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Visit my NEW site and see some different photos presented differently.  It's a much slower site, due to the larger photos, but I hope you'll think it's worthwhile.  Let me know what you think.

A Trickle or a Digital Deluge? 

By Don Sutherland

 From "Photographic Processing," May 1997

It has been a while since the industry set-out the party hats, the noisemakers and the confetti, and popped the kegs of beer. Now, exactly who's on the guest list today, for the great digital photography party? Oh, the entire general public? Well, there's immediate seating, that's for sure. How many people are next? Is there anyone next?

The industry has set-out a grand spread of enticements, and we'll see who comes to the door. But don't be surprised if it's a large, hungry mob. For the first time, the fact is that complete digital imaging systems_ cameras, scanners, printers and more_at moderate prices are available, and they work.

How well they work will always be a relative question, set against the other question, how well do they need to? We've seen questions like that before, along with their answers, in photographic fields and elsewhere.

In the printing business, for example, there was always the Mimeograph. Nobody could be fooled into thinking its output was letterpress, but then, why try to fool anyone? The Mimeograph had its own legitimate, widely- appreciated, widely-used role, as a way to output more than two and less than a jillion copies of a document. And of course, high production values didn't necessarily count.

The Mimeograph was on the market in 1889, when there were still rather few typewriters to take advantage. Yet it dug its place in history. What if today's digital camera systems constitute the digital-graphics equivalent of the Mimeograph hundred years later?

It's a certainty that the pitch behind the two systems has a lot in common. Quick and easy? You got it. Cheap and effective? Absolutely. An efficient way to get your message "out there?" Now you're talking. These things were all worthwhile when information in text was distributed on paper. They remain worthwhile when information in pictures is distributed all sorts of ways, paper included.

The Mimeograph, it surprises many to learn, was invented by Thomas Edison. As he had previously intended the phonograph to be used strictly for business, he conceived the Mimeograph. This time he was right. You could draw pretty flowers on Mimeograph stencils, and make your own greeting cards and family newsletters, but somehow most people didn't. Everyone soon had a talking machine in the parlor or living-room, but if you had access to a Mimeo, it was usually through your school, your church or your office.

In other words, you found the Mimeograph useful, but not enough to own one. Yet most institutions, especially those whose finances were austere, did have a Mimeograph on-site. That, or the earlier Hectograph, or the Neostyle, or the Gestetner. There was an entire industry of duplicators whose technical nature was similar, and which formed an early link in a chain of communications resources. Toward the high end of the chain was letterpress and other forms of elegant mass replication, supplying their own characteristics to people who could use them.

So now, as they strike-up the band at the big digital party, we can wonder what happens next? Do the digital imaging systems go the way of the Mimeograph, remaining handy assets in professional and institutional settings? Or do they go the way of the phonograph, entering the homes and the hearts of the population?

Strikes me that either course could be prophesized, from where we stand at the moment. It's worth thinking about, since it tends to affect the services required from labs or bureaus in times ahead. If Joe and Jane Foto all adopt digital systems of shooting and printing, will it mean, as some seem to think, that you'll soon be scrapping your C-41 processors? Does it mean you'll replace them with modems, for receiving files to send to your own digital printers?

Hewlett-Packard is testing these waters, an act in itself making waves. The computer giant has announced a "system" including digital camera, scanner, and printer, all to sell for "under $1,500." That's an eyebrow-raiser, isn't it? The $1,500 figure is higher than most households today pay for VHS camcorders. But it's less (in actual dollars, not adjusted for inflation) than the first home VCR's cost (without camera), in 1980. And nobody needs reminding what happened in that market.

For all that, the HP system is a nonsystem system. That is, the three components are sold separately, at $399 for the camera, and $499 apiece for the scanner and printer. They are not sold as a bundle (although one imagines that individual vendors might offer the three as such). HP's reasoning is quite sound: "We can't predict what a customer will want to add to a PC photography system," a rep told me, "or will be able to afford at a given time. So we don't think we should dictate the customer's purchase, as much as to say, 'here are the three major PC photography components, guaranteed to be compatible." And yes, we are reminded that although $1,500 is impressively low compared to recent prices for digital imaging systems, it's still a fair chunk of disposable income.

Add to that the unforgettable fact that the system wont work without a computer, and Joe and Jane Foto have spent a lot more than $1,500.

One of the helpful conditions surrounding that last part is, people are buying computers anyway. Fast ones, powerful ones, and astoundingly inexpensive ones, compared again to prices just a couple years ago. People are buying them not necessarily for photography. There are a thousand good reasons for having a home computer, each amortizing the cost of the gizmo over a larger field, and PC photography being only number 1001. But it is one more reason.

With that, the computer and camera industries waltz romantically across the floor. Which is leading? The computer becomes a reason to buy a digital photography system. A digital photography system becomes a reason to buy a computer. I guess that's what's meant by synergy.

Some of HP's moves are graceful, indeed. The scanner, for example, does both opaque and transparent materials _prints, and negatives for example. Film is dead? Digital killed it? HP doesn't seem to think so. Meanwhile their printer is a six-ink job. I havens tested its output, but it sounds serious to me.

It's hard to imagine The Jetsons drawn by Norman Rockwell, but that's the sort of picture that seems to follow the HP home market. The traditional American family for the past two generations has sat embalmed before the TV, together in mutual isolation, staring wantonly and wordlessly at the make-believe on the screen. Now we can imagine a return to real old-fashioned family. values, with this new futuristic high-tech.

Photography as family-frolic was not supportable before. Yes, of course, there was the fun of posing for snapshots, and of passing them around when they got back from the lab. Anything more contrived was usually considered agony. Indeed, in the popular conception, nothing could send your guests stampeding homeward faster than the simple remark, "I have some new slides and home movies to show you."

Nonetheless, the quiet self-satisfaction of the home darkroom has been a selling-point of Kodak's since the beginning of this century. A selling point which a few people bought. For the most part, the general public did not have the temperament to become "photo nuts." Darkrooms and enlargers and developing trays may have appealed to the dedicated hobbyist, but HP and the multimedia computer business needs a broader market base than that. They need everyone who owns a VCR to own a PC photography system.

As before, predictions can be colored various ways. The synergy between the computer as home photo-processor and its other tasks _ increasingly, including those of the home entertainment center_takes foto fun out of the darkroom and into the living room. Processing pictures in full room light, in a box on a desktop, no mercury or iodine, then retouching them using the same device, then sending them off to Granny, using the same device still?

On the other hand, there is the thought that instant digital pictures can take a longer or shorter time to print, depending on size and the type of printer. But assuming Joe and Jane are attracted to the larger sizes, say 8 x 10ish, a lot of printers may require two to five minutes per print. If the Foto family shot only a couple snaps that day, no problem!

Like any party, the lavish place-settings at this one provide only a mood. What actually happens at the bash, whether it's properly social or down and boogie, is entirely up to the people who attend and what they feel like doing.