Dye-sublimation printing

[DanK]

I've been asked to do an introduction to printing for a photo club, and I suspect I am going to get questions comparing home inkjet printing to sending prints out to labs. By this I mean large-scale labs, both high-end (White House Custom Color, Bay Photo, etc.) and cheaper ones, but not the custom labs that work on individual prints and print on large-format inkjets.

First, am I right that most of these labs use dye-sublimation printing for most of their prints? (I know that Bay Photo has a silver halide option.)

Second, how archival are dye sublimation prints? I have a vague recollection that they are better in this respect than dye inkjets but not as good as pigment, but that may be a figment of my imagination or memory.

[Manfred M]

Dan - there are four commonly used (and different) processes used to make photographic prints that most photographers have access to.

1. Inkjet printing using a photo printer - this is the process most of us that print at home. Different inksets and papers are used and you understand this one best, so I won't go into the details. They offer the best print life when using archival papers and widest colour gamut.

2. Dye sublimation - this is a small to medium scale volume operation. Fujifilm Instax or Canon Selphy are available to people that want to make small prints on the fly and these types of printers are made for small to medium sized commercial machines. Their chief advantage (on the commercial side) is that they only require the raw materials and electrical power to operate.

The principle is simple a dye is heated and evapourated onto special paper. A sealant is applied to improve abrasion resistance at least in some of the processes. They generally support the sRGB colour space and I have not seen any information on longevity. There is very little choice in the paper base and surface finish.

3. Chromogenic printing - when people speak about "C-prints", this is what they are referring to. This is most commonly used by high volume commercial printers and they come in all different sizes and price ranges. Bottom line is that these are traditional silver processes that use digital light sources (laser or LED) rather than the traditional optical enlarger lenses. The machines need power, water and sewage connections and a supply of processing chemicals. These are available in a wide variety of widths and throughput capacity; with stock sizes measured in a few cm to several meters / inches - feed wide using roll paper.. Costco, for instance uses these for the bulk of their printmaking equipment. There are several different companies that put these out and the one I am most familiar with is Noritsu. Papers are manufactured by FujiFilm (CrystalArchive) and Kodak (Endura) and come in a limited number of textures (matte, glossy, etc.). Maximum life is often quoted as around 40 years.

4. Digital Press - usually used in single run / small run books popularized by companies like Blurb. Think of these as fancy colour laser printers with some four to 12 different pigments. The HP Indigo line is probably the best known here and I believe this is what Blurb uses. I believe they come in sheet feed and roll feed versions and are the modern equivalent of the offset press. They can use a variety of papers and their gamut should be similar to inkjet printers. I have not seen any data on print longevity.

[DanK]

Manfred,

Thanks for the detailed response. Exactly what I needed.

Dan

[Manfred M]

No problem Dan - this research came from a talk I was doing for printing at a photo club.

The one thing I forgot to mention is that C-prints are sRGB colour space. Most companies that create C-prints want 8-bit, sRGB jpeg files to work from.

[rpcrowe]

I don't know where this fits in. I do know that he produces excellent prints...

https://www.wattsdigital.com/lightJetprints.html

[Manfred M]

I don't know where this fits in. I do know that he produces excellent prints...

https://www.wattsdigital.com/lightJetprints.html

Richard - If you read the ad (and get past the advertising speak), this company does C-Prints; i.e. traditional silver halide colour paper that is digitally exposed. Good for general purpose photography, but you don't get archival quality.

Lightjet seems to now be a Canon product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightJet

[babarali124]

I looked for you and found this article has great info that you want. It would help you and solve your problem for dye-sublimation printing

[Manfred M]

I looked for you and found this article has great info that you want. It would help you and solve your problem for dye-sublimation printing

Perhaps if he were printing cloth and T-shirts. The dye sub application, as well as the equipment the OP was looking at is completely different than what the link you provided. I can't agree with some of the comments in the article.