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Author Topic: L - Type prints  (Read 11990 times)

danielc

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L - Type prints
« on: June 25, 2018, 07:58:21 am »

Hi Kevin,

Reading the new L type article, you gush quite a lot and it seems to be written as an advertorial.

I think it's important to disclose to your paying subscribers such as myself whether the article was paid for by L type or whether you personally or the company received free product in exchange for the article.

It's not necessarily a bad thing - You can review things for us if you receive them for free, but I think clear disclosure should be part of the sites ethics and policies.

Cheers,
Dan
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Krug

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2018, 08:07:19 am »

As I read this "article" there were backgrounds noises in my head  -  I think it was Michael turning uneasily in his grave !
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Jeff

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2018, 08:23:58 am »

Will read their website again to double check when I have more time but it appears the introductory offer is very tempting :)
4 A3 prints shipped  £12 to UK is extremely good value

Did I read it correctly ! !
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Mark D Segal

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2018, 09:33:06 am »

Hi Kevin,

Reading the new L type article, you gush quite a lot and it seems to be written as an advertorial.

I think it's important to disclose to your paying subscribers such as myself whether the article was paid for by L type or whether you personally or the company received free product in exchange for the article.

It's not necessarily a bad thing - You can review things for us if you receive them for free, but I think clear disclosure should be part of the sites ethics and policies.

Cheers,
Dan

I have been associated with this website for a very long time, and to the best of my knowledge, which Kevin can confirm or amend, the site neither receives money from companies whose products are reviewed, nor pays contributors for articles. It is a two-way voluntary street.

I read the article and I watched the video. There is nothing exaggerated in any of that material. The quality and presentation of the L-Type product is very much how Kevin described it. Kevin is definitely better at conveying enthusiasm with gusto than I am, but that's just a difference of style - our perception of the underlying fundamentals is the same. The L-Type prints are superb.

There are, however, only two statements in Kevin's piece that I need to comment on.

Kevin seems to be saying that with inkjet you are more likely to be seeing pixels or dots than with L-type. Well, not quite - it depends on how you make the inkjet print. I would need a good magnifier to see dot structure in the prints that emerge from my Epson SC-P5000. With bare, normal human vision one sees none of that either in L-Type or in my inkjet prints. Yes, if people make their inkjet prints too large relative to the available pixels, the quality degrades and as you get down to 180PPI and below, you can begin to see structure. Bur print correctly with a decent printer and you won't.

Next, Kevin makes a distinction between my technical review of the process and product and his "practical" review, as if to imply that somehow technical research into the quality of their product is not "practical". This is a false dichotomy. The high quality of the prints that Kevin extols is only possible because of the technical factors that I explored in some depth in my article. It's fine for any one with an experienced eye to tell you the quality is great, and looking at a print over the internet, you just have a choice of believing it or not believing it - like for paper reviews; however, when one has objective data to underpin the reality of the product, and the data coheres with the perception of the results, you have a much more robust story line. I would also remind, just to second Kevin's appreciation of the product, that I too sent files to Lumejet for printing and I was equally impressed with the quality of what I got back. I also covered this in my review, and as I mentioned there, it is factually difficult to distinguish quality differences between L-Type and well-made inkjet prints. So I'm with Kevin on this, but would only caution that it doesn't make sense to dichotomize between the technical and the visual in the context of a print review. Needless to say, as a consumer of the product you don't need any technical analysis to appreciate the prints - just look at them, and in the end that is what matters most to most of the people - other than to *some* reviewers, at least one of whom should have one eye on the technical and the other on the "practical", hoping that they connect somewhere in the mental ether! :-) 

Cheers Kevin - good presentation, and well deserved for this product.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2018, 09:40:53 am »

As far as I know Kevin (I met him and spent some time with him talking several times), he pays for his stuff. Also, if I am not mistaken, bloggers in America are legally obliged to disclose if they are paid. And again if I am not mistaken, LuLa has such a general statement somewhere on the site. At least I remember seeing it some time ago.

TommyWeir

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2018, 10:13:29 am »

A friend here ordered a set of both colour and black and white L-type prints.  Really fabulous quality and the box was neat too, all spoke of a classy outfit indeed.  I particularly liked the black and whites (which would be my bag... and the two offers are really welcome.

Didn't strike me as an advertorial at all, L-type are a very interesting new option.

JeanMichel

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2018, 12:18:10 pm »

Interesting product. I will likely try it. I am/was always weary of fugitive dyes in photographic colour prints, but the likely quality and presentation of the L-type prints and books are very tempting. I much prefer to make my own prints, so this is not a 'perfect' solution for me but it my be very useful for some of my clients.

Thanks for the video, although when I played it the sound was out of sync. Not big deal but I thought that you might want to know. 

Jean-Michel
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Christopher Sanderson

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #7 on: June 25, 2018, 05:23:41 pm »

...I think it's important to disclose to your paying subscribers such as myself whether the article was paid for by L type or whether you personally or the company received free product in exchange for the article....
We don't do advertorials.

Kevin is offline in the Arctic and cannot respond but it is my firm belief that everything was paid for by us. We shot this piece together several months ago and I know he was truly impressed with the results he received.

Chris

farbschlurf

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #8 on: June 26, 2018, 03:50:22 am »

Regarding those L-prints itself:
Wouldn't it be interesting to compare those to a normal Frontier print from a good lab on the same paper? I am one of those who prefer opto-chemical prints over ink/dye/pigment for unknown reasons, they just appeal more to me. But as the new invention of L-prints is the print head, I wonder how it compares when everything else (paper and chemistry) is the same ... any experiences anyone with this?
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danielc

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #9 on: June 26, 2018, 04:13:05 am »

We don't do advertorials.

Kevin is offline in the Arctic and cannot respond but it is my firm belief that everything was paid for by us. We shot this piece together several months ago and I know he was truly impressed with the results he received.

Chris

Awesome thanks for clearing that up Chris.
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bjanes

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #10 on: June 26, 2018, 06:48:03 am »

Next, Kevin makes a distinction between my technical review of the process and product and his "practical" review, as if to imply that somehow technical research into the quality of their product is not "practical". This is a false dichotomy. The high quality of the prints that Kevin extols is only possible because of the technical factors that I explored in some depth in my article. It's fine for any one with an experienced eye to tell you the quality is great, and looking at a print over the internet, you just have a choice of believing it or not believing it - like for paper reviews; however, when one has objective data to underpin the reality of the product, and the data coheres with the perception of the results, you have a much more robust story line. I would also remind, just to second Kevin's appreciation of the product, that I too sent files to Lumejet for printing and I was equally impressed with the quality of what I got back. I also covered this in my review, and as I mentioned there, it is factually difficult to distinguish quality differences between L-Type and well-made inkjet prints. So I'm with Kevin on this, but would only caution that it doesn't make sense to dichotomize between the technical and the visual in the context of a print review.

Mark,

I especially appreciated the technical aspects of your review. By careful editing of your images you were able to mostly overcome the gamut limitations of the Lumejet process. From what I understand from reading the Lumejet documentation, they print the image as is without any adjustments. Photographers without your editing skill might not be able to duplicate your results with wide gamut images. What are your thoughts in this regard?

Cheers,

Bill
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Mark D Segal

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #11 on: June 26, 2018, 08:48:03 am »

Mark,

I especially appreciated the technical aspects of your review. By careful editing of your images you were able to mostly overcome the gamut limitations of the Lumejet process. From what I understand from reading the Lumejet documentation, they print the image as is without any adjustments. Photographers without your editing skill might not be able to duplicate your results with wide gamut images. What are your thoughts in this regard?

Cheers,

Bill

Thanks Bill.

Actually, it doesn't take huge amounts of skill - it's just soft proofing in Lightroom, watching both the histogram and the image as one adjusts the usual controls governing luminance and saturation under softproof. Whatever image editing software one uses, the most important inputs to a good print are a decent photo to start with, then knowing how to use the software, which comes with a bit of experience using the tools attentively.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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David Watson

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #12 on: June 26, 2018, 02:22:08 pm »

Well I thank LuLa for this introduction and I have already taken advantage of the offer.  As a collector of photographs (and a sometime photographer) I am very interested in this technology.  Some of the photographs we have bought recently have been produced with hybrid technology and it is an exciting and interesting avenue.
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alfin

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #13 on: June 26, 2018, 03:26:14 pm »

There is nothing exaggerated in any of that material. The quality and presentation of the L-Type product is very much how Kevin described it. Kevin is definitely better at conveying enthusiasm with gusto than I am, but that's just a difference of style - our perception of the underlying fundamentals is the same. The L-Type prints are superb.

Mark,
What is the difference between this Lumejet printing process and Durst Lambda at 400 ppi? I tried to google it without success. We have a couple of print facilities here in Sweden that offers Lambda prints at that resolution, also much bigger size than A3.
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Lars Mollerstrom

Mark D Segal

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #14 on: June 26, 2018, 03:32:30 pm »

Sorry Lars, I have no idea and no ready way of finding out. But if the Lumejet people are reading this thread, perhaps they may have a fix on it and would respond.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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ErnstV

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #15 on: June 26, 2018, 04:45:23 pm »

Thank you for a terrific article. Kevin (or others), is there a degree of metamerism failure when a black and white reproduction is viewed under various lighting conditions?

Kind regards,
Ernst Vegt
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bjanes

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #16 on: June 27, 2018, 07:11:08 am »

Mark,
What is the difference between this Lumejet printing process and Durst Lambda at 400 ppi? I tried to google it without success. We have a couple of print facilities here in Sweden that offers Lambda prints at that resolution, also much bigger size than A3.


Sorry Lars, I have no idea and no ready way of finding out. But if the Lumejet people are reading this thread, perhaps they may have a fix on it and would respond.

This is a good question. Look at Figure 2 in Mark's review. In the conventional contone process (I don't know if this applies to the Lambda) the pixels are rounded and overlap whereas the Lumejet pixels are square and not overlapping. This reportedly enables the Lumejet to print text at very small point sizes.

This ability might be useful in printing optical resolution charts such as ISO 12233. If purchased from the usual commercial sources, these tend to be quite expensive.

Bill
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Matthew63

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #17 on: June 27, 2018, 03:38:10 pm »

Am I understanding its 15% off PLUS the volume discounts? thats really great pricing ..
Matthew
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Wayne Fox

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #18 on: June 27, 2018, 05:34:57 pm »

I think for normal photographic work, the difference between this printer and a Lambda would be most beneficial if printing a book that has some text.  As has been pointed out the ability to print “square” pixels without overlap might offer some crispness to the text.  As far as the photograph itself, the difference would certainly be more subtle.

Because of the research and development into this printer with it’s stated goal has been so extensive, they printer may also offer a slightly better color gamut and might be more accurate in producing consistent color ... something which is challenging with most RA-4 chemical processes and digital output devices.

I plan on trying out a book soon, as the process seems to offer a higher end product than can be had with current print on demand services such as blurb.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: L - Type prints
« Reply #19 on: June 27, 2018, 05:49:42 pm »

........... they printer may also offer a slightly better color gamut and might be more accurate in producing consistent color ... something which is challenging with most RA-4 chemical processes and digital output devices.

I plan on trying out a book soon
...........

Wayne, you may have noticed my material on the colour gamut seen through their profiles in my article. But I had no way if comparing it with other chemical processes.

Re the book - yes, it should be better than Blurb at least in respect of reliability and consistency - they are very attentive to colour accuracy relative to the files they receive, so if you colour manage the stuff you send them per their instructions and your knowledge of soft-proofing, I would expect you to find the results very satisfactory.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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