Photokiosk Printing Techniques

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As far as digital photo printing is concerned, both the quality and the quantity of prints are of equal importance. Photo kiosk printers need to be able to print quickly to fulfil large orders which customers expect to be delivered immediately, and this needs to be done while still maintaining the highest standards of printing quality that existed before digitalisation. Digital photo printing, producing prints directly from a computer file rather than a slide or a photograph, without going through an intermediate stage of a film negative, colour proof or plate, has a very short exposure time and is much faster than traditional silver halide forms, and so is ideal for retail environments where photokiosks are often placed. For photo kiosk printing, there are three main solutions currently widely in use: inkjet, laser and dye-sublimation.
 
Dye-sublimation printing, favoured by the likes of Mitsubishi, uses heat to transfer dye onto the paper, laying one colour down at a time on top of each other. The printing dye is heated up until it changes from a solid to a gas state, without going through the liquid stage (hence the phrase dry printing) and then diffuses onto the paper and solidifies again. Unlike the ink jet method, which reproduces colours using individual droplets of fine ink, the dye sublimation thermal transfer method reproduces each dot using 256 gradations for each blue, red and yellow (CMY) colour. This creates pictures that are brighter and clearer than those usually achieved by a laser printer with colours that are especially resistant to water or oxidation, and therefore should not fade or become damaged over time. Although the colours are laid down sequentially, pictures can still be produced at very high speed in only a few seconds. For the mini-lab, which can be hooked up to a kiosk ordering system on the shop floor, classic silver halide mini-labs still offer very high quality, however dry methods like dye-sublimation which are chemical-free are often a more ecological and profitable printing method.
 
Perhaps the most important choice when matching a printer up to a photo kiosk is whether or not to integrate the printer within the kiosk itself, or to have a printer tower nearby but separate to the kiosk or to send orders from the kiosk to a mini-lab. People like Noritsu are a fan of a kiosk ordering system linked up to a mini-lab as it means that the highest quality of printing can be achieved without trying to cram a printer in the space beneath a kiosk. Noritsu had five new models of mini-labs on display at Photokina, each reaching a high definition of 640 dpi.
 
Print towers which stack two or more printers on top of each other enable the system to accept more orders and print different orders at the same time, as well as producing prints of different sizes and specifications to meet customer demands. When a print tower is integrated with multiple order terminals, but is left physically independent of the kiosk, the space on the shop floor can be used more advantageously and productively.An all-in-one kiosk and printer can deliver the equivalent of a 24-hour exposure film in just two minutes, and delivers this directly to the customer; the customer does not have to go elsewhere on the premises to collect their pictures.
 
The type of printer chosen affects whether a kiosk can offer the capabilities of glossy versus matt finish, different sizes, colour contrasts, special effects, and at what speed and volume all this can be delivered to the customer. HP’s Photosmart Minilab printer can output up to 16 different sizes, giving the customer a lot of flexibility and choice.
 
For today’s photo kiosk, printing no longer only means the traditional printing on paper variety, but also needs to live up the requirements of printing on novelty goods like mugs, t-shirts, or canvas for customised merchandising. If a photo kiosk offers the ability to create a photobook, it needs to incorporate a printer which can not only print photos on the back of each other, but can also bind sheets together into an album. As technological advancements continue, printing has to become more and more intelligent to fulfil new requirements which so quickly become standard.