Soft Proofing

In the old days, just a few years ago, we photographers had lots of proofing options. One of the most common was the "proof print." Proofs were either 4x6 inches in size or 3.5x5 inches. Sometimes they had borders, sometimes they were borderless. For a while the artsy "sloppy" border was in vogue.

Proofs had several purposes. The most important was to let the photographer preview the images on the roll. A proof was big enough to assess focus, exposure, composition, etc. Many photographers also used proofs to review the shoot with clients.

Several different factors did in the proof print. On the client side, some studio's customers started taking proofs to mass merchants, scanning them, and printing their own enlargements, cutting the photographer out. On the lab end, the really good papers ceased to be made in the 500 foot long rolls that the big proofing machines used, and the volume of proofs being ordered (see above) dropped so much that it was impossible to keep the chemicals properly replenished. Rest in Peace dear proof print. It was with great sadness that we dismantled our two huge proof printing machines.

Our solution to the problem is the soft proof. The soft proof is nothing more than a high-quality scan of your negatives, burned to a CD. You can view each and every frame on your roll on your computer screen. Think of it as a set of 8x10 proof prints that didn't break the bank. The size of each proof is only limited by the size of your computer screen. You can even zoom in until you can view the film grain itself. We still hope you'll print from negs, but the scans are good enough for inkjet printers and the like. If you really did need paper proofs you could always run the disc down to a mass merchant and get some 4x6s from a Fuji Frontier.

However, for your client, we also give you a file of low res thumbnails on each CD. They look great on a monitor, but are too small to print. You can't get cut out of the loop now. You can also email choice images to your mother. That's what I do. And she still has dial-up.



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