not upto 36". Is that a software upgrade. I know the newer 3501 PLUS series introduced at the 2007 PMA can do upto 36" but not sure if the regular 3501 can do upto 36". If it's possible, please let me know if an upgrade needs to be done or if it's something  I can change in the settings.

Well that's it for now. I will report on here any errors or problems that I may encounter in the future.

IndyJones

You had 2611 and you still purchased a VFP based minilab !!!!!!!!!!!????????

Why? Whas the 3501i  free ?

[Colopt]

Thanks for the reviews. This is a good thread and it would be great to have more mini-reviews of other brands of equipment, because it's sometimes hard to get good infromation about mini-lab equipment. Really good to hear from actual users.

IndyJones have you compared the i-beam prints to a laser printer, and if so how do the prints compare?

[JP]

The machine has an internal profile that is very accurate. As previously discussed in another thread, you can choose

to have cutomer files automatically converted to this profile. This is what we do, and the output looks great. How good is the profile? Previously, for our studio work, we used a Pictrography 4000 for which we paid to have a custom profile created. We would take our studio files, convert them to the PG 4000 profile and then print them. With our 3501, we simply send the files to the printer and they look better than the files from our PG 4000! The only waste we have on our studio work is when we print the wrong file, everything else looks great.

Some questions if thats Ok,

Does it create a new profile with each weekly setup?

Can you save the profile easily to another machine so you can distribute it to customers for soft-proofing etc?

How is the profile made, with an external spectrophotometer or some sort of internal device?

Do you get any info on screen about which profile is embedded in files?

Do you get any options for the profile conversion or is it just on or off?

Does the profile conversion slow down the machine at all?

Can it print multipage PDF's yet natively yet?

Is there an option to print at document size? (i.e the size in inches in the file size box regardless off pixels)

I think a lot of the workflow items that you are looking for are avaible in software packages that can drive the Noritsu:

Kodak's Dp2

Frontline

Express Digital

ZBE's Workstream

Should be standard though.

Cheers.

[AjantaKVS]

Yes JP, I agree with all the questions you asked are right and the same issues what i raised in the this thread in my earlier post . you have put it to the point straight and precisely, good.

Secondly, Prodpi says, most of them  are available as the third party solutions, yes i agree but note they don't come cheap/free you have to invest again in addition to the expensive mini lab you have. what i say, is that all the things should come bundled with this expensive unit as they are very basic features of printers not advanced features of a printing system.What do you think?

KVS Setty

[willy]

Hello, I'm from Indonesia and hope someone can help.  noritsu 3501 plus has lines on the edges and only occurs on 8 inc not with 6 or 5 inc paper

[Qss2Fuji]

It might be a problem of broken pressure changing cam in the reverse unit...(in case it is banding lines only at the trailing edge of prints)

[mcpix]

Wow! I didn't even remember writing this review. Here's the crazy part... I'm still running that same printer almost 17 years later!