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Real-world digital photography

Digital photography delivers better quality and faster prepress throughput and allowsphotographers to create whole new kinds of businesses

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by Scott Bury

The only reason webought digital cameraswas to grow ourbusiness—that's the onlyreason to buy anyproduction equipment,"says Rick Billings,president of PhotoWave,a photo studio located in Pittsburgh. Soon after buying the devices the company wasoffering extensive retouching of photographs at lower costs. It also soon realized it wason to a whole new business model.

The company started with a service it calls "replace a face": "If everybody in the familylooks good on one shot, but little Billy is smiling better in another, we can take his facefrom one shot and impose it on the other shot," Billings explains. Then in 1997, thecompany combined digital photography with the Internet and created ASPN, theAmerican Sports Photography Network (www.aspn.com). Some 70 independentphotographers in 26 states use Kodak or Nikon digital cameras to take pictures ofchildren's and amateur sports teams, and deliver the pictures via the Internet.Participants get numbered tickets and within hours they can log on to a protected siteon the Web to view their pictures. Not only can ASPN deliver team pictures and playerportraits, but it also can deliver photos of events, even action shots from games, forpeople to purchase the same day. This was completely impractical as a volumebusiness based on film.

2001 has been a banner year for digital photography. There are several new models ofdigital cameras from more traditional camera manufacturers, prices for equipment aredropping fast, storage media are prevalent and cheap, and the market for digitalphotography services is booming. Photographers, catalog studios, and printers arefinding new profits and whole new business models with the cameras.

Sales breakthrough

Prof. Dolin

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Innovation in VisualComputing

Sales breakthroughMarket analysis firm Lyra Research reports that the market for digital cameras doubledin 2000, with some 4.8 million units sold. Even with the economic downturn in 2001,Lyra predicts that the final numbers will show 40 percent growth. While most of the growth has been on the consumer side, sales of professional-level cameras have alsogrown.

Prices have dropped remarkably, and Lyra's digitalphotography analyst Ed Lee feels that prices willcontinue to drop, although not as fast as during 2001.There also is a broader choice for photographers thanthere was even three years ago. "Then, Kodakdominated the digital camera market with DCS cameraspriced around $25,000 and up," he says. Now,photographers can add Nikon, Minolta, Olympus,Megavision, Canon, and others to the list that includesLeaf, Sinar-Bron, Imacon, Phase One, and Better Light.

But even more impressive numbers can be foundamong the photographers, photo studios, and printproduction businesses that have invested in digitalphotography. For instance, "We haven't shot any film in ayear and a half," says Tim Duffy, head of GenesisPhoto-Graphix in High Point, North Carolina (see sidebar on next page). He bought theBetter Light Super 6K digital camera a year ago. "The instant gratification of being ableto see the image instantly is what I fell in love with," he explains.

"We have not shot a piece of film in three years," says Mike Richardson of Rich Pix inTorrance, California (see sidebar on page 22), who also uses the Better Light camera."Digital photography is better than film for productivity, quality control, andprofitability—it gives us more to offer our customers. And," he adds, "We made enoughwith the camera to allow us to buy it outright in the first three months."

Reluctance overcomeFrom a workflow perspective, digital photography is eminently sensible—instead ofprocessing and printing film, then scanning the prints to create a digital file, why notjust start with a digital image? But since digital photography was introduced to thegraphic arts industry in the early '90s, it has met with some reluctance, evenresistance, from many quarters.

"I'm not into it quite yet," says photographer Bruce Davidson of New York City. "I guessI'm an old-fashioned, classic photographer, and the museums and others that collectmy work are not looking for digital images. I have to have a special project to adoptdigital photography." Davidson got close last year, however, with an assignment toshoot musicians performing at Lincoln Center. Silence was critical, so a standard filmcamera's clicks and whirs were unacceptable. Davidson had selected the OlympusE-10, but the project fell through at the last minute, so Davidson didn't buy thecamera—at least, not yet.

"We have clients who are technophobes who don't want digital cameras or digitalphotos," says Mitch Goodman, brother to and manager of photographer BrianGoodman of Public Works Productions in Los Angeles.



But in most other quarters, resistance is falling faster than snowflakes in Ottawa. TimDuffy of Genesis says his clients can't distinguish the pictures taken with a digitalcamera from those taken with film in his sample book. And Kirk Tuck, a photographerin Austin, Texas who uses Olympus' E-10 for a wide range of portraiture, says hisdirect corporate clients are happy to go to digital for the convenience and predictability.Ironically, it's the ad agencies that are dragging their feet, insisting on film. "They stillseem to need a reference in their hand," he says. Agencies want control over theimage, while corporate clients want "a beginning-to-end solution. They presume thatI'll take care of all the glitches of color and lighting and printing."

Igor Perchuk, a still-life and product photographer basedin Brooklyn, New York (see sidebar on opposite page),who specializes in jewelry, says, "I think I can do morewith the digital camera than I can with film. The digitalcamera is actually better than film for the hard, shinyobjects that I shoot. I can take two exposures, one for thehighlights and another for the shadows, and then mergethem together in Photoshop. You can do this with digitalphotos because the camera is so consistent with color.If you were trying to do this with film, and then you tried toscan the two shots, you'd never get precisely the samecolor in the two pictures because of variation in theprocessing. Plus there's the additional cost of twopieces of film."

The arguments against digital photography from the film aficionados have traditionallycentered around image quality, image resolution, and the cost of the equipment.

However, an honest appraisal of the digital cameras on the market explodes thosearguments. Even the earliest digital camera systems were capable of capturingenough pixels to deliver the high-resolution images that commercial productionneeds. The early Leaf and Dicomed cameras were, and still are, three-shotcameras—each image takes three shots, one for red, one for green, and one for blue.While they produce excellent, sharp images suitable for catalogs and hugeenlargements, exposures take from one to several seconds, which means they're notsuitable for human subjects.

Over the last two years, companies such as Kodak, Olympus, Nikon, Canon, PhaseOne, Sinar-Bron, and others have pushed up the quality levels for single-shot digitalcameras into the professional range, at prices around $5000 to $10,000. Now, digitalcameras can truly take on any subject. "I'm finding a lot more projects that are suitablefor today's digital cameras," says photographer Tustin Ellison of Dublin, California."The cameras are light, portable, and deliver great results."

Ellison just recently added an Olympus E-10 as well as a Nikon Coolpix 5000 to hisstudio. "I can see myself being all-digital in another five years," he says. "Aside fromthe additional post-processing that digital requires, the technology helps speed thecreative process and ultimately makes things easier for my clients."

"As the world's pre-eminent jeweler, image quality is a very important issue for us,"says Tim McCabe, director of production in Tiffany & Co.'s advertising department. Thecompany found that it could achieve the quality of images it required with the DicomedScanning-back camera it bought four years ago, and has since added two Leaf Volare3-shot cameras. "The Dicomed paid for itself in one and a half months just inprocessing, film, and scanning expense and time," says McCabe. "That's whatintrigued us first." But the company has found many other benefits of going digital,such as the ability to easily repurpose images.



Why digital photography?Professional and commercial photographers quickly learn the real benefits of digitalphotography. It's not necessarily from saving on film, chemicals, and paper (in fact, thiscan be a loss for some professional photographers, who usually mark up the cost ofprocessing and printing film). The real savings are in time and the real benefit lies in asmooth, all-digital workflow.

"Speed is important to clients," explains David Reynolds of Lithochrome, a division ofHallmark that specializes in fine-art reproductions (see sidebar on page 19). "Theywant to see their images right away. Sometimes, the limited-edition print runs are soldout before the printing is even finished." Since installing digital cameras, he says, "wehave seen our cycle time shrink remarkably. What once took a full day now takes twohours."

"The demands of clients today are more time-oriented than quality-oriented," agreesJimmy Chiarella, vice president and studio manager of ImpressCommunications—although quality is usually an unstated, understood imperative.Impress is a Los Angeles-area printer that also specializes in fine-art reproductions,and uses a Dicomed and a newer Leaf camera.

"Digital photography gives us a compressed cycle time, optimized customer workflow,higher image quality, and improved production workflow," says Nicole Michels,photography product leader for Premedia Technologies, a division of RR Donnelley."Digital photographs can be sent to the customer by email, and they're adaptable todigital asset management systems for repurposing. And multiple people can work ona digital file simultaneously."

Digital cameras produce the same level of image qualityas film cameras, says Michels. Quality is actuallyincreased because the digital file makes it easier andmore efficient to produce color profiles and adjustdensities. Tim McCabe of Tiffany & Co. points out thatthe digital image is "first generation," and thus can besharper and cleaner because it does not have to beprocessed, printed, and scanned as film does.

In a way, digital photography brings the photographerand the client right into the middle of the workflow. "I'velearned to work a different way, looking at the image onthe monitor as I'm setting up the shot, the lighting, andthe camera," says Tim Duffy. The advantage is that hecan instantly get a kind of prepress soft proof of the image. Getting the shot isn't anyfaster, he notes. "There's still lighting and composition and all the stuff you once had tolearn about in the old days. That's why computer guys who get computers and a digitalcamera don't automatically become digital photographers. It's still photography."

But having the computer monitor on hand allows photographers to do somethingthey've never done before: get a soft proof of what their image might look like on press.They can convert colors to CMYK right on the spot, and experiment with different colorlevels and curves. "You know right away if you've got a good composition of the image,and at the same time you can check the histograms to see if your color and lighting areright," says Tiffany's McCabe. "We call it WYSIWYG shooting."

LimitationsFew will say that film is completely dead. There are some places where film is the bestchoice. Tiffany & Co. uses digital cameras for all U.S. black-and-white advertising. "Idon't think there is any product category that Tiffany's carries that the digital cameracannot handle," says McCabe. Still, for color it is staying with film. The reason iscreative control—some of Tiffany's photographers still prefer film.



Digital cameras have a different color gamut than film does, and that takes somegetting used to. The learning curve might be enough of a disincentive for those whoare happy with the results they've been getting.

"We would still use film to get the highest resolution for an image that's going to beblown up really big, like a billboard," says Donnelley's Michels.

Mitch Goodman points out that there is an intangible, organic quality to film. "Film is alovely tool. I don't like listening to the Beatles on a CD. The music loses its warmth.Film has that kind of warmth."

Another drawback is a practical one: although single-shot digital camera backs arefairly flexible, the highest-quality cameras such as Leaf's Volare or the Better Light arestill tethered to a computer. This makes them awkward for location shooting.Donnelley's Premedia division uses film for fashion photography because of themobility and quality needs.

A photographer also has to deal with simple customer reluctance. "The hardest part ofgoing digital is dragging the ad agencies along," says Kirk Tuck.

But here's the rub: digital photography gives more control to the photographer, andgives more responsibility and work, too. "When you start working with digitalphotography, you have to take on a lot of the functions that used to be the color lab'sresponsibility," says Rick Billings of PhotoWave. "You're spending more time oncomputer functions, and you have to make sure you're charging accordingly."

New businessesAssuming the photographer's management skills aresharp enough, though, digital photography is nowproving to be a great boon to the whole industry. It'sspeeding up production, smoothing out the workflow,opening up bottlenecks, and saving money. Likedesktop publishing did 15 years ago for designers, itgives more control to, and thus more pressure on, thecreative people.

2001 was the year that the manufacturers answereddigital photography's skeptics with higher quality, lowerprices, and more flexibility. Businesses are makingmoney with digital photography in the fashion, portrait, corporate, architectural,scientific, sports, and fine-art markets. Most significantly, digital photography hasallowed creative professionals to find new markets that simply weren't possiblebefore.

"On the professional end, digital photography is here," says Mike Richardson. "It'sgiven me a profit margin I never thought possible as a photographer, and at the sametime, it gives my customers better product and saves them money, too—how muchcooler can you get than that?"

The reality of fine-art printingLithochrome, a division of Hallmark based in Columbus, Georgia, is a printer thatproduces fine-art reproductions. It captures all images with one of two digital cameras:an early Dicomed camera, and a newer model from Better Light.



The company has been one of the leaders in fine-art reproduction for the pastquarter-century. Until 1996, images were captured using a large mechanical processcamera, one that took three shots—red, green, and blue—onto large-format film. "ThenKodak announced it would no longer make film for the large-format camera," explainsDavid Reynolds, manager of quality and technical services.

"The market for fine-art reproduction has really grown in the past few years," he says.To keep up with the demand, the choices were digital cameras or a 4x5-format filmcamera. However, there is no commercial photo lab that can process E-6 film inColumbus, which is 90 minutes south of Altanta. "We could have gotten the throughputwe needed with film, but not efficiently," says Reynolds.

The biggest challenge for Reynolds is the visual spectrum of the camera—matchingthe color gamut of the capture device to the rest of the workflow. He urged Better Light'sfounder and the developer of its camera, Michael Collette, to modify the spectralresponse and the color software. Currently, Lithochrome uses Monaco Color's colormanagement solution, and different software for color conversion (RGB to CMYK),profiling, and color proofing. "Whenever you're trying to get the most out of your system,you have to do it component by component because no one product does it all well."

A new photo and design businessFor photographer Tim Duffy, the emergence of digital photography has allowed him tobuild a new business by offering clients a more complete service: from photograph tocomplete catalog design.

Tim Duffy's Genesis Photo-Graphix is a partnership with graphic designer Tammy May,and it straddles the two disciplines. "A client can come to us without even an idea for abrochure or to advertise a product, as long as they have a budget," Duffy says.

Duffy is enthusiastic about the technology of digital photography, especially about hisBetterLight Super 6K camera and how well it works with his specialty—photography forfurniture and textiles in North America's furniture capital, High Point, North Carolina.

Duffy says his conversion to digital photography has been complete. "We haven't shotany film in at least a year and a half." And clients haven't resisted at all.

The realities of digital still photographyAmong New York photographers and their clientele, "New York" means "Manhattan,"and all the big photographers are in the "photographic district." Brooklyn—which mostof us who live outside New York think of as part of the City—is so far outside thephotographic district that there isn't a commercial photo lab capable of processing 4x5film in that borough.

But that didn't stop Igor Perchuck. After receiving his Bachelor of Photography from theSchool of Visual Arts in New York and spending 10 years as a photographer'sassistant, Perchuk opened his own studio in Brooklyn four years ago. And beingoutside of the New York City market has actually spurred his career: he bought a BetterLight 6000 scanning back camera, saved on rent, and built a client list outside of theNew York area. Today, he concentrates on shooting jewelry, platters, watches, andsimilar items, as well as other products. "A lot of my clients prefer to approve imagesby email, and I get approvals much faster than if I had to send a Polaroid."

He has learned a few work-arounds, too. "My studio has wooden floors, and on a longscan, if I move around the vibrations can move the hanging background and blur theshots."



His solution? Leave the room during the scan. However, then he didn't always knowjust when it was safe to come back in. So, he talked to Better Light, which worked asolution into the next software upgrade: an audible signal that the scan is finished.Other upgrades include rulers on the screen that show both crop and bleed areas."Better Light does a very good job of listening and providing upgrades to its software."

Instant gratification"When I was shooting film, I had always seen that all my work would be scanned,"says photographer Mike Richardson, head of RichPix in the Los Angeles area. "Then,the shots would be color-corrected or edited. No matter how perfect the shot would be,at some point, it had to become a digital file.

"I was sure of digital photography, but I was worried that my customers weren't readyfor it," he says. "I was afraid that I'd still be delivering film or prints, and saying 'By theway, here are your free scans.'"

But on the very day that Richardson's Better Light digital camera arrived by courier, along-time customer was in the studio. "He said, 'You've been talking about getting adigital camera forever. If you had one, I'd be outta here by now!' We told him we couldtry the new digital camera on his job. Forty-five minutes late, he was a believer, and heleft with his images on a disk."

Since then, Richardson has found many more benefits of digital photography. Oneproject involved capturing a huge mural, 180 feet long and 17 feet high in a room only35 feet deep at the Cedar-Sinai Hospital. Richardson photographed it in segments. Heused a scissor lift to position his camera 15 feet up, moving down the length of themural. He took a lot of measurements to make sure each shot was taken at the samedistance, but depended on the computer monitor to ensure that his camera was in theright spot so that the edges would match. "Shooting it on film would have beenimpossible. You can't tell if you're in the right place. But with a monitor, I could shootonly when the pieces matched perfectly.

Scott Bury, contributing editor, is a journalist and educator based in Ottawa, Ontario.

Electronic Publishing February, 2002Author(s) : Scott Bury

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