Digital Photography Goes Mainstream

In just a few short years, the use of digital cameras has moved to the forefront in commercial and creative photography.

by Terri McConnell, Prepress Editor

OKAY, WHO DIDN'T get a digital camera for Christmas? In a report released last June, market analysts at Dataquest, Inc. stated that U.S. digital camera shipments were on track to reach 8.3 million units by the end of the holiday season, a 30 percent increase from 2001. By 2006, the company predicts that every other American family will be recording their future memories and marking their milestones with a digital camera.

Datacomm Research Co., who also tracks, analyzes, and forecasts emerging high-tech markets, suggests that beyond camera design improvements and reduced costs, there are several important enabling technologies fueling the consumer demand for digital cameras. Top among them are cost-effective ways of storing, transmitting, and displaying digital images—particularly data compression techniques, Internet-based storage, and wireless technology.

We already populate the 'Net with over a billion and a half photographic images, and more than a third of them were originally captured with a digital camera. So calculates Photofinishing News, Inc., which has been tracking imaging technology trends for the past 20 years. By the end of 2003, Photofinishing predicts we'll be able to surf through nearly 7 billion photos!

From consumer to 'prosumer'

Not too surprisingly, many of those images will be put there by creative professionals. Vince Naselli, author of a study published by TrendWatch Graphic Arts in November 2002, says that, "In the last seven years, digital photography has grown from a relatively insignificant planned investment for creative professionals to a major, fundamental component of their capital investment spending."

Naselli's 105-page report, "Digital Photography: How Creative Professionals are Buying and Using Digital Cameras" indicates that 82 percent of all commercial photographers reportedly now use a digital camera, as do 76 percent of all creative professionals (employed in agencies, studios, etc.). According to the report, professionals are using digital cameras to streamline the print production process; to facilitate the adaptation of content across multiple mediums of publishing; and to a varying degree, to create new sales opportunities. Interestingly, for the seven years that TrendWatch has been tracking graphic arts industry buying habits, only seven to 12 percent of the printers and tradeshops they surveyed said they planned to invest in digital photographic equipment.

The study shows that in the professional realm, the biggest application for digital photography is final, high-resolution images for print advertising, followed by FPO (For Position Only) low-res images, and Web pages.

Among the most significant digital photography challenges cited in Naselli's survey are color balancing—digital cameras don't record light in the same way that film cameras do; proofing; and streamlining the process of formatting photo files to fit templates and layouts.

Packaging photography goes digital, too

PhotoArt, a division of packaging prepress specialist Phototype, was one of the first professional studios in the greater Cincinnati area to overcome those challenges. David Olberding, Phototype's COO and current chair of the FTA's F.I.R.S.T. subcommittee on Digital Photography, led his company's expansion into the photography realm in 1989 when he purchased a small custom film-developing lab. Today, the studio occupies nearly 10,000 ft.2 of newly renovated space, and 95 percent of their work is produced with digital cameras.

"We've come a long way since we made the move to digital back in 1993," says Jon Keeling, director of PhotoArt. "Our original camera, which costs upward of $40,000 fully outfitted, had a mechanical filter wheel mounted in the camera lens. During each shot, the wheel would advance through three passes to capture red, green, and blue. Then the software would merge the three image 'layers' together."

Four years ago, the company updated its equipment with two Imacon 2020s—subsequently upgraded to model 3020s—which offer one-shot, four-shot, and 16-shot capabilities. One-shot, as the name implies, captures a full RGB gamut in one pass. Keeling says he and fellow principal photographer Hal Barkan use this option only for motion shots and very small formats. They shoot 90 percent of their work with the four-shot option, which captures red, green, blue, and a supplemental green in a workable 18MB file. The 16-pass option, which records data for every half-pixel to a 78MB file, is reserved for fine art reproduction, detailed copy work, and very large format displays and signage.

Keeling, who admits he had no experience with digital cameras—or even computers—when he took over at PhotoArt, attributes some of his subsequent success with digital technology to his close alliance with parent company Phototype.

Phototype's engineers, already versed in color management for proofing and print, helped Keeling design the system of computer profiling he now uses for quality control. With calibrated monitors, a library of customized RGB camera profiles, and CMYK conversion profiles that meet the most demanding print standards, Keeling says he has "the security of knowing that when I look at an image on my monitor, it really is the result I can expect in print." To the point where his clients sometimes forego random hardcopy proofs.

Timesavings, cost-savings, and the ability to streamline the approval process are three of the major reasons that Joe Glyda, digital imaging and technology manager at Kraft Foods, has been championing digital camera technology since 1993. Glyda manages Kraft's Creative Services Photography Department in Glenview, Ill., the six-set studio that shoots the images for all the company's packaging, advertising, and POS promotions.

Glyda, whose operation is now 100 percent digital, says, "With digital, we've closed an important loop in the system. We have better control over image quality and better control over the costs." In the beginning, however, Glyda says he was challenged with getting his clients to embrace the possibilities of the new technology. Systematically demonstrating the advantages of using digital cameras to the various agency, promotional, and marketing clients he serves, Glyda was able to show that the technology would move the approval process upstream, closer to the client.

"Digital photography also enhances the creative process," says Glyda. "Our clients can evaluate and adjust the image in the context of the final layout literally as we shoot the picture, instead of waiting hours (or days) for film to be developed and scanned."

What client wouldn't want to get that gift?