The Hindu : This printer bridges photography's `digital divide'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 01, 2004

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This printer bridges photography's `digital divide'

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore Jan. 31. The Japan-based company Epson has launched a printer that, for the first time, bridges the hitherto separate worlds of old-style negative-based `wet' photography and the burgeoning technology of digitally-captured and computer-printed pictures.

Unveiled in India, simultaneously with its international launch, the Epson Stylus Photo RX510 is an inkjet-based printer that also copies and scans images. Digital photos either taken with a digital camera or converted from conventional prints, can be downloaded through a wide variety of devices: compact flash cards, memory sticks, micro drives or any device that plugs into a Universal Serial Bus (USB) socket.

But more usefully, for the Indian photo industry, which still does commercial photography mostly by the analogue route, shooting with film and processing the negative in a studio lab, the RX510, completely cuts out the `wet' processing stage.

A special holder enables photo-negative strips (either colour or black-and-white) to be scanned and a special software bundled with the printer, then reverses the image to produce a positive picture. Adjustments can be made to colour densities, brightness, contrast etc., before making up to four prints of standard 6 inches by 4 inches size on an A4 sized sheet of paper.

The printer can also be used to produce positive prints directly from colour reversal or slide film. Using a unit made available to The Hindu for evaluation, this correspondent, put it extensively through its paces.

The copying feature produces good fidelity with colour photo print originals, though this feature is too slow for use as a sustained copying machine. In the scan mode, the speed compares well with stand-alone scanners at resolutions up to 2400 by 4800 dots per inch.

However, consumer interest, both among the amateur and the professional photography community, will lie in the printer's ability to handle negatives. In this mode, repeated trials established that one had to scan the negative at 1200 dpi minimum so that the resulting image can be printed out to `cabinet' size or "6 by 4".

Even at this resolution, the scan is sharp and a resulting print made within seconds on photo- quality glossy paper was indistinguishable from a copy from the same negative printed in a studio. This feature is not an answer for bulk printing of passport photos and similar work.

But for photographers who still work with conventional film-based cameras, the printer will be useful, once a negative has been prepared to produce `instant' prints much like a Polaroid process. In this respect alone, this is a significant `cross over' product. The price, Rs. 19,795, makes the RX510 a reasonable proposition for small and medium studios as well as serious amateur photographers, although the precise dollar equivalent would be around Rs. 15,000. By providing separate cartridges for all six colours Epson allows users to replace only those colours that are exhausted, and Rs. 635 per cartridge is considerably cheaper than what it would cost abroad.

Maybe Epson knows the budget-conscious Indian's preference for third-party refills, and wants to make this option less attractive. While many of the printer's functions can be realised in a stand-alone mode, a PC or laptop will be required to fully exploit the accompanying software.

Suresh Govindachari, Epson India's Business manager for Consumer products, explains that a post card sized colour print made on glossy paper with the RX510 would cost around Rs. 8, so clearly this is not a challenge for the computerised roll processing and printing business. Rather, it may prove a boon for quick studio portrait work as well as the restoration of pictures on old or damaged negatives.

At any rate, by enabling negative film-based as well as digital images to be instantly printed from the same machine, the RX510 may well ease the pain of what looks like an inevitable transition from analogue to digital in the photo business, in the months ahead.

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