Industry trend - wet versus dry printers

[RS]

Hi All,

I need some help to understand the industry trend for wet and dry mini labs.

In your opinion, over the next 5 years - will wet mini labs be completely replaced by dry mini labs ?

I am looking to buy a mini lab but I am getting conflicting information from vendors. Some advise me to invest in wet mini labs. Others tell me that wet mini labs will soon be obsolete.

My second question is related to power. For those of you who own mini labs - do you also use a UPS to protect your equipment ?

Please advise.

Thanks,

RS

[bubar]

Hi RS,

There's a lot of factor to take into consideration to choose between wet and dry...

The main one is printing volume: if you do more than 150.000 prints per year: go for wet.

The reason is simple: higher capital investment (minilab) but lower consumable cost.

Second one is quality: if you still have customers looking at the print with a magnifying glass... go for wet.

Little warning: latest dry lab software over saturate and over sharpen the images: that's ok with standard digital camera,

but that became terrifying when it's about pro-DSLR or Photoshop works...

Third one is chemistry: do you have all the facility (waste, darkroom, sink ...) ? or a simple allergenic problem ;-)

For your power supply...I recommend a UPS if you're in a country without stable power. (useless in most european countries )

[joshi]

good now time is inkjet printar you go to D703- 1005 noritsu

[CAMERADOC]

Hello this is my first time visiting the forum and I too am conflicted. I currently own a 2711

our volume has shrank considerably and are now only billing about 50-60k a year gross in jobs. Now this is just our third leg otherwise I woulda closed it down before I started. we are a reatil store as well as doing repairs. Even though we arent doing much our customers are loyal and lets face it, the money is good!

Well my machine is dead. and I am too plauged with this decision. I think I'm going dry. way less money, can turn it on and off any time I want and ultimately add more services than I have right now.     And even though they do oversaturate, most customers like that. I might think its all too zippy but what do I know, I'm merely an imaging professional  

ps the only way i get satifactory saturation from what I have is with pro paper the edge is shit these days! I think kodak has pulled so much silver from it that it barely even works to make an image.

My heart says stay wet.... but my head     and my wallet for that matter says dry baby dry! Lets get back to making sum money! 10 days down and sending all my wallets and enlargements to my pro lab and paying 2.75 a unit. even with the dry they are telling me .48   and they look great! Just found out when I talked to the owner at my pro lab to discuss this very issue, he has 2 M300's and loves them. He too thinks that in less than ten years time majority will rule and dry will be the standard.

some one please convince me otherwise, more and more as counts diminish it just seems to make good business sense

Terry

[Christina Rose]

its a fact that  if production volume less, better go for dry labs. but there must need to compromise many things like  quality, price, Print size limitation, media variety and many things. even though i think professional photographers will not choose thermal prints. its useful those who more focused in passport photography business.   still we are able to sell wet minilabs atleast 8-10 every year.

C.....R

[NeilT]

If I was to now invest, it would be for a dry solution. You can get a lot of machine for less investment, much less to go wrong, lower cost for spare parts. Less running cost, no chemical and the issues that go with it. Plus if you had a full duplex machine, think about what you could offer.

Its a caold harsh fact, but many "Pro Photographers" are doing in house printing on ink / dye-sub and producing crap, as the printers they use, for the most part are Mickey Mouse. I had a look at the Noritsu D1005 and was amazed to how far things have come -> http://www.minilabhelp.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=136:noritsu-on-the-road&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=59

Ask Noritsu, Fuji, Photo-Me for a demo

[philspectrum]

I would go with dry unless you print over 1000 per day.

The savings in staff costs alone, plus the extra versatility make it for me.

P

[CAMERADOC]

Ouch Christina!  

its a fact that  if production volume less, better go for dry labs. but there must need to compromise many things like  quality, price, Print size limitation, media variety and many things. even though i think professional photographers will not choose thermal prints. its useful those who more focused in passport photography business.   still we are able to sell wet minilabs atleast 8-10 every year.

C.....R

I really don't think I'm sacrificing much at all. In fact I'll be able to offer more services than ever before, especially now that most people dont do tradional 4" prints we can do photo books! Calenders, cards etc. all the stuff that tradionaly was a high dollar outlab option. Now that money can stay where it belongs and at a fairly reasonable cost.

I'm pumped about this and cant wait to start printing again and selling!

[Graeme_W]

Hi all! Interesting conversation. Clearly the path forward will be to go dry. There are many reasons why, including - environmental, easier workflows, versatility, longer lasting prints, more uptime because there is no calibration,  cleaning etc... I could go on.   HP's dry minilab the HP Photosmart ML1000D does 1500 prints per hour and behaves like a traditional minilab doing all the common sizes but also does fully automatic duplex for photobooks, calendars, etc. NO other printer is fully automatic duplex.  It was the first and remains the most versatile dry minilab  and has just gone on to general sale in the UK.  It gives the benefits of dry with the productivity of a normal lab! Email me if you'd like more info.  I'm the newly appointed reseller...

[fujilab]

Just be warned that not all drylabs are created equal. Don't miss the main point - quality. Take a range of pictures and print them out on the machines available. Compare the results - you may be surprised at the difference  

[Graeme_W]

I'm up for the challenge! Results and the business case speak for themselves! :-)

[noritsuvet]

I hope you are now going to sponsor the site too, seeing that Noritsu and Fuji have put their hands in their pockets to support something that you are now advertising on.

Oh, and just be ready for some interesting comments when Tesco start pushing the price of their paper prints down. Seems HP has driven this pricing strategy in the US and Australia - are we next?

[kioskguy]

I'm interested in seeing the business case. Why don't you put the ROI figures up here? We have the ones from the recent Noritsu roadshow to compare. We are doing due diligence on a machine now so it would be helpful to get an idea of others in the market.

[NeilT]

OK peeps, an interesting chat going  

@ Graeme_W We welcome contributions into the chats that go on here, but please less of the self promotion  

If you would like to promote a service please get in touch -> http://www.minilabhelp.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=6&Itemid=81

This site is free for all, but if a commercial interest user uses the forum, it is for direct help and not self promotion. Thank you.

[Christina Rose]

Hi all! Interesting conversation. Clearly the path forward will be to go dry. There are many reasons why, including - environmental, easier workflows, versatility, longer lasting prints, more uptime because there is no calibration,  cleaning etc... I could go on.  

i have no experience  with HP Photosmart ML1000D. off course i believe its good.  what about price of equipment?  but  if you truly talking about  print quality, i am pretty sure dry labs  can't  beat  digital laser minilabs.  

i have seen that Noritsu new dry lab D1005 would cost  in between  45K US$ to 50KUS$.   is it that much cheap? and what about the durability of machine? i have seen in another thread somebody claiming his dry lab head has damaged  ( EPSON Head) and which comes more than half of equipment price.

http://www.minilabhelp.com/forum/Blah.pl?m-1274444624/  

do you think this kind of machines would last  at least 5-10 years without problems?? also if compare cost per print  its almost double for 4R and when going bigger sizes seems very expensive.  so how  dry labs  can offer competitive pricing?

so i think professionals labs would prefer  still wet labs . ( may be time will prove that i am wrong)  new series digital minilabs using  environmental friendly chemicals and easier work flow software's.  off course Dual side printing also ( fully duplex).

i am representing from Middle East and here  99.99 % professional labs using wet labs.

regards,

C...R

[avantphotography]

Ok Something else.

A Dry PRINT is not by its literal name & by Law a PHOTOGRAPH! You can't call it such. I can't remember the actual translation, but it is out there on the web. The shortened version of what a photograph is comes from both it's Greek & Latin origin & in short is that a photograph has to have light  used to make the image during the images production (& you can't quote that light is used by the camera) i.e. from a bulb (for older printers) or a laser!

We are a Pro Photographers with our own mini lab (Noritsu 3001) OK a bit old, but we are not producing the larger amounts of photographs per day. Being a Pro Wedding Photographer I can tell everybody that an ink jet print will never be as good as a wet photograph, apparently inkjets now print at the thinness of a single droplet so can't get better! I've never seen a sublim print that doesn't look like it has bled - compared with a wet photoraph.

So it depends on who you are serving & if they will notice, there's no point in spending the $$$ on a new dry lab to loose the trade when there are a lot of what are known to be reliable second hand wet labs about which will cost a lot less & guarantee keeping your trade from the quality point of view.

You will be able to buy a good second hand wet lab for the cost of your deposit on a new dry one (which presumable you will have anyway) & as a perevious post said it is cheaper to run from your consumables point of view. If you then put on one side a quater of what you were going to spend each month on your finance & service contract you will be able to pay cash for any future problems (which from experience, are not many). OK if the laser goes it is more expensive, but with your money save then you will cover repair.

[NeilT]

The word Photo = Latin for light

The word Graph/y = Latin for writing

The word photography is translated latin = "Writing With Light"

The camera be traditional or digital, is still "photography" writing with light