[Gerry Monaghan]

Has anyone had any experience with getting traditional photo lab prints made from slides created digitally? Do higher resolution files produce better slides or is it all fat after 600 dpi? Then there is the issue of internegs from those slides. My guess is the whole process gets contrasty and muddy. Gerry

[jeaniesa]

Gerry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "slides created digitally". Am I right in assuming you mean that the slide was created from a digital file? (I've been told that a 7.33x11" 300dpi photo is what's needed to make a decent slide.) And now you want to take that slide and have a print made from it at a traditional photo lab? (I take it you don't have the original digital file?)
Jeanie

[Stephen M]

Gerry, try a search for 35 mm slide output service providers.

Some common output is via 4K or 8K film recorders - that is 4000 or 8000 pixels on the long edge. Others may talk in a 8 bpc RGB file size in megabytes. This is different from my prepress background where the print size/resolution is asked - they all mean the same thing (is there enough data for output), just expressed differently due to different requirements or professions.

I have had slides produced from images that were between 1000 > 2000 pixels on the long edge - but, these were presumed for projection...but who knows what the client did? <g>

There are many other issues, but the service provider is the best source of info - since this workflow seems very dependent on the supplier.

Hope this helps,

Stephen Marsh.

[thomasgeorge]

Gerry, You would probably have to find a business that provided film transfer services. Basically, the digital file is transfered to traditional film via a device like a Lazargraphics unit, then a print is made in the traditional manner from the resulting negative. This can be an expensive process, costing $12.00 to upwards of $30.00 for a high quality negative. For the best result you would want the negative produced from a device that is capable of outputting at 16k file ( You can search for a more detailed explination by searching the phrase " Film Recorders"). This is a simplified answer, but what you want to be can be done...but its a bit pricey. Lower K rating devices will produce acceptable negatives to print from but the higher the K rating the better the result..more data etc.....also your input digital file should be around 20-50mb to get the best results. Hope this helps...good luck, Tom

[Mike]

Sort of taking a shot in the dark here, since you did not mention what size of print you needed from this digital file.
The lab I use for printing (they use regular photo wet process C paper) requires a digital file the same dimensions (say 8x10 or 5x7 or whatever) at 300 dpi. Then they just print that straight to paper. So if you took your digital slide (which I assume is the the same size as a 35mm slide, but at what dpi???) and enlarged the file on one of the programs that do that, would that not do you good???
I really do not like the digital file to film to paper route, too many chances for the old generational loss thing to happen.
Mike