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Thread: Digital Images on Archival Film

  1. #1

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    Digital Images on Archival Film

    I ask this because it came up in conversation at the studio I work at.

    We were wondering if there was a market for a service to take digital images/files and and record them in black and white negative stock. So you would be able to take that nice image you scanned off your LF negative, labored in PS to perfect, and place it back on a negative stock for either printing or physical archiving. I ask this aware that there are those who create inkjet negatives.

    This is more out of curiosity, although we have accomplished this to a high degree of quality in our studio.

  2. #2
    jp's Avatar
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    Re: Digital Images on Archival Film

    Back in 1994, I worked at a college's instructional media center making things for lectures and classes (student job). We had a "slide printer" where we printed from a computer to the 35mm film via some sort of crt-lens-film back; it did color work in about 4000 lines I think, pretty good indeed. It would work with any film, but we mostly used polaroid 35mm "instant" transparency film which could be processed in daylight in a few minutes using a special plastic chemical and squeegee contraption.

    This was before digital projectors were readily available and instructors used real slide projectors. We usually made things up in coreldraw, scanned photos and microscope imagery in photoshop and added labeling, etc... All normal powerpoint tasks these days.

    I'd be curious as to what's available these days for putting digital media to film, but I'm not in the market for it.

  3. #3

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    Re: Digital Images on Archival Film

    The device that jp498 used was called a "film recorder". I've seen them from 35mm to 4x5 capability. Back when there was a lot of transition from film to digital, every pro lab seemed to offer the service (especially for 35mm). A and I Photo offers them under Direct to Print.

    But I only saw these for color slides. When I was at the University of Minnesota we had a film recorder for 4x5. I used it to make black and white negatives-a lot of calibration problems because it was old technology (things weren't as user friendly at the time) and slight variations in film processing negated a lot of the digital calibration.

    I could see a niche market but nothing to base a business on.

  4. #4
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    Re: Digital Images on Archival Film


  5. #5

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    Re: Digital Images on Archival Film

    We have a number of film recorders, both CRT and LED/drum that are set from 4x5 to 8x10 and aerial rolls for automatic bulk processing. We have the equipment which is in the process of being re-calibrated. And now that we have them full functional, we hate to see them just standing idle.

  6. #6

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    Re: Digital Images on Archival Film

    Quote Originally Posted by Robbie Shymanski View Post
    We have a number of film recorders, both CRT and LED/drum that are set from 4x5 to 8x10 and aerial rolls for automatic bulk processing. We have the equipment which is in the process of being re-calibrated. And now that we have them full functional, we hate to see them just standing idle.
    Gota link with prices?

  7. #7
    bob carnie's Avatar
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    Re: Digital Images on Archival Film

    I am testing Rollie BW Ortho 25 on my Lambda to make large negatives up to 30x40inches.
    finicky timelines to calibrate but should have working results in a month or will have a couple of hundred feet of 30inch film for sale.

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