Kodak vs Fuji Frontier

Had a few 8X10 prints made from several local labs, no corrections from the
same file. The 2 best were from "Showcase" and the other was "Hunt color
labs" both pro labs in Atlanta. Showcase has a Frontier and Hunt is using a
new kodak machine (not sure what model..). I was amazed at how much sharper
and cleaner the prints from Hunt were. It's very noticable even at normal
viewing distances and even the guy at Hunt was surprised/impressed at how
good his looked compared to the Fuji machine. Anyone else ever compared the
two? Everyone is always bragging about how great the Frontier machines are,
I'm not impressed.

 

As far as sharpness? I could see color balance issues etc but I can't see
sharpness being a "calibration". And I did try 3 other frontier machines,
Showcase's was the best of them. I guess if I hadn't seen the prints from
this kodak machine I wouldn't know there was something better?

 

I've noticed on the local photostore's Frontier that I sometime use,
that the Red laser was not 100% aligned with the other two. The Kodak
machines are possibly one of the Noritsu line
(http://www.noritsu.com/), and they can (depending on model) print at
300 / 320 / 400 / 500 ppi.

Bart

 

I read somewhere that Kodak was getting AGFA to make some of their machines
to their specs? I'll have to ask this guy more about this next time I'm
over there. I was amazed how much better this machine worked than the
Frontier's that I tried so obviously to me it's worth trying different
places and not to assume they are all equal.

 

Then I guess I'll be the only one. They aren't bad but they weren't nearly
as good as the other's results.

Tried 5 different fuji machines, guess they were all "out of calibration"?

 

Possibly. Especially if they were all at stores where some 17 year old
high school student was responsible for running them.

 

Ron Hunter wrote:

One was a pro lab but still could be the case. Irregardless, I found the lab
I'm going to use and they aren't using a fuji..

 

Mont wrote:

??? One says fuji on the back of the paper and the other says kodak, would
be kinda tough to mix that up wouldn't it?

 

I had problems with images not looking as I had fixed them on my computer.
What it came down to was the print machine operator had auto correct turned
on and the machine was trying to fix my prints to what it thought was the
correct exposure. Try asking the operator to make sure any auto correction
is turned off