Printing With Fuji Frontier

[Gerry]

I am a brand new subscriber to this website and this is my first post. I thought I'd try things out re a favorite subject of mine "Printing on Fuji Frontier Mini Lab"

I've had great success using this printer at local store for great 8x12 color prints at low cost ($2). After tinmkering with PS7 Color Management and Adobe Gamma, and profiling the exact printer I use, my prints are a reasonably good match to what I see on my monitor. (I'll be happy to provide further details on my work flow).

Two questions that have recently come up:

In providing file to printer, should I adjust my resolution to 300 ppi, or will the printer software do this automatically (with perhaps a better algorithm than PS7)?

When sending a B&W image to the printer, I've usually sent it as "RGB(Color)", and gotten good results. Would a prior conversion to "Grayscale" be better, so as to avoid colorcast and possible artifacts?

Hoping for some good dialog on this>

Gerry

[Jakaleena]

Hi Gerry - welcome to RP!

You'll find a lot of discussions here about the Fuji Frontier (a search for "Fuji AND Frontier" will turn them up).

Some of us are fans of the machine and some are not. I'm one of the fans - I operate a Fuji Frontier at work and think it's the neatest thing since sliced white bread - the best new printer that's come along in the 20 or so years I've been a "lab rat" IMHO.

I don't use a home printer for making my final prints, so someone else more knowledgable about those will have to answer your printer questions...

[Gerry]

Thanks for your response.
I too, am a big fan of Fuji Frontier (now that I know how best to use it). The two questions I raised apply to that machine -- best resolution for printing, and best format (mode) for B&W. Perhaps some other members will have a view on this.

[tgl]

I have heard that if you need to upres that it is better to let the printer do it, but I cannot find the source right now, so you'll have to trust my failing memory on that. I've seen prints done as low as 150dpi that seemed fine at normal viewing distances.

BTW, if you haven't already seen it, there is a site on the web that has custom profiles for Frontier printers at various locations:

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

Hope this helps.

[Gerry]

Thanks for the input. I've had the same experience with submitting jobs with as res as 120 ppi. Results turned out fine. The reason I ask is that the work-flow from DryCreek mentions res-ing up to 300 ppi before submitting.

Know anything about B&W jobs -- Grayscale or RBG ?

Also, has anyoun compared B&W (or color) results from Frontier against the result from a high-end home printer like Epson 2200 ?

[tgl]

I've compared my Epson 2200 against the Fuji Frontier. Color gamuts are definitely different (the Fuji seems a little cooler), but as far as sharpness is concerned, the Epson high resolution (2880dpi) mode is so close to the Fuji frontier that I would call it a tie either way for any real world example.

[Jakaleena]

Gerry,

I usually set res @ 300 ppi. I've gone as low as 200 ppi on occasion and have noticed a loss in quality at that setting but it wasn't major.

As far as colorspace, I work in sRGB. I desaturate for B/W and leave it in sRGB.